Suggest me AMD Trinity rig under £300

[keymoo]

I want a rig excluding monitor, mouse keyboard for playing low-end games for under £300.

Was thinking of an AMD Trinity APU, with 8 GB RAM, decent cooler, DVD burner, PSU, case. Anyone recommend a decent setup? Am ready to buy now. I've got this in my basket so far, but not sure if I've got the best stuff for the money. Or even if it's well-matched. Any help appreciated.

YOUR BASKET
1 x ASRock FM2A75M-DGS AMD A75 Chipset (Socket FM2) DDR3 Micro ATX Motherboard £52.99
1 x AMD A6-5400K Black Edition 3.60GHz (Socket FM2) APU Trinity Dual Core Processor (AD540KOKHJBOX) £49.99
1 x Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMZ8GX3M2A1600C9) £39.95
Total : £142.93 (includes shipping : FREE).

 

[keymoo]

YOUR BASKET
1 x AMD A10-5800K Black Edition 3.80GHz (Socket FM2) APU Trinity Quad Core Processor (AD580KWOHJBOX) £95.99
1 x ASRock FM2A75M-DGS AMD A75 Chipset (Socket FM2) DDR3 Micro ATX Motherboard £52.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA 6Gb/s 16MB Cache - OEM (ST500DM002) £49.99
1 x OCZ CoreXtreme 500w '80 Plus' Power Supply £32.99
1 x Patriot Viper "Black Mamba" Generation 3 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-17000C11 2133MHz Dual CHannel Kit (PV38G213C1K) £31.99
1 x Zalman T1 Mini Tower Case - Black £17.99
1 x Samsung SH-224BB/BEBE 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £14.99
Total : £296.93 (includes shipping : FREE).



I'm assuming you have an OS. If not, that would cost you an extra £70.

Thanks do you think the stock cooler is good/quiet enough? Should I look to spend a bit more on a decent cooler?

 

[keymoo]

Thanks, just ordered it

 

[keymoo]

You definately want the RAM as fast as possible for Trinity on the intel 1155 it doesnt really matter. You can overclock on the A75 chipset (A85 is better) not just the CPU but the IGP too. If you don't intend to add a dedicated GPU then overclocking to get the most from the APU does make sense.

However, personally I would go intel and add a 2nd hand 1GB 460GTX or even the AMD 6850, seen both go lately in the MM for £50ish. The 460 is still very capable for gaming and adds CUDA support, it can be OC'd well and the recent beta drivers have improved the performance too. I own one still so I know it's still pretty good

YOUR BASKET
1 x Gigabyte Z77N-WIFI Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Mini ITX Motherboard £98.99
1 x Intel Pentium G840 2.80GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £55.99
1 x Toshiba (7K1000.D) 500GB SATA 6GB/s 32MB Cache - OEM (DT01ACA050) £47.99
1 x XFX Pro 450W Core Edition '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £43.99
1 x Patriot Viper "Black Mamba" Generation 3 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (PV38G160C9K) £26.99
1 x Zalman T1 Mini Tower Case - Black £17.99
1 x Samsung SH-224BB/BEBE 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £14.99
Total : £306.92 (includes shipping : FREE).



Mobo is mini-itx with inc. wifi in a small case. Being a Z77 it can overclock i5/i7 "K" CPUs. The 840 has plenty of poke for the price and still cheap enough to "justify writing it off" for a 2nd hand i5 2500K even down the road. 8GB of RAM at a good price, I would prefer the XMS3 kit which will be shorter to simplify the choice of aftermarket heatsinks.

PSU is very good (seasonic made) and enough power for your needs. HDD is sataIII and adequate storage at 500GB. I realise this price doesn't include the GPU but if you are adding a heatsink to the Trinity build the costs should be around the same. If you need an OS, consider the developers preview of windows 8 as a try before you buy for 3 months and then choose between buying 7 or 8 in the new year.

Hope this helps



Sorry I was caught on the phone as I wrote this post. It's not to late to cancel or change the order, if you want to discuss the pros and cons further before you buy.

Thanks, happy with the AMD rig, will stick with that. I have MS Technet so will stick Windows 8 on it.