Ultra budget build?

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1 Jul 2010
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I've built a PC in the past, but that was an i7 build with quite a high budget, and I didn't have to think that carefully about how my choices would affect the total price. Now I need to build a PC for a friend who needs it to record CCTV with a PCI card, and I'm really not sure where to start.

They need a case, a PSU, a motherboard, a processor with heatsink, a DVD drive, memory and a hard drive, and have a budget of around £200, which could possibly stretch to £250. Ideally, they want it to be as low priced as possible whilst still having a decent enough graphics chipset and processor to handle 7 streams of video, encoding the recording them.

Looking through various forums, I've found that I'll probably have to go with an AMD build, as it's significantly cheaper than Intel. Other than that, I have no idea which CPU/motherboard combo would offer the best value, whether I should go for DDR2 or DDR3 etc.

I was hoping that the veteran PC builders on here may have some idea about where to start.

Thanks very much in advance,
unnddd
 
Patriot Viper 4GB (2x2GB) PC3-10666 1333MHz Dual Channel (PVS34G1333ELK)
Gigabyte GA-880GM-UD2H AMD 880G (Socket AM3) microATX DDR3 Motherboard
AMD Sempron 140 2.70GHz (Socket AM3) Processor - Retail

Total : £179.05

I've seen some Dell boxes around £200 all in.
 
Come up with this:

Product Name Qty Price Line Total
CP-259-AM_60.jpg
AMD Athlon II X4 Quad Core 630 2.80GHz (Socket AM3) - Retail £69.31
(£58.99) £69.31
(£58.99)
MY-041-PA_60.jpg
Patriot Viper 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C7 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (PVS34G1600LLK) £61.09
(£51.99) £61.09
(£51.99)
MB-424-AS_60.jpg
Asus M4A78LT-M 760G (Socket AM3) DDR3 Motherboard £48.99
(£41.69) £48.99
(£41.69)
HD-081-SA_60.jpg
Samsung SpinPoint F3 500GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD502HJ) £33.98
(£28.92) £33.98
(£28.92)
CA-018-OP_60.jpg
OcUK Hades Micro ATX Tower Case - Black (450W PSU) £26.99
(£22.97) £26.99
(£22.97)
CD-099-LG_60.jpg
OcUK 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £13.99
(£11.91) £13.99
(£11.91) Sub Total : £216.47 Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £10.00 VAT is being charged at 17.50% VAT : £39.63 Total : £266.10
 
Come up with this:

Product Name Qty Price Line Total
CP-259-AM_60.jpg
AMD Athlon II X4 Quad Core 630 2.80GHz (Socket AM3) - Retail £69.31
(£58.99) £69.31
(£58.99)
MY-041-PA_60.jpg
Patriot Viper 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C7 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (PVS34G1600LLK) £61.09
(£51.99) £61.09
(£51.99)
MB-424-AS_60.jpg
Asus M4A78LT-M 760G (Socket AM3) DDR3 Motherboard £48.99
(£41.69) £48.99
(£41.69)
HD-081-SA_60.jpg
Samsung SpinPoint F3 500GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD502HJ) £33.98
(£28.92) £33.98
(£28.92)
CA-018-OP_60.jpg
OcUK Hades Micro ATX Tower Case - Black (450W PSU) £26.99
(£22.97) £26.99
(£22.97)
CD-099-LG_60.jpg
OcUK 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £13.99
(£11.91) £13.99
(£11.91) Sub Total : £216.47 Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £10.00 VAT is being charged at 17.50% VAT : £39.63 Total : £266.10

Thanks, that looks like just the thing. My only concern is the quality of the PSU. I don't want the computer blowing up due to a low quality PSU and I'm sure my friend doesn't either.
 
That was in back of my mind as well, I think the case comes with the Ocuk range of psu which are good for low end systems. Give me a minute.

Had to drop the cpu to dual core:

Your basket

Product Name Qty Price Line Total
MY-041-PA_60.jpg
Patriot Viper 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C7 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (PVS34G1600LLK) £61.09
(£51.99) £61.09
(£51.99)
CP-248-AM_60.jpg
AMD Athlon II X2 Dual Core 250 3.00GHz (Socket AM3) - Retail £51.69
(£43.99) £51.69
(£43.99)
MB-424-AS_60.jpg
Asus M4A78LT-M 760G (Socket AM3) DDR3 Motherboard £48.99
(£41.69) £48.99
(£41.69)
CA-033-CS_60.jpg
Corsair CX 430W ATX Power Supply £37.98
(£32.32) £37.98
(£32.32)
HD-081-SA_60.jpg
Samsung SpinPoint F3 500GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD502HJ) £33.98
(£28.92) £33.98
(£28.92)
CA-019-OP_60.jpg
OcUK Athena Tower Case - Black £19.99
(£17.01) £19.99
(£17.01)
CD-099-LG_60.jpg
OcUK 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £13.99
(£11.91) £13.99
(£11.91) Sub Total : £227.83 Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £10.50 VAT is being charged at 17.50% VAT : £41.71 Total : £280.04
 
Last edited:
That was in back of my mind as well, I think the case comes with the Ocuk range of psu which are good for low end systems. Give me a minute.

Had to drop the cpu to dual core:

Your basket

Product Name Qty Price Line Total
MY-041-PA_60.jpg
Patriot Viper 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C7 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (PVS34G1600LLK) £61.09
(£51.99) £61.09
(£51.99)
CP-248-AM_60.jpg
AMD Athlon II X2 Dual Core 250 3.00GHz (Socket AM3) - Retail £51.69
(£43.99) £51.69
(£43.99)
MB-424-AS_60.jpg
Asus M4A78LT-M 760G (Socket AM3) DDR3 Motherboard £48.99
(£41.69) £48.99
(£41.69)
CA-033-CS_60.jpg
Corsair CX 430W ATX Power Supply £37.98
(£32.32) £37.98
(£32.32)
HD-081-SA_60.jpg
Samsung SpinPoint F3 500GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD502HJ) £33.98
(£28.92) £33.98
(£28.92)
CA-019-OP_60.jpg
OcUK Athena Tower Case - Black £19.99
(£17.01) £19.99
(£17.01)
CD-099-LG_60.jpg
OcUK 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £13.99
(£11.91) £13.99
(£11.91) Sub Total : £227.83 Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £10.50 VAT is being charged at 17.50% VAT : £41.71 Total : £280.04

Thanks a lot for your help. That looks very good for what it's supposed to do. Just a quick question: do you think it might be a good idea to save a bit of money with an AM2+ motherboard and DDR2 memory, or should I go with AM3 to keep upgrade paths open?

Once again I thank you for your help in getting a list of components together. The only thing I might change is the PSU as this time it seems a bit overkill :)
 
The Corsair is the cheapest quality one without going with OCUK PSU and the OCZ on special which is now out of stock.
 
Yeah but a corsair PSU eating 20% of the budget of a never-stressed CCTV box? Come on :). Sometimes this forum's PSU OCD can be relaxed a little. Millions of higher-stressed machines run just fine on a case-bundled PSU. OCUK dont sell the real tat anyway.
 
Yeah but a corsair PSU eating 20% of the budget of a never-stressed CCTV box? Come on :). Sometimes this forum's PSU OCD can be relaxed a little. Millions of higher-stressed machines run just fine on a case-bundled PSU. OCUK dont sell the real tat anyway.

Look at my first spec and I included the case with the PSU but the op was concerned regards the quality of the unit so re-specced with a quality psu.

In that case what about the AM2+ vs AM3 debate? Is it worth paying extra for an AM3 board and DDR3 RAM?

Well, Ocuk sell 2 gb ddr 2 memory kits which cost around £35, reasonable motherboard will cost the same as the DDR 3 version I specced, I went with 4gb as it may assist with the video streams. DDR 2 variant will cost similar to DDR 3 for 4 gb.
 
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