PC build...Sub €300

Mister Man

Looking to build my own PC for X mass this year

Budget is 300

I was thinking AMD for the processor
Asus motherboard
No GPU (onboard will do for a little while)
Smallest HDD for cheapest price
No monitor, keyboard, or mouse
PSU, ive no e in mind, but cheap enough again.
Case, none in mind

Theres my own thoughs, but anyone else have a recommended list fell free to throw it up etc as im not fixed on any one part just yet

I'm not looking to spend very much at all, 300 or less would be good, but i might be able to go a little over it.

Anyway as i said fepl free to make out a list on what ever site you use and post it up

thanks

marco_polo

For 300 would probably be far better off a buying whole PC to be honest . However If you are really intent on building then I am sure somebody wil throw something together.

Mister Man

Id be more interested in building really, mainly because i would be able to upgrade it later, and to know i can build my own aswel

marco_polo

This comes to 340 including delivery, only trouble is that the 245 out of stock currently. Could have gone a little bit cheaper for example on the PSU and only gone with 2GB Ram, which would have come closer to 300 all in. This leaves some scope for a reasonable CPU and GPU upgrade. Might try a DDR2 build tommorrow.

Solitaire

I hope you can live without the optical drive... and if you need Windows, you're sunk

Anyway... bit closer to €300 (<€310 shipped). Expandable wee tyke... and why have two cores when you can have three?

Mister Man

I like the lists lads!! More so the second amd i heard that processor is better

I dont need OS or DVD drive, and i can get away without having a HDD for now

I think i could also pass with 2GIg ram for now and add on the extra two when im biying the remaining parts

I was actully looking at one of the phenom quad cores (the cjhapest on komplett, but i heard there not great, would the athlon be better?

marco_polo

Solitaire wrote: »

I hope you can live without the optical drive... and if you need Windows, you're sunk

Anyway... bit closer to €300 (<€310 shipped). Expandable wee tyke... and why have two cores when you can have three?

No fair, I thought I'd get mod slapped if I picked out a Case + PSU combo :pac:

Solitaire

marco_polo wrote: »

No fair, I thought I'd get mod slapped if I picked out a Case + PSU combo :pac:

:P

Seriously, its bad but still just about excusable when working out ultrabudget builds. The case in question seems presentable and the PSU most likely comes from the land of HEC. Not great but not self-immolating either Indeed the combo in question is JCP/Jet/Xilence's replacement for their fugly old Delta which was also recommended for some painfully cheap rigs. Looks like an improvement over it on all fronts... hell, the white one looks like its a reject from a Mac Pro impersonating competition!

marco_polo

Mister Man wrote: »

I like the lists lads!! More so the second amd i heard that processor is better

I dont need OS or DVD drive, and i can get away without having a HDD for now

I think i could also pass with 2GIg ram for now and add on the extra two when im biying the remaining parts

I was actully looking at one of the phenom quad cores (the cjhapest on komplett, but i heard there not great, would the athlon be better?

Nah I would stick with the Athlon the first gen Phenoms were nothing special, I have suggested a Phenom II below as an alternative.

In that case I would adjust my build like so (All I have done os blow the HD money on the CPU, and not spend the RAM money, the GSkill does not seem to be available in 2GB unfortunately so it is about a 10er more than I hoped)

315 delivered, but of course you can always get it down a bit on the Case / PSU as per Soltaires above if you want to bring it down by another 40.

Leman_Russ

Omg Asus Mobo!
Wait, it's not P55, ok so it's a good mobo!

And is that a Quadcore with a faulty core I spy? Naughty naughty! :P

On a srs note, both builds are good

marco_polo

Leman_Russ wrote: »

Omg Asus Mobo!
Wait, it's not P55, ok so it's a good mobo!

And is that a Quadcore with a faulty core I spy? Naughty naughty! :P

On a srs note, both builds are good

Only if you are a pessimist

Mister Man

I was looking at the Phenom there, its seems like a decent CPU. Also on some motherboards people say you can unlock a 4th core? Is that true?
I do like that list a lot actully, will do a bit more research and see how the parts are at gaming etc

Thanks for all the help so far guys

Leman_Russ

Mister Man wrote: »

I was looking at the Phenom there, its seems like a decent CPU. Also on some motherboards people say you can unlock a 4th core? Is that true?

Yes and No.

It depends on what the 4th cores fault is.

If it is a FUBAR core, AMD physically slice the connections. There is a less than zero chance of unlocking. If it's a core that just runs a little slow and doesn't make the bin, they just soft lock it, and it can sometimes be unlocked. Do not buy expecting to unlock it, but sometimes they do is all.

Sometimes they are fine, sometimes they are unstable. It's all a crap shoot but can be a little bonus if you are lucky.

marco_polo

Leman_Russ wrote: »

Yes and No.

It depends on what the 4th cores fault is.

If it is a FUBAR core, AMD physically slice the connections. There is a less than zero chance of unlocking. If it's a core that just runs a little slow and doesn't make the bin, they just soft lock it, and it can sometimes be unlocked. Do not buy expecting to unlock it, but sometimes they do is all.

Sometimes they are fine, sometimes they are unstable. It's all a crap shoot but can be a little bonus if you are lucky.

I looked into it a little bit as I have a 720BE myself, the story I heard is that most of them were genuinely defective but certain batches were released with good disabled cores to meet demand. (On the principal that a sold X3 is more profitable than an unsold X4)

Also I believe only certain boards on fairly specific bios versions are capable of even trying.

I think it was possible on my board (Gigabyte MA790X-UD4P with the f4g bio or something like that) but I wasn't arsed flashing the Bios just for that TBH. I have my eye on a X4 965BE in the next year.

Mister Man

Hey, just a quick question

Where did you make these lists from

marco_polo

Mister Man wrote: »

Hey, just a quick question

Where did you make these lists from

http://www1.hardwareversand.de/home.jsp (Click on English language tab at the top)

jonny72

And click on the PC configurator

After poring over reviews for the last few months, I have to say the AMD 435 is excellent value, working out at 20 euro per core, decent clock speed too.

The 720 is great too, better for gaming and very overclockable..

Mister Man

Ok guys,
Bit of a update here, i got a little less then i though i would get for x mas, well be got less, i mean i drank 70quid's worth of my money leaving me with 250Euro to spend

Is there a decent PC i can build for that price and just upgrade later?(i.e the RAM, 1gb will do as jan26 is my bday so i can get More then, i wouldnt mind a bog standard GPU (the 20 quid ones) if theres spare money

Btw i dont want a athlon X2.

So here's my though

go with the AMD athlon X3 (am3 socket)
AM2+ Motherboard
DDR2 Ram (as ddr3 isnt supported by am2+
maybe a cheapo HDD 80GB would do fine
Cheapo dvd-rom
and the cheap case with 500watt PSU (i Forget its name)
Id need shipping put into the budget (I could get a extra 10-20quid if needed

I might get more money tomorrow though, so i could be updating this again
So fell free to make out a list on that budget (i have the OS btw..thank god) and ill pdate you guuys at some point tomorrow

Thanks

(I need to learn to stop typing **** after a make my point)

Solitaire

Mister Man wrote: »

i drank 70quid's worth of my money leaving me with 250Euro to spend

I am so not helping you now :mad:

Hey! Its not like I've been trapped in a valley by sheets of glacier ice and left unable to partake in Team Drinky or anything! :mad:

...
...
... stop looking at me like that!

Mister Man

Solitaire wrote: »

I am so not helping you now :mad:

Hey! Its not like I've been trapped in a valley by sheets of glacier ice and left unable to partake in Team Drinky or anything! :mad:

...
...
... stop looking at me like that!

well on the plus side for you, i was forced out of bed way to early x mas morning......Nothing like a Cold Bottle of Miller at 8 in the morning lol

Solitaire

Please God put your Celestial Freezer on Defrost before New Years!

Mister Man

Solitaire wrote: »

Please God put your Celestial Freezer on Defrost before New Years!

i wouldn't hold my breath for that

Mister Man

Solitaire wrote: »

Please God put your Celestial Freezer on Defrost before New Years!

How the auld defrosting going up there?

Ordered my parts today, how long do DHL take to deliever?

Solitaire

Put it on a day too early, now its re-freezing out there just before I hit the road! Feck it, I'm getting to Kingscourt tonight if it ****ing kills me! :eek:

And the deliveries will all be up their own arse at the moment I'm afraid Always the way at the end of the year!

Mister Man

Lol did ya get there safe and sound?

Yeah I'll hope I get the delivery soon enough, but I can't see it being very fast!

Solitaire

Survived and now have a more pressing problem: Ireland's running low on grit so now they're only gritting TD's houses :mad: The main road system has now frozen solid. Literally. :eek:

Mister Man

Lol well Carlow got it's first bit of snow there tonight stop after a few mins tho roads have been iced over every night this week

Solitaire

My sister was left stranded in Wicklow over New Years because the buses bailed out :mad: She got as far as Navan today (having got a lift in from Wicklow) but I had to fill in for the last 16 miles. Not a happy experience - the grit has finally worn out on the main road and tonight it turned into a single gigantic sheet of ice. Same BS happened on most N- and R-roads in the north-east; until someone gets some grit down this side of the country has basically shut down :eek:

Wonder if we'll finally get this topic back on track once you get that delivery Of course, they'd have to grit the roads first!

Mister Man

Lol I'll try to bring it back a bit with this post :P

I'll be in the market for a nice GPU for my b day which is in 24 days

I'm not sure how much I'll get, I'd guess 50-150

I'm also considering selling some xbox **** off to raise money for it.

I'd I get a decent amount of the Xbox stuff I might buy a card before my bday and put the money from my b day toward 4GB of ram and some fans maybe


Now back off topic,

Yeah I'm guessing the shipping will be slowed down by this ice got an email saying that the parts are on there way as of 6 Pm today, I ordered on the 28, or 29 I forget, I find that very annoying that it took a day per step (confirming payment, Boxing parts etc etc)
I've only been in town a few times because of the ice, and a bit of lasyness lol
the whole grit thing is unreal, like you could see this coming really, I don't think it has full defrosted for almost half a month (ok I'm pushing that) but it's still taking the piss

We sould start "The Griting tread" lol

ohh and here's my parts list

1024MB of Elixir Ram 800MHz
AMD Athlon II X3 435 2.9GHz
ECS elitegroup motherboard (forget model my bad)
Samsung DVD-Rom (Have a spare DVD-rw)
Seagate 80GB 7200 HDD
JCP Case with 500 Watt PSU

Almost every part to be upgraded between now and the next 3-6 month
**EDIT** I see I already posted the list lol **EDIT**

Mister Man

Mister Man

Part's still havn't come..... I sent a e-mail asking when I sould expect them
to come and I got a rude disrespectful message back

I would not buy from them again, shipping is slow and overpriced and customer service is a joke.....

Solitaire

You ordered from HWVS? Their english isn't that good, it might sound pretty abrupt. And their shipping times are very variable, especially at this time of the year.

Mister Man

So sould I be getting it tomorrow or will I be waiting at home again ? Lol they must have some pretty ****y English

Jock Strap

Mister Man wrote: »

Lol they must have some pretty ****y English

They are German.....

jonny72

Mister Man wrote: »

So sould I be getting it tomorrow or will I be waiting at home again ? Lol they must have some pretty ****y English

You can track your order on the page using your order number. Also, give it a decent amount of time, the bank transfer takes a silly amount of time in some cases, up to a week or more, once they get that they will start putting things together and trying to ship. I think a delivery time of 2 to 3 weeks is quite possible.

Sure I put in an order very recently that I'll honestly be expecting in end of Jan, prob Feb.

Mister Man

I payed through paypal to save myself the time of waiting on the bank stuff... The page is in German (even when I change page back to English) so I don't know what's going on, it was updated since 04/01/10 at 02.45

Jock Strap

Any update on this?

Mister Man

Jock Strap wrote: »

Any update on this?

Nothing yet, I have a tiny hope it will come tomorrow, and I mean tiny hope, it has been snowing pretty bad so i guess that's some what to blame

Jock Strap

Supper I'm going to order mine tomorrow. Hopefully.

Mister Man

Part's came...even with the amount of snow :O

Booted up first try was well happy with myself..couldnt believe it!!!!

Run's smoth on Windows 7, aero proformance on ati radeon HD3200 sint great according to the test thing, but seems fine, Pic's up later

One thing....Im missing one of my SATA Cable's so my DVD Drive isn't pluged in and click (the computer shop) didn't have and of them gay!!!!!!!!

Other then that im pretty happy, case looks nice, CPU Is fast, graphics are good, RAM Doesn't seem to bad for a 1GB 800MHz :O

Deano12345

Mister Man wrote: »

Part's came...even with the amount of snow :O

Booted up first try was well happy with myself..couldnt believe it!!!!

Run's smoth on Windows 7, aero proformance on ati radeon HD3200 sint great according to the test thing, but seems fine, Pic's up later

One thing....Im missing one of my SATA Cable's so my DVD Drive isn't pluged in and click (the computer shop) didn't have and of them gay!!!!!!!!

Other then that im pretty happy, case looks nice, CPU Is fast, graphics are good, RAM Doesn't seem to bad for a 1GB 800MHz :O

Glad you got it working Fiddy

And a computer shop,not having SATA cables bah :rolleyes:

Rob the DVD drive from your Acer then :P

Mister Man

Deano12345 wrote: »

And a computer shop,not having SATA cables bah :rolleyes:

It's a pretty ****y Computer shop lol

Deano12345 wrote: »

Rob the DVD drive from your Acer then :P

Waayyyyyy ahead of ya :P

Mister Man

Ohh and a pic of the snow :P


I think im gonna get a XFX GTS 250 for my b day in a few days, and ill save up a bit for some ram

(Sorry for image quality, aken with my phone, couldnt find battery's for camera, also sorry for lack of cable managment lol )

Deano12345

Check your PSU will run the GTS 250 first