€150 - Case, motherboard, processor and ram.

Daniel S

What would you get? I've a few sata hard drives/dvd drives and power supplies lying around so I don't need them. I've an old copy of XP Pro also.
What parts would you buy? Should I get used parts if I can?

Was looking at these:

http://www.dabs.ie/products/best-value-777-t-bird-blue-gaming-case--no-psu--7W6P.html?src=3

http://www.dabs.ie/products/amd-athlon-ii-x2-250-3-0ghz-2mb-am3-65w-processor-74NH.html

http://www.dabs.ie/products/asus-m5a78l-m-lx-v2-am3--amd-760g---sb710-ddr3-atx-7W40.html

http://www.dabs.ie/products/corsair-2x1gb-240-pin-dimm-xms2-6400-cl5-43N8.html?refs=55250000-42670000-51530000&src=3

That's a total of €168.65 which is about as far as I could stretch. Looking for suggestions as to decrease the price or improve on parts.

col.in.Cr

I put this one together from this thread to give you an idea on prices

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?threadid=2056364504

Daniel S

But that's €210 inc. shipping

nesf

What's the machine going to be used for? If it's just word processing, the Internet and similar then take a look at the 1155 socket Celerons, they're ****e for gaming but for office style tasks they're more than powerful enough. You can pick one up for 30-40 quid. The motherboard will be more expensive than the AMD ones though. The advantage here is that you have an upgrade path if you feel the need to game on the machine in the future.

There's also the Atom chips and boards but they're really, really low performance. Review here: http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/Intel-D525MW-Motherboard-Review/1389

Good only for light (and I mean light) office work. No good for multimedia and similar. I'd avoid this chip like the plague if the PC was going to be a general purpose machine rather than a machine you just write essays and similar on.


It all comes down to the purpose of the machine in the end, whether you want to be able to upgrade in the future etc. AMD have some very good chips at this price level too (but are less attractive from an upgrading perspective at the moment), don't take my above ideas as an endorsement of Intel over AMD at this price level!

Daniel S

I'm fairly sure I want to go AMD as it will be used for some Valve games, watching HD movies and the odd bit of Solidworks. I'll be getting a graphics card later (whenever a good bargain pops up).

nesf

Daniel S wrote: »

I'm fairly sure I want to go AMD as it will be used for some Valve games, watching HD movies and the odd bit of Solidworks. I'll be getting a graphics card later (whenever a good bargain pops up).

Then definitely go AMD at this price point. The chip you picked is a decent one for running the kinds of games you're talking about.

Daniel S

I know yea. I've an Athlon II 240 running at 3.2ghz on stock cooler for about 2 years now on my own pc. I think it's bottlenecking it though .

This one is for dad. :pac:

col.in.Cr

Daniel S wrote: »

But that's €210 inc. shipping

but you have some of the parts already

Serephucus

€1 more expensive, but: faster, and much more upgradable.

Item|Price
Total build cost: €169.65 (inc delivery Free!)
Kingston HyperX Blu 2GB 1600MHz DDR3 Non-ECC CL9 DIMM|€11.71
ASRock S1155 Intel H61M DDR3 mATX|€49.19
Intel Pentium Dual Core G850 2.9GHz LGA1155 3MB|€82.84
Best Value 723 Midi-Tower with HD Audio + 500W PSU|€25.91

Monotype

If it's the Valve games, then integrated graphics is enough but I'd go for higher end ones such as the the 4250 in the 880G motherboards (dabs doesn't sell any great ones) or intel's latest integrated graphics.

I think building on Serephucus' build, I'd go with
A slightly better motherboard - http://www.dabs.ie/products/gigabyte-ga-h61m-d2h-usb3-s1155-intel-h61-ddr3-matx-7V25.html
and a celeron G530. A bit worse than the pentium but a lot cheaper. The spare money can be put towards a proper PSU (assuming the PSUs lying around aren't great).
http://www.dabs.ie/products/intel-celeron-g530-2-4ghz-lga1155-2mb-7P81.html?q=g530&src=16

Daniel S

Monotype wrote: »

If it's the Valve games, then integrated graphics is enough but I'd go for higher end ones such as the the 4250 in the 880G motherboards (dabs doesn't sell any great ones) or intel's latest integrated graphics.

I think building on Serephucus' build, I'd go with
A slightly better motherboard - http://www.dabs.ie/products/gigabyte-ga-h61m-d2h-usb3-s1155-intel-h61-ddr3-matx-7V25.html
and a celeron G530. A bit worse than the pentium but a lot cheaper. The spare money can be put towards a proper PSU (assuming the PSUs lying around aren't great).
http://www.dabs.ie/products/intel-celeron-g530-2-4ghz-lga1155-2mb-7P81.html?q=g530&src=16

I had a HD 4200 IGP in my old motherboard, would the 4250 be similar?

Daniel S

What about this:

http://www.dabs.ie/products/best-value-ezcool-na705b-case-500w-psu-7810.html

https://www.dabs.ie/products/corsair-2gb--1x2gb--ddr3-1333mhz-cl9--cmx2gx3m1a1333c9--794X.html

https://www.dabs.ie/products/amd-athlon-ii-x4-631-2-6ghz-fm1-4mb-100w-7VMD.html

https://www.dabs.ie/products/asus-am3--amd-760g---sb710-ddr3-atx-7JG3.html

Monotype

The 4000 is found in the older boards and is nearly the same as the 4250. The 3000 found in the board linked in the first post is a fair bit worse. It could probably still play older games but the board makers are really just recycling old technology in new boards so I would seek alternatives.

Monotype

Daniel S wrote: »

What about this:

http://www.dabs.ie/products/best-value-ezcool-na705b-case-500w-psu-7810.html

https://www.dabs.ie/products/corsair-2gb--1x2gb--ddr3-1333mhz-cl9--cmx2gx3m1a1333c9--794X.html

https://www.dabs.ie/products/amd-athlon-ii-x4-631-2-6ghz-fm1-4mb-100w-7VMD.html

https://www.dabs.ie/products/asus-am3--amd-760g---sb710-ddr3-atx-7JG3.html

CPU and socket don't match. Also, if I recall correctly, most of the socket FM1 boards don't have integrated graphics as the Llano CPUs/APUs have the graphics integrated. This particular athlon would need a graphics card to go with it. The ones with integrated graphics start with A4, A6 and A8. I suppose if you wanted very good integrated graphics and weren't too bothered with CPU power, you could go with an FM1 board and an A4 APU.

Daniel S

Monotype wrote: »

CPU and socket don't match. Also, if I recall correctly, most of the socket FM1 boards don't have integrated graphics as the Llano CPUs/APUs have the graphics integrated. This particular athlon would need a graphics card to go with it. The ones with integrated graphics start with A4, A6 and A8. I suppose if you wanted very good integrated graphics and weren't too bothered with CPU power, you could go with an FM1 board and an A4 APU.

Whoops, assumed all Athlon II X4's were still AM3.

If only there was a way to virtually build a few pc's and compare them... :pac:

Monotype

If you want the lowest hassle, get the celeron. It's a dual core and it'll outperform the X2 that you picked out initially. Graphics should be reasonably good - similar to the i3s, maybe slightly worse than AMD's 4250, but not bad.

Next option is to get a good AMD board. Upgrade options are a bit more limited - AM3+ has another series to come but judging by their latest products, my expectations would be low. CPU power would be a bit worse than the celeron, although I suppose overclocking it to 3.5GHz or so would match it, although your power consumption would be higher. Is suppose if you were really stuck for money, the Radeon HD3000 is OK and it might be possible to overclock it too.

Llano would have the worst CPU power given that overclocking is more limited but it would have the best graphics power. Upgrades could be limited as I haven't heard anything else coming for this socket.

In fairness, if it's nothing more than very light gaming and word processing/browsing, even a sempron would do.

Daniel S

Monotype wrote: »

If you want the lowest hassle, get the celeron. It's a dual core and it'll outperform the X2 that you picked out initially. Graphics should be reasonably good - similar to the i3s, maybe slightly worse than AMD's 4250, but not bad.

Next option is to get a good AMD board. Upgrade options are a bit more limited - AM3+ has another series to come but judging by their latest products, my expectations would be low. CPU power would be a bit worse than the celeron, although I suppose overclocking it to 3.5GHz or so would match it, although your power consumption would be higher. Is suppose if you were really stuck for money, the Radeon HD3000 is OK and it might be possible to overclock it too.

Llano would have the worst CPU power given that overclocking is more limited but it would have the best graphics power. Upgrades could be limited as I haven't heard anything else coming for this socket.

In fairness, if it's nothing more than very light gaming and word processing/browsing, even a sempron would do.

Only the G540 and up are dual cores.

Monotype

No, two cores.
http://ark.intel.com/products/53414

Edit: I made a mistake about Llano. They've actually just released a refresh series with a few improvements including black editions (which means that overclocking is somewhat more possible although they'll certainly be more expensive).