RAMbo: First Build

Squarewave

Sorry about the title..

1. What is your budget? €700ish including monitor, €600 without

2. What will be the main purpose of the computer? Movies and music, photoshop (more of a hobby than for professional use), some gaming (GTA4, Skyrim), internet browsing, some music production using Cubase (again, more of a hobby so I won't be investing in a dedicated soundcard)

3. Do you need a copy of Windows? Yep

4. Can you use any parts from an old computer? No

5. Do you need a monitor? I have a 22" that I picked up from Argos recently without realising it only has VGA. The 30 day guarantee is still valid though so I'll be picking up a new one assuming I don't lose the receipt!

5a. If yes, what size do you need? 22"

5b. If no, what resolution is your current monitor and do you plan to upgrade in the near future? 1920x1080, Yes

6. Do you need any of these peripherals? Keyboard/Mouse/Card Reader - I'll be buying these seperately, I'm open to recommendations though.
Apart from those, just a wireless card

7. Are you willing to try overclocking? Yes

8. How can you pay? Bank transfer, credit card

9. When are you purchasing? 2 weeks time

10. If you need help building it, where are you based? Limerick city

So far I have:

Item|Price
Intel Core i5-3570K Box, LGA1155|€214.42
Intel SSD 520Series 60GB bulk|€94.13
8GB-Kit G.Skill PC3-10667U CL9|€38.75
BitFenix Merc Beta|€32.23
Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 1TB SATA 3 6GB/s|€78.93
Super-Flower Amazon 80Plus 450W|€42.19
Sapphire HD 6850 1GB GDDR5 PCI-Express|€119.50
LiteOn iHAS124-19 schwarz SATA|€18.89
TP-Link TL-WN781N, 150Mbps, PCIe x1|€10.19
ASRock Z77 Pro3, Sockel 1155, ATX|€91.79
Shipping|€18.99
Total|€760.01

I have a Intel employee discount which brings the total down to €620. Including windows 7 from software4students brings it up to €675 not including a monitor, so I'm slightly over-budget.. I'd appreciate any recommendations on areas where I could cut down the cost a bit or any suggestions in general, particularly about the motherboard and graphics card- I don't know a lot about those.. Thanks!

IrishMetalhead

€94 seems abit steep for a 60gb ssd when you can get a 120gb for as little as €90 but i suppose your paying for the reliblity with the intel drives over price per gb, i would recommend cutting the cpu down to 2500k if your that tight on cash cause the 3570k offer very little over the 2500k except maybe pci-e 3 but even then theres not a huge difference, plus the 2500k overclocks higher but that only saves you about 20 quid so other then that i dunno what to suggest

Squarewave

IrishMetalhead wrote: »

€94 seems abit steep for a 60gb ssd when you can get a 120gb for as little as €90 but i suppose your paying for the reliblity with the intel drives over price per gb, i would recommend cutting the cpu down to 2500k if your that tight on cash cause the 3570k offer very little over the 2500k except maybe pci-e 3 but even then theres not a huge difference, plus the 2500k overclocks higher but that only saves you about 20 quid so other then that i dunno what to suggest

Thanks for the suggestions. I have the employee discount so I might as well go for the Intel SSD the cost is brought down to about the average price for a 60GB ssd. I only have the discount on Ivy Bridge CPUs too so a 2500k is out of the question.

I'd be willing to shave off €50 from the mobo and graphics if the cost on performance isn't too severe. Can anyone can recommend a cheaper motherboard or graphics card?

Skylinehead

I wouldn't drop the GPU any more if you could. Maybe drop the HDD size?

deconduo

Squarewave wrote: »

Thanks for the suggestions. I have the employee discount so I might as well go for the Intel SSD the cost is brought down to about the average price for a 60GB ssd. I only have the discount on Ivy Bridge CPUs too so a 2500k is out of the question.

I'd be willing to shave off €50 from the mobo and graphics if the cost on performance isn't too severe. Can anyone can recommend a cheaper motherboard or graphics card?

-You could drop the DVD drive possibly. I think I've used mine once in the past 2 years or so.

-You could get a 500GB HDD and save another €20

Not really much else I would change tbh. The mobo is one of the cheapest Z77 boards, and the GPU is already bottlenecked a fair bit by the CPU.

frozenfrozen

You really don't need a dvd drive, I've never used one on this pc except for installing windows and I could have used a usb key. and if you ever need one you could always borrow it from another pc.

Monotype

You could get the VTX3D 6850 from amazon.co.uk for £91.90 (+ Irish VAT difference). You'd only be saving about €5 though and you'd be buying a more cheapo brand so I'm not sure that it's worth it.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/VTX3D-Radeon-X-Edition-Graphics-Technology/dp/B005N5KKFC/

You could get Windows Server from dreamspark and tweak it to run as windows 7 if you were desperate to cut money.

Edit: VTX3D are owned by Powercolor. The heatsink also looks near identical to the Sapphire apart from colour.

Squarewave

Thanks for all your advice, I think I might cut out the DVD drive since I'd probably only use it for burning/ripping CDs and I can use my laptop for that. I can always add one in afterwards if I need it anyway. I'll probably cut down the hard drive to 500GB too.

Anyway, I'm looking at monitors at the moment and these two are in my price range:
BenQ GL2250 - LED monitor - 21.5" - €110.97
BenQ G2225 - LCD monitor - 21.5" - €100.98

Is the LED backlighting worth the extra €10?

frozenfrozen

Squarewave wrote: »

Thanks for all your advice, I think I might cut out the DVD drive since I'd probably only use it for burning/ripping CDs and I can use my laptop for that. I can always add one in afterwards if I need it anyway. I'll probably cut down the hard drive to 500GB too.

Anyway, I'm looking at monitors at the moment and these two are in my price range:
BenQ GL2250 - LED monitor - 21.5" - €110.97
BenQ G2225 - LCD monitor - 21.5" - €100.98

Is the LED backlighting worth the extra €10?

It's quite a lot brighter and you will get better contrast, depends how much you care about that tenner