Budget Home Media and Light Gaming PC

CrankyHaus

Hi All,

1. What is your budget? €200 to €400

2. What will be the main purpose of the computer?
A PC to connect to the TV, primarily for home media (which I currently use 2 TBs of external SSD storage for) and maybe some light gaming. Old games like Fallout 3 and NV for now. I may consider upgrading it in future for newer games.

3. Do you need a copy of Windows?
Yes

4. Can you use any parts from an old computer?
I have an old HD 4770 GPU that I was considering using.

5. Do you need a monitor?
No

5b. If no, what resolution is your current monitor and do you plan to upgrade in the near future?
720P 40" TV. No plans to upgrade.

6. Do you need any of these peripherals?
I intend to use Xbox 360 controllers that I have. Any good value suggestions for something better welcome.

7. Are you willing to try overclocking?
No

8. How can you pay?
Amazon gift cards.

9. When are you purchasing?
No rush.

10. If you need help building it, where are you based?
No help needed

I have a sample build priced on Amazon:

ZALMAN T4 Mini M-ATX/M-ITX Tower Computer Case - £25.00
Gigabyte F2A68HM-HD2 Motherboard - £37.97
AMD APU A6-6400K Black Edition - £45.90
Kingston 8 GB DDR3 RAM - £44.98
TP-LINK TL-WN851ND 300Mbps Wireless N PCI Adapter - £11.99
Kingston Technology 60GB Solid State Drive V300 2.5-inch SATA 3 - £46.09
Toshiba P300 High Performance 2TB Internal Hard Drive (Bulk) 3.5 Inch SATA - £62.98
Corsair CX430 - £39.99

Total - £314.90


Any advice appreciated.

Joshua J

Personally I'd get an i3 6100 and a H110 board for better future upgrading.

josha1

I've a few HTPC's so can offer general advice. Others might know some stuff better as I've been out of the loop for a few months.

1) I'd change the case if I were you to something more set top box like. Some of the ones on amazon, even from unknown brands are good (just make sure you get a decent psu).

2) I have a a6 5400k I believe. Absolutely perfect for streaming/watching content, doesn't even put any pressure on the cpu. But I would still get a low profile htpc specific aftermarket cooler, usually scythe are decent, to keep it quiet, especially if you're doing gaming as well.

3) You mightn't need an SSD. Most people keep HTPC'S on full time, except maybe S3 sleep. So they don't make that big of a difference. Only cut this if you need to though since it's a trek switching later.

4) Try to use Ethernet if gaming and streaming if at all possible.

Piusno1

Looking to get a Desktop system for running Photoshop and normal computer use any recommendations would be brilliant. Min 8gb ram 1tb harddrive and a decent graphics to run photoshop maybe an ssd to start photoshop from.

TerrorFirmer

Joshua J wrote: »

Personally I'd get an i3 6100 and a H110 board for better future upgrading.

This is what I would also recommend, by going AMD FM2+ you're severely limiting ability to play future games. Even the fastest FM2+ processor is light years behind an Intel i3 and bottlenecks all but the lowest end graphics cards.

They're fine for media machines and for older games too, but they are not designed nor suited to upgrading with the latest games in mind.

If you don't want to stretch the extra, just get a H110M board and a Pentium G4400, can be upgraded down the line to i3/i5/i7 and the G4400 is way faster than the A6-6400K in any case.

CrankyHaus

Thank you all for your responses.

H110M Board with the G4400 CPU and the GPU I already have would seem to work very well for my needs.

I'll keep an eye out for an quieter aftermarket cooler.

josha1 wrote: »

1) I'd change the case if I were you to something more set top box like. Some of the ones on amazon, even from unknown brands are good (just make sure you get a decent psu).

Would a set top box case be simply better aesthetically and fit better below and around the TV or would such boxes have other advantages such as quieter cooling?

josha1

CrankyHaus wrote: »

Thank you all for your responses.

H110M Board with the G4400 CPU and the GPU I already have would seem to work very well for my needs.

I'll keep an eye out for an quieter aftermarket cooler.



Would a set top box case be simply better aesthetically and fit better below and around the TV or would such boxes have other advantages such as quieter cooling?

Just for aesthetics/being able to fit around the tv really. If you're very serious about gaming then I'd probably get something like a bitfenix prodigy. Cooling wise should be grand in either, especially with a half decent aftermarket cooler.

K.O.Kiki

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD A10-7860k 3.6GHz Quad-Core Processor (£101.88 @ Amazon UK)
Motherboard: ASRock A68M-ITX Mini ITX FM2+ Motherboard (£60.94 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: PNY Anarchy 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1866 Memory (£43.00 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: PNY CS1311 120GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (£39.47 @ Amazon UK)
Case: SHARKOON SHARK ZONE C10 Mini ITX Tower Case (£35.70 @ Amazon UK)
Power Supply: be quiet! POWER 2 300W 80+ Bronze Certified SFX Power Supply (£47.50 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £328.49
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-01-09 11:55 GMT+0000

AMD A10-7860k is about twice as fast as i3-6100 on its integrated graphics.

But if you're going to reuse the Radeon HD-4770 / buy a new GPU, go with i3-6100.