350 Euro PC Build

eoinpower02

Laptop at home broke so have to replace it, not sure if I'm going to buy a new laptop or build a PC. Have 350 to spend would appreciate all help with parts for PC or for a new Laptop, thanks.

Digital Solitude

Just general usage?

eoinpower02

Mainly for Web browsing, emails, streaming and Microsoft office

May also add a graphics card at a later date for games but not a priority

Digital Solitude

Pentium (will get full name after) €60
120gb SSD €60
Case €80
MITX board €70
8gb RAM €50
300w PSU €50
Total €370, maybe pushing €390/400 with delivery.

Cheaper case, psu and board can bring your price down though

eoinpower02

Digital Solitude wrote:

Pentium (will get full name after) €60 120gb SSD €60 Case €80 MITX board €70 8gb RAM €50 300w PSU €50 Total €370, maybe pushing €390/400 with delivery.

So you'd recommended this over a laptop in the same price range?

Serephucus

Abso-friggin-lutely. Particularly in the >€500 bracket, a desktop will walk all over a laptop.

(This still usually holds true even if you have to factor in a monitor)

Edit: Do you need a monitor?

jhud

You have not stated if you have monitor or OS like Windows 7 or Windows 10 also if you already have office license all these can make it add up. You could go with an free alternative to Microsoft office unless it's really necessary.
Desktop will outperform laptop as previously stated and could also be built for future upgrades where a laptop has limited upgrades maybe just memory in some and some others nothing can be upgraded.

TerrorFirmer

Digital Solitude wrote: »

Pentium (will get full name after) €60
120gb SSD €60
Case €80
MITX board €70
8gb RAM €50
300w PSU €50
Total €370, maybe pushing €390/400 with delivery.

Cheaper case, psu and board can bring your price down though

For a build this cheap and considering he wants to be able to add a graphics card at a later date, I'd probably do a slight shuffle to do the following:

G4560 €75
240gb SSD €90
Case €30
mATX board €70
8gb RAM €50
400w PSU €40

total: 355

Add a €120 GTX1050 at some stage and you're set for the all the latest games at well beyond XB1/PS4 levels.

For the same money you'd get a fairly decent i3-based laptop with a 120GB SSD, so up to you really - each has their benefits depending on your needs and of course the desktop also needs a monitor on top of that.

Desktop - way more powerful, potential to play games, more upgradable, more expensive.

Laptop - portable, all-in-one, includes genuine copy of Windows, etc.

eoinpower02

Serephucus wrote:

Edit: Do you need a monitor?

Have a 21 inch 720p TV that I'll probably use

jhud wrote:

You have not stated if you have monitor or OS like Windows 7 or Windows 10 also if you already have office license all these can make it add up. You could go with an free alternative to Microsoft office unless it's really necessary. Desktop will outperform laptop as previously stated and could also be built for future upgrades where a laptop has limited upgrades maybe just memory in some and some others nothing can be upgraded.

Have a office license and I'll install windows and just not activate it

eoinpower02

TerrorFirmer wrote:

G4560 €75 240gb SSD €90 Case €30 mATX board €70 8gb RAM €50 400w PSU €40

So would this be faster in general usage than a laptop with an i3

K.O.Kiki

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Pentium G4560 3.5GHz Dual-Core Processor (€67.91 @ Mindfactory)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-B250M-D2V Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard (€76.84 @ Mindfactory)
Memory: G.Skill NT Series 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR4-2400 Memory (€62.94 @ Mindfactory)
Storage: Sandisk Z400s 128GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (€60.84 @ Mindfactory)
Power Supply: XFX XT 400W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply (€45.42 @ Mindfactory)
Total: €313.95
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-02-04 14:47 CET+0100
(pricing approximate)

Add a cheapo case from Amazon & you can get this build for under €350.

tadcan

ASRock H110M-HDS €51.76
Intel Pentium Dual-Core G4560 CPU €60.94
Crucial 8 GB Single Ranked DDR4 Ram €44.04
Corsair CP-9020095-UK VS Series PSU €34.84
120GB Kingston SSDNow SSD €49.48
Aerocool QS240 Gaming M-ATX Case £30.59 approx €45 with postage.
plus €30 postage
Total €316.06

K.O.Kiki

tadcan wrote: »

ASRock H110M-HDS €51.76
Intel Pentium Dual-Core G4560 CPU €60.94
Crucial 8 GB Single Ranked DDR4 Ram €44.04
Corsair CP-9020095-UK VS Series PSU €34.84
120GB Kingston SSDNow SSD €49.48
Aerocool QS240 Gaming M-ATX Case £30.59 approx €45 with postage.
plus €30 postage
Total €316.06

I'd advise against this build, simply cos OP mentioned they want to upgrade with a GPU in the future.
Therefore, B250 mobo + DDR4-2400 + 400W Bronze-certified PSU

tadcan

The B250 has one slot for ram instead of two. Has the same ram frequency of 2133 at base, needs to be overclocked to get the 2400 speed. For casual gaming the extra wont make a difference. They both have a pci x16 for a GPU. Doesn't have a HDMI slot. Has two usb 2 ports at the back instead of two usb 2 and two usb 3 ports. The only thing the Asrock lacks is S/PDIF port and an extra pci x1 slot. And to top it all costs €25 more.

If you want to get more gamer swap this out.
8GB G.Skill value €54.45

For some reason when I checked the 400 Watt XFX XT400 PSU directly in mindfactory it came at just €37.43

The SSD has 8GB more, but adds an extra €11 to the price.

K.O.Kiki

tadcan wrote: »

The B250 has one slot for ram instead of two. Has the same ram frequency of 2133 at base, needs to be overclocked to get the 2400 speed. For casual gaming the extra wont make a difference. They both have a pci x16 for a GPU. Doesn't have a HDMI slot. Has two usb 2 ports at the back instead of two usb 2 and two usb 3 ports. The only thing the Asrock lacks is S/PDIF port and an extra pci x1 slot. And to top it all costs €25 more.

It has 2x RAM slots (all mATX B250 boards do), and DDR4-2400 is standard frequency for B250 chipset.
Good point on the HDMI, I chose the wrong model for OP by mistake.
Any of these should be fine

If you want to get more gamer swap this out.
8GB G.Skill value €54.45

Disagreed, every bit of memory bandwidth helps on Intel Skylake/Kabylake.

For some reason when I checked the 400 Watt XFX XT400 PSU directly in mindfactory it came at just €37.43

PCpartpicker prices aren't exact.

The SSD has 8GB more, but adds an extra €11 to the price.

Up to OP how much to spend.

tadcan

K.O.Kiki wrote: »

It has 2x RAM slots (all mATX B250 boards do), and DDR4-2400 is standard frequency for B250 chipset.

I was looking at a comparison site which said it had 1 ram slot. On Gigabytes own page it has "Support for DDR4 2400(O.C.)* / 2133 MHz memory modules". OC is for overclocking.

TerrorFirmer

It has 2 ram banks and it supports 2400mhz with a Kabylake processor, not with the older Skylake CPUs which do require OC to get to that speed as the default is 2133mhz.

tadcan

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

It has 2 ram banks and it supports 2400mhz with a Kabylake processor, not with the older Skylake CPUs which do require OC to get to that speed as the default is 2133mhz.

Ah ok, I read that as you need kabylake to overclock.