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Help w/ €400 build.

c28omzk7ihsxv0

I have a budget of €400 excluding the monitor, shipping, windows and assembly.
I'm not going to lie, I don't know much and I'm going to college and want a nice desktop but at an affordable price.

I would be willing to go a LITTLE bit over the budget if you show me a better option for a little more.

Purpose of PC
I want to be able to game a bit (e.g. med-lowish settings BF3), use CAD, watch full HD movies (No blue ray), surf, some editing, some music file converting etc. etc.

Can you use any parts from an old computer? I have nothing of use.

Do you need a monitor? If you can point me to a HDMI compatible on @1080p g'wan and show us.

If yes, what size do you need? I'm not to picky but the bigger the better I guess

Do you need any peripherals? I need a keyboard, a nice enough mouse, a wireless card, an all in one card reader and speakers.

Are you willing to try overclocking? Sure, why not?

When are you purchasing? within the next two months.

If you need help building it, where are you based?
Sligo. - soon Galway.

Necessities for me
It has to have at least a 750gb hard drive.
Have atleast one USB 3.0 output
A HDMI output for a monitor.
I have to be able to use wi-fi
I want it to have a decent CPU (preferebly quad core) that is fairly futureproof.

Here's the website I'm using, they'll assemble it and install windows on it for me.

Heres what I was thinking - - -
I want no hassle so I'm getting it built and having windows installed by this crowd, so please give suggestions from this website.

Item|Price
LG GH24NS bare schwarz|€17
OEM Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 32-bit inkl. Vorinstallation|€80
TP-Link TL-WN781N, 150Mbps, PCIe x1|€10
LogiLink USB 2.0 all-in-one Card Reader, für 3,5" Einbauchschacht|€4
Wavemaster SX-1|€6
Kiss Quiet 420W|€17
Aerocool Strike-X Combat Gaming Mouse - black/red|€13
ASUS M5A78L-M/USB3, Sockel AM3+, mATX|€65
3R Systems Design Gehäuse R480 Schwarz|€25
AMD FX-4100 Prozessor, Boxed, Sockel AM3+|€95
Windows Aktivierung inklusive aktueller Updates für Ihr gewähltes Betriebssystem|€5
Logitech K120 OEM Keyboard - black|€8
MSI R5450-MD1GH, 1024MB, PCI-Express|€27
Rechner - Zusammenbau|€20
8GB-Kit Corsair ValueSelect PC3-10667U CL9|€35
WD Caviar Green 1TB, SATA 6Gb/s (WD10EZRX)|€75
Shipping|€18.99
Total| €500 + €20 shipping

Personally I think it's a good set up besides the power source and the video card (as pointed out by monotype ). Also The processor will prob be changed to a AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition.

Thanks for any help. It's much appriciated

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MRTULES

From what I have seen on here the Kb will be German lay out so peeps on here usually advise picking them up yourself elsewhere.

c28omzk7ihsxv0

MRTULES wrote: »

From what I have seen on here the Kb will be German lay out so peeps on here usually advise picking them up yourself elsewhere.

The Kb? SOrry for being such a noob

ElectroJazz

Keyboard?

Monotype

You'd be better off with the phenom II X4 965.

The graphics card is awful and the PSU is worse. It's a bit of a mess. You can save on the windows by getting a student edition.

I'm too tired to check it out now, but I'll see what I can do tomorrow unless somebody else beats me to it.

c28omzk7ihsxv0

ElectroJazz wrote: »

Keyboard?

Don't know how I didn't get that haha

Monotype wrote: »

You'd be better off with the phenom II X4 965.

The graphics card is awful and the PSU is worse. It's a bit of a mess. You can save on the windows by getting a student edition.

I'm too tired to check it out now, but I'll see what I can do tomorrow unless somebody else beats me to it.

Thanks, I'll amend the processor.
I just saw that that grapics card got good reviews so I assumed it would do the job.
They don't seem to have the option of installing the student version unfortunatly.

MRTULES

Let me start by stating that you probably know more about computers than I so please just take the following as food for thought. It could be totally incompatible.

Item|Price
8GB-Kit G.Skill PC3-10667U CL9|€34.61
Seagate Barracuda 7200 1000GB, SATA 6Gb/s|€75.59
Xigmatek Asgard, ATX, ohne Netzteil, schwarz|€32.23
Super-Flower Amazon 80Plus 450W|€42.15
LG GH24NS bare schwarz|€17.19
Intel Pentium G630 Box, LGA1155|€54.44
ASUS P8H61-MX USB3, Sockel 1155, mATX, DDR3|€53.51
TP-Link TL-WN781N, 150Mbps, PCIe x1|€9.38
LogiLink USB 2.0 all-in-one Card Reader, für 3,5" Einbauchschacht|€3.97
Rechner - Zusammenbau|€20.00
Shipping|€18.99
Total|€388.34

you would have to install windows your self if you get it from software4students but I think its straight forward enough. I am sure I am missing something here but anyway there you go.

Graphics card is missing!! I dont know anything about them, sorry. Also if you could up the budget a bit the i3 2130 used to get some recommendations for builds around this price range

Ape X

Get the 64bit version of Windows 7. I'd recommend it regardless, but you're definitely going to need it with 8GB of RAM.

c28omzk7ihsxv0

MRTULES wrote: »

Let me start by stating that you probably know more about computers than I so please just take the following as food for thought. It could be totally incompatible.

Item|Price
8GB-Kit G.Skill PC3-10667U CL9|€34.61
Seagate Barracuda 7200 1000GB, SATA 6Gb/s|€75.59
Xigmatek Asgard, ATX, ohne Netzteil, schwarz|€32.23
Super-Flower Amazon 80Plus 450W|€42.15
LG GH24NS bare schwarz|€17.19
Intel Pentium G630 Box, LGA1155|€54.44
ASUS P8H61-MX USB3, Sockel 1155, mATX, DDR3|€53.51
TP-Link TL-WN781N, 150Mbps, PCIe x1|€9.38
LogiLink USB 2.0 all-in-one Card Reader, für 3,5" Einbauchschacht|€3.97
Rechner - Zusammenbau|€20.00
Shipping|€18.99
Total|€388.34
you would have to install windows your self if you get it from software4students but I think its straight forward enough. I am sure I am missing something here but anyway there you go.

Graphics card is missing!! I dont know anything about them, sorry. Also if you could up the budget a bit the i3 2130 used to get some recommendations for builds around this price range

Yeah, your missing a video card with HDMI out...
Also the site doesn't have any os on it. lol. Thanks anyway.

Monotype

I think it's much more expensive than €5 to get them to install Windows. I think this is the one:
http://www2.hardwareversand.de/Service/857/Software-Installation.article

I think they might just activate windows for the €5, which is just a few mouse clicks and entering in a key.

Item|Price
ASUS DRW-24B5ST bare|€18.36
8GB-Kit G-Skill RipJaws PC3-12800U CL9|€39.30
BitFenix Merc Beta|€31.92
Super-Flower Amazon 80Plus 450W|€42.15
ASRock 970 Pro3, AM3+, ATX|€64.98
TP-Link TL-WN781N, 150Mbps, PCIe x1|€9.43
AMD Phenom II X4 945 Box, 95W, Sockel AM3|€70.66
LogiLink USB 2.0 all-in-one Card Reader, für 3,5" Einbauchschacht|€3.92
PowerColor Radeon HD 7750, 1GB GDDR5|€95.52
WD Caviar Blue 1TB 6Gb's|€75.39
Shipping|€18.99
Windows|€55
Total|€525.62

Hmm well you're going over budget a bit there. I suppose the next port of call would be to downgrade the RAM to 4GB. Since you mentioned that you will be buying "in the next two months", I think that you'll be better off waiting for AMD's new APUs. These new processors feature fairly powerful on-chip graphics. Not as powerful as powerful as the above card, but certainly cheaper (and better than the 5450). I think we're expecting them at the end of some month - was it September or October? This would save you a bit and allow you to invest into the extras that you're looking at such as the HDD. With a high-end APU, you should be able to play nearly all games, although you might just scrape by with BF3 on low. You could always add in a dedicated card if you needed to later.

c28omzk7ihsxv0

Monotype wrote: »

I think it's much more expensive than €5 to get them to install Windows. I think this is the one:
http://www2.hardwareversand.de/Service/857/Software-Installation.article

I think they might just activate windows for the €5, which is just a few mouse clicks and entering in a key.

Hmm well you're going over budget a bit there. I suppose the next port of call would be to downgrade the RAM to 4GB. Since you mentioned that you will be buying "in the next two months", I think that you'll be better off waiting for AMD's new APUs. These new processors feature fairly powerful on-chip graphics. Not as powerful as powerful as the above card, but certainly cheaper (and better than the 5450). I think we're expecting them at the end of some month - was it September or October? This would save you a bit and allow you to invest into the extras that you're looking at such as the HDD. With a high-end APU, you should be able to play nearly all games, although you might just scrape by with BF3 on low.
You could always add in a dedicated card if you needed to later.

Thanks for the write up

But eek, that's not including a mouse, keyboard, speakers or assembly.

I just have 4 questions,
1. What about one of the cases with an inbuilt PSU, they would save some money but are the PSU's in them crap?
2. Is the video card in that list very good? i.e. could you play BF3 with it?
3.Is the case you listed in anyway better than the one I did? JUst wondering if case choice matters much...
4. Whats the difference between the mother board you and I listed?

Sorry, I'm just trying to learn a bit as I'm going along

Thanks very much for your help

Monotype

Rylee Swift Memorial wrote: »

1. What about one of the cases with an inbuilt PSU, they would save some money but are the PSU's in them crap?
2. Is the video card in that list very good? i.e. could you play BF3 with it?
3.Is the case you listed in anyway better than the one I did? JUst wondering if case choice matters much...
4. Whats the difference between the mother board you and I listed?

1. No. Definitely stay clear of them. Well clear. Don't even give them a look.
2. It's as good as you're going to see in that budget. It'll manage Battlefield 3 alright possibly at medium detail. Probably still look better than the consoles. If its high detail you're after, you'll need to spend more money.
3. The case I picked has some screwless features which makes an easier build. Some cable management stuff that makes it neater too. Whatever you like the look of yourself though. If you like the grated front, take a look at the Xigmatek Asgard III.
4. The asrock is built on a much newer chipset. It's a larger board too. Most notable features are SATA 6Gbps ports which would are great for SSDs, an extra PCI-E slot, I like the colour better, better audio probably. The Asus has an optical output connector and integrated graphics (although crap) going for it which the Asrock doesn't have.

c28omzk7ihsxv0

Monotype wrote: »

1. No. Definitely stay clear of them. Well clear. Don't even give them a look.
2. It's as good as you're going to see in that budget. It'll manage Battlefield 3 alright possibly at medium detail. Probably still look better than the consoles. If its high detail you're after, you'll need to spend more money.
3. The case I picked has some screwless features which makes an easier build. Some cable management stuff that makes it neater too. Whatever you like the look of yourself though. If you like the grated front, take a look at the Xigmatek Asgard III.
4. The asrock is built on a much newer chipset. It's a larger board too. Most notable features are SATA 6Gbps ports which would are great for SSDs, an extra PCI-E slot, I like the colour better, better audio probably. The Asus has an optical output connector and integrated graphics (although crap) going for it which the Asrock doesn't have.

Well then that motherboard makes better sense considering I was looking for a HDD with a 6gps rating haha.
And would that video card be able to put out 1080p video and gaming effectively?
Thanks.

:)

SOrry, one more question, why is the AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition (3.4Ghz) better than the AMD FX-4100 (3.6Ghz)? Is it because the Phenom is better for overclocking?

Monotype

HDDs rated at 6Gbps don't see that much gain because they won't get up to those speeds most of the time so the main use is really for SSDs.
Yes, most cards available at the moment, even modern integrated, will manage 1080P video easily. I don't know about BF3 at 1080P, although there's a few youtube videos saying that they can, but the settings are tweaked a bit and playing online could slow it down.

With a tight budget like that, I think it might be no harm to wait for the AMD Trinity APUs. You could make sure that you get a nice case and PSU to be ready for future upgrades while you'll be able to play most mainstream games for a while.
You could cut yourself down on the GPU to a 6670, which would bring you more in line with your price, but you're not really better off than the APUs then.

c28omzk7ihsxv0

Monotype wrote: »

HDDs rated at 6Gbps don't see that much gain because they won't get up to those speeds most of the time so the main use is really for SSDs.
Yes, most cards available at the moment, even modern integrated, will manage 1080P video easily. I don't know about BF3 at 1080P, although there's a few youtube videos saying that they can, but the settings are tweaked a bit and playing online could slow it down.

With a tight budget like that, I think it might be no harm to wait for the AMD Trinity APUs. You could make sure that you get a nice case and PSU to be ready for future upgrades while you'll be able to play most mainstream games for a while.
You could cut yourself down on the GPU to a 6670, which would bring you more in line with your price, but you're not really better off than the APUs then.

If I can expect pretty good graphics I'd willingly fork out the extra few quid for your list.

Also, one more question on top of the processor one, would dropping down the ram to 4gb hamper performance much? Again, thanks A LOT, I really appreciate it.

Monotype

Going for 4GB to 8GB won't drop performance much in general. The thing is that RAM is fairly cheap at the moment and 8GB is quite reasonable - RAM used to take a much larger portion of the budget.
If you were to go with 8GB, you probably wouldn't need to get more in the lifetime of the machine. With 4GB, you'll have enough for now but will be likely enough to want an upgrade later.
http://www2.hardwareversand.de/1600+Low+Voltage/58874/4GB+Corsair+Vengeance+Low+Profile+schwarz+PC3-12800U+CL9-9-9-24.article

c28omzk7ihsxv0

Oh and this is the one, they install windows for €80
http://www1.hardwareversand.de/articledetail.jsps?aid=34093&agid=185

But if installing an OS isn't hard I wouldn't mind someone pointing out a student edition of windows 7...

Actually, the school I left had a load of computers that were meant for windows 7 but they installed XP instead, maybe it'd be worth an ask to see if they have any windows 7 discs to spare...

Monotype

They don't install windows for that. That's just a copy of windows. A 32-bit copy. A German 32-bit copy.
You can use the same key for a 64-bit installation, but you'd want to make sure that they have the right copy.

Installing windows isn't hard. It takes a little while to get it all working together with drivers, but ninite.com can help you with that and windows 7 is good at finding many of the drivers.

c28omzk7ihsxv0

So where would I get windows 7 then?

Well actually here's the 64 bit version - - - http://www1.hardwareversand.de/articledetail.jsps?aid=34092&agid=185

Couldn't I just ask them to install an English version?

Monotype

I linked you to a copy earlier but they seem to be out of stock. That's the cheapest place around unless you happen to be doing a computing related course or use the windows server work-around.

Here's the English version; it's dearer.
http://www1.hardwareversand.de/OEM-Software/29181/MS+Windows+7+Home+Premium+64bit+SB-Version+Englisch.article

Rylee Swift Memorial wrote: »

Actually, the school I left had a load of computers that were meant for windows 7 but they installed XP instead, maybe it'd be worth an ask to see if they have any windows 7 discs to spare...

Is this like a sticker on the side of a Dell machine or something? You can't reuse those licenses.

c28omzk7ihsxv0

Monotype wrote: »

I linked you to a copy earlier but they seem to be out of stock. That's the cheapest place around unless you happen to be doing a computing related course or use the windows server work-around.

Here's the English version; it's dearer.
http://www1.hardwareversand.de/OEM-Software/29181/MS+Windows+7+Home+Premium+64bit+SB-Version+Englisch.article

Is this like a sticker on the side of a Dell machine or something? You can't reuse those licenses.

Thanks for that, I was kind of exclusively using the PC configurator so hat didn't come up.

That's annoying though, a tenner extra and no installation...
Ahh well. Thanks a lot.

Monotype

If you were installing yourself, there's no issue with buying the German version and using the key with an English disc.

c28omzk7ihsxv0

Monotype wrote: »

If you were installing yourself, there's no issue with buying the German version and using the key with an English disc.

Is the windows you listed from here :
http://software4students.ie/t/brand/windows-7
Only for upgrading from vista etc. or can it be used from scratch?

Thanks.

Monotype

Read the guide in my signature about it. They did say a while ago that they would stop selling them cheap. They increased price by around a tenner and I thought that was it but maybe they are finishing them up.

c28omzk7ihsxv0

Hi, I can adjust the budget slightly now and I was wondering if this processor is worht the extra few quid:
http://lb.hardwareversand.de/articledetail.jsp?aid=56505&agid=1242

Or should I get a better MB, or should I fork out even more so I can upgrade both?

Or would spending an extra tenner on a Graphics card be the best idea?
Just looking for opinions, thanks

MRTULES

So like I said before, take with a pinch of salt!!

Item|Price
8GB-Kit G.Skill PC3-10667U CL9|€28.31
WD Caviar Blue 500GB SATA 3 6Gb/s|€56.64
Xigmatek Asgard, ATX, ohne Netzteil, schwarz|€32.23
Super-Flower Amazon 80Plus 450W|€43.18
ASUS F2A55-M LK, FM2, mATX|€59.00
AMD A10 5800K Black Edition mit AMD Radeon HD 7660D Grafikeinheit, Box, FM2|€119.00
Shipping|€18.99
Total|€357.35

Im not sure if this mobo allows overclocking or not but just trying an AMD build out.

Monotype

Yeah, I'd go for a Trinity build like Mr Tules says.
However, I'd get

a better motherboard because that one only has SATA 3Gbps, just for future upgradability
faster RAM

Maybe this board.
http://www1.hardwareversand.de/DDR3/66940/MSI+FM2-A75MA-E35%2C+FM2%2C+mATX.article

c28omzk7ihsxv0

Any Ram in paticular with a good price/performance ratio? I know ripjaws to be good from your word, and a few IRL friends. Remember, I won't be doing anything too heavy on it..
Thanks a lot for the help though, much appriciated

Monotype

Faster is better for Trinity, but looking at the higher speeds, I think 1600MHz is about the best value there.
http://www1.hardwareversand.de/1600+Low+Voltage/44314/8GB-Kit+G-Skill+RipJaws+PC3-12800U+CL9.article

Yep, the ripjaws is the cheapest reasonable looking one there at the moment.

Here's the 1TB version of the drive above:
http://www1.hardwareversand.de/7200+RPM/62133/WD+Caviar+Blue+1TB+6Gb's.article

c28omzk7ihsxv0

So the trinity coupled with the graphics card you mentioned earlier should be good for gaming?
Max I have for a graphics card is €95, and the one you listed went down in price, so if you can show me a better alternative thats approx €95 that'd be cool.

My primary aim for this PC is to game and then just genral use, if I could play ultra BF3 with a min/avg frame rate of 30fps tha'd be great.

Any fans anyone can reccommend (cheaper the better) if I were to buy the tray version and overclock?

Monotype

No, you don't need the graphics card. It has a reasonably powerful GPU integrated. Enough for about medium BF3.

Not really playable at 1920x1080

But at lower resolutions, you have a good few frames to spare and you could turn up detail to find a middle ground.

I suppose if you wanted somewhere to spend a bit more money, you could get faster RAM.
http://www1.hardwareversand.de/1866+Low+Voltage/66607/8GB-Kit+G.Skill+RipJaws-X+PC3-14900U+CL9.article