Another Budget Disect. -$400

[steve_huck513]

1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc
playing 1080p,general use, file storage.light audio production..FL9,Amplitube

2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?
$400 Shipped. Less is definitely better

3) Where do you live?
Cincy OH 45212

4) What exact parts do you need for that budget?
CPU,Board,Ram,Case

5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing?
Crap PSU and 80gb boot drive 1tb storage drive, until Pico PSU and SSD

6) Will you be overclocking?
Possible

7) What size monitor do you have and/or plan to have?
26" Vizio

8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?
Early Jan

9) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire?
USB 3 would be cool. I would def like to go ITX

10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license?
Windows 7 Professional x64 from Univeristy

I like that with the h55n I could upgrade to i7 in future. I do not like the selection of AMD Itx boards at all. The Asus m4 deluxe board sounds ok, but kinda weary of it. I plan on trying to get a pico psu, and a SSD but not part of the core build I am getting out of the way first.

Here is what I came up with all from Newegg.com

Giga H55N USB 3.0 $104.99
Intel Core i3 550 $124.99
2x2gb Ripjaws1333 $59.99
Lian Li pc-q07 $59.99
--------------
TOTAL Shipped $362.28


And I was $40 under budget

 

[Dangman]

Yeah what crappy PSU do you have now?
Also I would not go with a Pico-PSU at all if you want to upgrade to the i7 CPUs. No Pico-PSU in the world can provide enough power for a Core i7.

 

[steve_huck513]

I would upgrade PSU if i went to i7

 

[Dangman]

Then why waste money on a Pico-PSU then if you're just gonna replace it anyway?

Assuming that you have a shitty PSU not suitable for this kind of build, you still have room to buy a good PSU:
$45 - Antec NEO ECO 400C 400W PSU

 

[E4g1e]

Then why waste money on a Pico-PSU then if you're just gonna replace it anyway?

Assuming that you have a shitty PSU not suitable for this kind of build, you still have room to buy a good PSU:
$45 - Antec NEO ECO 400C 400W PSU

I agree with the above. In fact, the Pico-PSU is just adequate for the i3 build, and effectively cannot accommodate an i7 CPU. (In fact, the i7 CPU plus a discrete PCIe graphics card that's noticeably more powerful than the i3 CPU's IGP that's required with that CPU will draw more power than the Pico-PSU can provide.) Plus, that Lian-Li miniITX case is designed to accommodate a regular ATX PSU. So why spend a lot of money on a PSU that provides low-end entry-level-PC performance?

And if you do go with a Socket 1156 i7, you will also have to add a discrete PCIe graphics card to that motherboard: All quad-core LGA 1156 CPUs lack an IGP. And because a Pico-PSU is really meant for low-power HTPC use, it does not provide enough power to handle both an i7 CPU and a discrete GPU that's more than a mere sideways-grade from an i3 IGP.