budget internet / office work build

P

panta

Weaksauce
Joined
Apr 21, 2009
Messages
106
So far I've got



Any ideas for a graphics card? No games will be played.

But am wondering if I should get the 425 http://www.ebuyer.com/product/176042 what with it being only £5 extra. What do you think? Roughly how far do you think the X2 and or X3 might overclock with the stock cooler and voltage?

Then there's the question of these:

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/189689

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/182433

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/144339

Of these three, which should I get? I've bought two of the AAKs in the past so I know they're good drives. Didn't know about these green ones. 64mb cache! :eek:

I also need a monitor, but I have no idea what to get. Could somebody help me find one on ebuyer? No budget really; just keep it as cheap as possible without being rubbish.

And finally if you know of any way I could bring the price down a bit, e.g a cheaper motherboard, then please let me know.

Thanks :)

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

If you'd like to spec me the whole thing from scratch, please do and here are the details for what I need:

1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc - Web browsing, MS office, basic stuff
2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included? - £250-300 for the PC and £100-ish for the screen. Includes postage / tax.
3) Where do you live? U.K
4) What exact parts do you need for that budget? CPU, RAM, case, etc. Please be very specific. Everything.
6) Will you be overclocking? - A light overclock, yes.
7) What size monitor do you have and/or plan to have? - Need a monitor. Whatever's available for ~£100
8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC? - Now.
9) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? etc. - Nothing in particular.
10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license? If yes, what OS? 32bit or 64bit? - 64 Bit Win 7
 
Last edited:
Since you're not gaming, switch to a 785G motherboard and use onboard video. ;) It's even capable enough to watch HD videos. :eek: If this Asus is too pricey, I guess the MSI should do just fine as well:
£70 - ASUS M4A785TD-M EVO 785G Socket AM3 DVI VGA HDMI Out 8 Channel Audio MATX
£56 - MSI 785GM-E51 785G Socket AM3 DVI VGA HDMI Out 8 channel audio mATX

Stick with the AAKS/Blue or AALS/Black drives for your main OS/Apps drive. The Green drives are mainly for storage, since they tend to turn themselves off more often and also spin at a slower spindle speed (around 5400RPM instead of the standard 7200RPM). If you don't need 640GB, then I'd suggest saving a bit of cash and going with the Samsung F3 500GB, as its a single platter drive thats very fast:
£37 - Samsung SpinPoint F3 500GB Hard Drive

X2 vs X3 depends on your usage. From what you've listed so far, it seems that the X2 should do fine, but since the extra £5 seems negligible to you, go for it. :p
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=3663

For monitors, this looks like the best bang for your buck:
£113 - BenQ G2220HD 22" TFT Monitor 1920x1080 300cd/m2 40000:1 (dynamic) 5ms 16:9 VGA/DVI Glossy Black
 
The screen and HD look great, thanks!

I think perhaps I'll get the X2 250, and perhaps do a little overclocking at stock volts.

As for the motherboard - is there any particular reason to get a 785G other than the on-board video? Because I could get that MSI 770 and this: http://www.ebuyer.com/product/176818 for £68. Wouldn't that be a better deal than the Asus on-board? Then again, if the MSI has integrated then I could get that, for less than the card + board. Another thing, these 785G boards are Micro-ATX - is that alright for the case I'm getting? I'm not familiar with MATX. What's the disadvantage? (if there are any?)
 
Last edited:
mATX is backwards compatible with ATX cases, so no worries there. The only disadvantage to mATX mobos is less expansion slots (typically 3 less than standard ATX boards, which have 7 typically). Both boards have onboard video. Here's a comparison between the two boards:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...mpareItemList=N82E16813131406,N82E16813130247

It looks like the MSI should fit your needs fine. If you find you need more video horsepower later, you can upgrade when the time comes. ;)
 
Okay. Whilst I'm at it can I just get a MATX case as well? A compact case would be a bonus. If so, do you know of any good ones?
 
As far as price goes, it looks like they don't carry any better option aside from the CM Elite 330, which is also a midtower. I don't see the CM mATX cases at eBuyer. However, they're only slightly smaller than the 335/330, so you can keep your original choice.
 
Okay and finally if I wanted to remove the fans in the CM and add super-quiet fans, what should I get? They have to be cheap of course, so no Noctuas that cost as much as the case or anything :D

I've done some reading up and apparently Nexus Basix are quite good as cheap, quiet fans. :confused:
 
If they're available, also consider low-speed Yate Loon D12SL-12 or Scythe "Slipstream" fans.
 
A-Data? Sure. ...but what's V-Data? lol. Why not just get the RAM from eBuyer?
 
do you plan on upgrading to 2 sticks soon? if so, i guess a single stick is fine for now. you'll lose dual channel capability, which means your memory bandwidth is cut in half. i'd suggest sticking with your original choice, since your onboard video will be using some of your RAM, too.

Not sure if the stock cooler is good or not, since I'm not sure if the 250 comes with a better cooler or not. If they come with the same cooler, it should be fine. Try it, and if you notice temps too high, back down the OC a bit. ;)
 
Well DDR3 is pretty expensive at the moment, so 2 x 2 GB would be ~£80. I was planning to get that one 2GB module and then upgrade if need be (whereas if I got two 1GB it wouldn't be so nice when upgrading).
 
panta said:
... (whereas if I got two 1GB it wouldn't be so nice when upgrading).
Click to expand...

why not? you can certainly run 2x1GB in one channel then when you upgrade grab a 2x2GB for the 2nd channel, or even a 2x4GB if they're cheap enough by that time. :p If you want, you can even ditch the 1GB sticks later (sell 'em).
 
Wouldn't that then be:

2 x 2 gb

+ 2 x 1Gb

= 6 GB ? It's still dual channel in that configuration?
 
I think I get it. Do you mean there are two separate sets of dual channel? The two 1GBs and then the two 2GBs run as dual channel independently?
 
There are two channels, hence, dual channel. Each channel has 2x DIMM slots. If the amount of RAM in each channel is the same, it should run fine in dual channel. When buying the upgrade kit, be sure to choose the same speed/CL (or higher speed/same latency) and more importantly, choose the same voltage.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top