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Help with a new build

S

StewieTheGreat

Gawd
Joined
Apr 12, 2010
Messages
571
I am posting this for a friend,he wants to build a new PC but has not been keeping up with the times and I know next to nothing about intel builds,all mine so far have been amd.

He would like a I5 2500k with a matching board to do some mild overclocking if it is within budget.maybe like 4.5ghz or something around there.

1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc
Gaming,mainly mmos,star wars,guild wars 2,WoW and some diablo 3

2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?
$500 total,that includes tax and shipping

3) Which country do you live in? If the U.S, please tell us the state and city if possible.
United States,omak washington

4) What exact parts do you need for that budget? CPU, RAM, case, etc. The word "Everything" is not a valid answer. Please list out all the parts you'll need.
CPU,MOBO,RAM,Hard drive,OS

5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.
PSU,Case,DVD drive,GPU HD 5770,keyboard,mouse,monitor.500w antec earthwatts

6) Will you be overclocking?
Maybe a little,depends on the added cost for a heatsink.

7) What is the max resolution of your monitor? What size is it?
1920x1080,22in

8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?
over the next month and a half,he wants to start buying parts early next week.

9) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? USB 3.0? SATA 6Gb/s? eSATA? Onboard video (as a backup or main GPU)? UEFI? etc.
Crossfire support would be a great benefit,He plans on adding another GPU to match his current hd 5770,UEFI BIOs would be cool

10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license? If yes, what OS? Is it 32bit or 64bit?
No,he would like windows 7 64 bit
 
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Please find out what the PSU is. What's the point of recommending parts on a limited budget if we don't know if the PSU is capable of handling the recommended parts?

In addition, your friend won't be able to afford the Core i5 2500K: His budget is just too low for it. We might be able to cram in the Core i5 2400 though assuming that he doesn't need a new PSU.
 
Here is what I would recommend if he intensively uses Photoshop
CPU: i5-2500 or i5 2400
GPU: AMD 77xx or 78xx
PSU: Single 12V 650W or even 500W (Corsair is my choice)
Mobo: H61 ($80 Max)
Optical Drive: Really depends if you want blu-ray or not. If no, get a 24x reliable and quite DVD RW Drive
Case: Cheap High Airflow Case Under 40 dollars to keep all your components cool
HDD: 1TB Samsung (Or NOW Seagate :() for OS and whatever

I would recommend a i7-2600 and buy used as it is cheaper if you do a lot of photoshop, video rendering and all that other thing, but it would exceed that $500 budget. Oh an if your friend plays RPG games mostly a cheap 77xx would actually do the job at high fps. Now if he plays BF3 that's a different story.
 
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Its a 500w antec earthwatts,I guess its fairly new he replaced his old sometime in the last year,Its powering a AMD phenom 9950 and hd 5770.

edited OP...
 
$190 - Intel Core i5-2400 CPU
$90 - Intel BOXDH67BLB3 Intel H67 mATX Motherboard
$38 - G.Skill Value Series F3-10600CL9D-8GBNT 2 x 4GB DDR3 1333 RAM
$80 - Hitachi 7K1000.D HDS721050DLE630 500GB 7200RPM SATA 6.0Gb/s Hard Drive
$100 - Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64bit OEM
---
Total: $498 shipped.

If your friend really wants that 2500K and be able to overclock it as well as Crossfire capability and UEFI, he's gonna have to raise his budget by another $100.
 
man,you are the best!

when I talked to him on the phone he said he could probably do $600-$700 but $500 is currently what he has to spend and he could get the rest of the cash over the next month or so.
 
Danny Bui said:
$190 - Intel Core i5-2400 CPU
$90 - Intel BOXDH67BLB3 Intel H67 mATX Motherboard
$38 - G.Skill Value Series F3-10600CL9D-8GBNT 2 x 4GB DDR3 1333 RAM
$80 - Hitachi 7K1000.D HDS721050DLE630 500GB 7200RPM SATA 6.0Gb/s Hard Drive
$100 - Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64bit OEM
---
Total: $498 shipped.

If your friend really wants that 2500K and be able to overclock it as well as Crossfire capability and UEFI, he's gonna have to raise his budget by another $100.
Click to expand...

^ That is a solid build. For me, an F3 would be best for OS and storage and get 1600mhz DDR3 if you find it for the cheap.
 
Well if he wants to buy right away, the above setup is probably one of the better ways of spending his money. However if he's not buying this month, don't have him buy ANY parts at all and have him come back when he's actually a week or two away from buying the PC in one go. I say that because Intel will be releasing new CPUs in late April/Early May. As such the parts I recommended may not the be the same parts I'm gonna recommend in a month from now.
 
Danny Bui said:
Well if he wants to buy right away, the above setup is probably one of the better ways of spending his money. However if he's not buying this month, don't have him buy ANY parts at all and have him come back when he's actually a week or two away from buying the PC in one go. I say that because Intel will be releasing new CPUs in late April/Early May. As such the parts I recommended may not the be the same parts I'm gonna recommend in a month from now.
Click to expand...

Honestly, I don't really know what the IBs will be like. But I would still recommend that he stick with SB as I have never had any problem with them. I think I built 4 or 5 using SBs. They are by far most reliable and effiecient at what they are suppose to do. Well that's my opinion.
 
That makes sense,I will pass that info along to him as well as show him the parts list you have picked and let him decide if he wants to wait or just pick up the parts you recommended,thanks again I really appreciate it.
 
happyboy said:
Honestly, I don't really know what the IB will be like.
Click to expand...
Hence why I'm telling the OP to have his friend wait and see if IB will be truly worth it. I did say "may not be the same"
 
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