Budget build need help (600 GBP)

[Kyuzo]

Hey all,

When i built my comp last year and came here for advice and everyone was a great help. So now my friend needs a new comp and i thought i'd come and ask again for assistance.

We are in Australia and will be buying parts from http://www.pccasegear.com , he has a budget of $800-$1000AUD (Approx 500-650GBP). As far as what the computer will be required for, he will only need it to do work, play World of Warcraft, League of legends and watch media. However He will be dual screening and would like to have room in the case to upgrade in the future.

Components

case: Nothing fancy here, perhaps a Lian Li Lancool First Knight PC-K57?

fan: (was thinking of going the noctua NH-D14, depends whether or not its required or will even fit in the case, wants it to be quiet, maybe the stock fans will be fine)

gpu: ASUS Radeon HD7750 1GB $155 (Can be amd or Nvidia, as long as it is capable of doing what is required)

Mobo: (prefer intel mobo) ASRock Z77 Extreme4-M Motherboard $149

cpu: thinking the i5-2500k , but its probably more than needed $209

ram: G.Skill Ripjaws F3-12800CL9D-8GBRL 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 $60 (can change this but wants 8gig)

psu: Corsair TX-650 V2 Power Supply $115

odd: SATA LiteOn DVD burner x2 $30ea (wants one drive to read, and a second to burn a copy)

hdd: Samsung 1TB Spinpoint F3 7200rpm x2 $59ea (wants 2tb hdd space)

Any help is much appreciated,

Thank you for reading.

~Kyuzo

 

[YogevSkill]

Ok choices overall, though i would'nt go with ASrock for mobo.

ASUS or Gigabyte but thats my personal opinion.

also check if your choice for Video card has supports PCI Express gen 3, if so you'll need a 22nm CPU.(Ivy bridge).

thats something to think about.

If you're on a budget build like most of us... 2500K will do awesome(thats what i have, love it)

good luck friend.

 

[Master&Puppet]

also check if your choice for Video card has supports PCI Express gen 3, if so you'll need a 22nm CPU.(Ivy bridge).

thats something to think about.

This actually only matters if 2 or more pcie3 cards are put on the same board. There isn't a card on the market that will saturate pcie2 x16 and since pcie is backwards compatible you can put any card in any slot.

What type of work will he be doing? Are we talking about office applications or video/photo/music editing and production?

 

[jonnyfgm]

personally i'd just stick with stock intel cooler, for now at least, unless you want to overclock it should be quiet enough for now. Id use the money you save to get a better graphics card to be honest,

omg how come HDDs are so cheap over there? cheapest i've seen them over here works out at about $80aud, average price is about 140!

Also does your friend know that he can just create an ISO of a disk and burn it using the same drive, takes longer admitadly but its $30 you could save and another $30 you could put towards a graphics card, a single 7750 is probably going to be lacking in a lot of games

 

[Murphyslaw]

Depending on what work he is going to be doing on it, he might not need a quad core.

If this is the case and he will be gaming more, I would say to get an I3 over the i5 2500k and spend more on the graphic card.

(if you were to save on the CPU, you could get a 570 or a 7850)

Also I would go for an ASUS or gigabyte motherboard as mentioned above.

The noctua should just fit the case, as the case is wide for a mid tower. (case 270mm wide, noctua NH-d14 160mm)

 

[Master&Puppet]

If this is just a gaming build then I agree that it would be better if more money was put into the GPU at the expense of the CPU. I wouldn't go for an i3 though. You get much better performance for your money with an AMD rig.

I would go for a 4100 by default and overclock it. If he isn't going to overclock it then there is the 4170 for $139 which comes factory overclocked to 4.2 ghz (4.3ghz turbo). It comes with a CPU cooler so should be fine temp wise so no need for an aftermarket one I don't expect. Stick it on a mobo like this:

http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=138_1207_803&products_id=17846

Total for the platform is $275 which shaves off quite a bit and with not needing to buy a CPU cooler he should have enough to get:

http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=193_1373&products_id=19799

Which is a massive upgrade.

 

[Master&Puppet]

Hey M&P,

Thank you for your reply in my topic, was hoping i could ask you a few questions about your recommendations. Not to familiar with amd rigs so done a little research on the cpu you recommended (AMD FX 4170).

Most of the point of views i read is that the i3's outperform it, saw a few benchmarks (http://www.tomshardw...ark,3136-6.html) like so and wasn't much notable difference in my opinion, still pretty low fps for metro but that’s to be expected of low budget rigs.

So my main concerns are, is the fx 4170 outperformed by the i3 2120/t which is more or less the same price (or is it worth the extra $60 for the i5-2400?) and also the fact that it runs 125w, does this mean it consumes a great deal more power and runs hotter thus requiring better cooling?.

Thanks for reading,

Kyuzo

Before saying anything else - any of these chips - the 4100, 2100 or better are capable of running modern games with a decent minimum fps of above 30 so the rest is really giving peace of mind, a little bit of future proofing and a bit more general performance.

So here's the thing - intel cpus are definitely the better all round chips. They have better core for core performance and are vastly more energy efficient but they don't have an unlocked multiplier so are rubbish for overclocking.

This matters because you can take a 4100 and run it above 4.5ghz and at these speeds it will outperform everything in the i3 range. Problem is that you'll have to get a half decent aftermarket cooler. This will add £35-70 depending on the cooler which brings the total to between £120 and £155. Problem is for £145 you can get a 2500k which will outperform all the other options at stock (although Intel mobos tend to be more expensive too).

If he doesn't want to overclock then for £105 you can get the 4170 which is essentially a factory overclocked 4100 and will perform as well as a 2130 but for a bit less on generally cheaper mobos and without the need for an aftermarket cooler (the retail boxes come with an amd approved cooler). You can also get a 6100 for this price but since games care more about core performance rather than the number of cores you are better paying AMD that £20 to get an overclock.

An argument for intel can also be made on the basis of getting a decent £155 mobo and shoving in a cheap i3 for now with the intention of upgrading to an i5 in the next year or so. Some people will say that you will be investing in a dying socket but being honest the 1155 socket has lots of power in it yet and investing in the AM3+ socket, even with the new cpu release expected this year, is hardly putting your money in safe hands either.

Basically the cheapest performance option is the 4170 - cheap AMD mobos, no need for cpu cooler and a factory overclock which will put it on par with the top i3s for a little less.

Hope that helps

 

[Kyuzo]

Thank you for your explanation M&P =).

Seems everyone agreed upon saving money on the cpu and investing the savings into the gpu. Done some more reading on the amd fx processors and wasn't that impressed, Tom's review on the 8150 also swayed me away from going with any of the fx series. So decided to go intel, my friend won't be overclocking plus it allows him to upgrade in the future if need be.

The 2120 seemed to go quite well, even when running games like bf3 and it's at a great price.

Here's what i'm thinking;

cpu: intel i3 2120 $130

Mobo: Gigabyte GA-Z77-D3H Motherboard $135

Gpu: Gigabyte Radeon HD7850 2GB OC $269

Psu: Corsair TX-650 V2 Power Supply $115

Case: Lian Li Lancool Dragon Lord PC-K56 Black $75

HDD: Seagate Barracuda 1TB $100 (Unfortunately they don’t have the samsung 1tb's for $60 anymore =( )

Ram: Corsair Vengeance CMZ8GX3M2A1600C9 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 $60

Total: $844

 

[Master&Puppet]

Looks good to me