Need the absolute cheapest HOME PC solution.

[Juusuhako]

Friend of mines parents need new PC. They only need it for browsing (banking, eBay, PayPal, general browsing), as their current PC takes several minutes to load pages. Browsing has to be smooth, no hickups or anything.

I havent been given a budget, but simply tasked to "find the necessary parts". They can build it themselves, and im guessing it would also be alot cheaper to get parts separately.

Feel free to ask anything, thanks in advance.

 

[Feronix]

Corsair VS 350 PSU
Fractal Design Core 1000 (at least it's proper quality for €30,-
Intel Pentium G2020 or G860
MSI H61M-P31
4 GB RAM at 1333MHz or more

Built my mum a similar PC, cost me €250,- at the time.
For the price, you can choose between a 500GB 7200RPM HDD or a 60GB SSD (Definitely recommend this if they don't need a lot of storage).

 

[Cru]

just grab an APU, matx motherboard, some case that's not complete rubbish, 4 or 8gb of ram, a corsair PSU and the coolermaster hyper212 evo
maybe even a 60gb ssd instead of a small harddrive

 

[WYP]

a very simple no thrills pc.

a good starting point would be a cheap amd A4 apu and mobo available for around £70 total

are there any components that can be brought over from their current pc? (HDD, possibly case)

 

[vorticalbox]

A budget would be much easier for us and what (if any) components they have that could be reused.

I agree with the apu, the A10-6800K did very well in the review and can be overclocked unlike the i3's and currently comes with farcry free.

Can also xfire with a 6670.

 

[s3ns3]

just grab an APU, matx motherboard, some case that's not complete rubbish, 4 or 8gb of ram, a corsair PSU and the coolermaster hyper212 evo
maybe even a 60gb ssd instead of a small harddrive

no. intel is way better at cpu`s for low budget. a dual core apu is 2 times slower than a celeron.he wants fast cpu

get the intel Celeron G1610 ivy bridge,h61 board,4 gigs of any ram,the lowest watts power supply from a decent brand and a ssd.

 

[Juusuhako]

Thanks for the recommandations. Im afraid no parts can be brought over.
I put together some parts, but I dont know if it is all compatible.

The only way to make it cheaper would be a smaller HD and less ram. Isnt 2GB enough for just browsing???

Heres the build. Is it compatible? Would anyone do anything different?

 

[Feronix]

no. intel is way better at cpu`s for low budget. a dual core apu is 2 times slower than a celeron.he wants fast cpu

get the intel Celeron G1610 ivy bridge,h61 board,4 gigs of any ram,the lowest watts power supply from a decent brand and a ssd.

I agree about the AMD vs Intel thing. I mean, APUs are great and all but if they only need the video chip to be able to see things and not even for movies or w/e, Intel is way faster.

Thanks for the recommandations. Im afraid no parts can be brought over.
I put together some parts, but I dont know if it is all compatible.

The only way to make it cheaper would be a smaller HD and less ram. Isnt 2GB enough for just browsing???

[Image]

2GB is the minimum RAM needed to even run Windows 7 so I definitely recommend going for 4GB.

The Corsair VS450 or VS350 are cheaper than the CX series, so can save a bit there. Obviously AMD uses a lot more power than Intel though, so I'm not sure if a 350 Wat PSU would be sufficient for that although I'm assuming it shouldn't be a problem

My mum's Pentium G2020 runs more than fine on the VS350

 

[s3ns3]

i would stay away from that dual core amd.its an athlon dual core. like really away.and no 2 gigs is not enough if you keep a lot of tabs open.

a pc with an i3 + everything but no dedicated gpu uses 50-60W max in full load. he will use like 30W while browsing.overkill psu`s but you can`t go lower.

 

[Feronix]

i would stay away from that dual core amd.its an athlon dual core. like really away.and no 2 gigs is not enough if you keep a lot of tabs open.

a pc with an i3 + everything but no dedicated gpu uses 50-60W max in full load. he will use like 30W while browsing.overkill psu`s but you can`t go lower.

Agreed. That chip would be a no-go for me.

Yeah I know it should be plenty but some mid-range GPUs barely don't use much either but you still need a 500Watt+ PSU to run them :lol: No idea how that works for CPUs if I'm honest.

 

[Juusuhako]

How does this look then? (Changed mobo and CPU). Ive never been a big fan of Intel HD, but I guess today they work well/very good with browsing?

Im pretty sure their old XP machine had Intel HD (but from XP times), and flash ads. would make it fall to its knees (although it also had very little ram and a slow CPU).

 

[Feronix]

Well, the actual HD x000 series are pretty good. This isn't as good as those but for browsing it will do the job. They can always add a cheap simply GPU later cause that PSU is quite overkill

Is that HDD 7200RPM? If not it's going to hold the system back a bit.

PS: Tell them to use Google Chrome with Adblock+.

 

[Juusuhako]

Well, the actual HD x000 series are pretty good. This isn't as good as those but for browsing it will do the job. They can always add a cheap simply GPU later cause that PSU is quite overkill

Is that HDD 7200RPM? If not it's going to hold the system back a bit.

PS: Tell them to use Google Chrome with Adblock+.

Yes it is 7200RPM.
I dont really know what version of Intel HD it has. Would you recommend a different CPU? +/-£10-20 probably wont make the difference on their decision I guess.

 

[SPS]

Well, the actual HD x000 series are pretty good. This isn't as good as those but for browsing it will do the job. They can always add a cheap simply GPU later cause that PSU is quite overkill

Lol Intel HD series are utter crap, especially their drivers.

Do you need windows?

 

[Juusuhako]

Lol Intel HD series are utter crap, especially their drivers.

Do you need windows?

Yes, they're used to Windows.

 

[Feronix]

Lol Intel HD series are utter crap, especially their drivers.

Do you need windows?

Well yeah, I meant for day-to-day machines. No more, no less. But then again, Intel focusses on CPU power where AMD goes for iGPU power.

Maybe I should've been more clear


I think most Pentium CPUs have the same HD graphics chip so I don't think it would matter much. The G860 and G2020 are nice chips though (paired with an HD7770 they play BF3 at medium settings ~50fps) so for browsing they are going to be more than sufficient.

Yes, they're used to Windows.

He meant if you need to buy a legal copy of the OS.

 

[SPS]

They use HD2000 without a few 'features'.

You may need to factor Windows into the budget then.

 

[Tripp]

why not just get a tablet as you can do everything that they need on one?

 

[SPS]

why not just get a tablet as you can do everything that they need on one?

Because a tablet is more expensive and more useless.

 

[Feronix]

They use HD2000 without a few 'features'.

You may need to factor Windows into the budget then.

Well, I guess that would be sufficient. I'm also assuming that they run a fairly low resolution as I can't see anyone spending 100 Quid+ on a Full HD monitor and only 200 on the entire PC.

Because a tablet is more expensive and more useless.

/End of.