Parts for Father's rig

[Doomslayer]

So, time has come to get the build together. Had a chat with dad and we agreed on 550€ budget including Windows. I tried to convince him that we'd get Elementary OS and get a 100€ cheaper machine, but no.

Either this one or LGA 1150 socket with a G3258 or similar. I chose the A8-6500 due to it being a quad core, and the G3258 really needs to be OC'd to be priceworthy IMO. And I don't plan on OC'ing. The A8 got some power saving feature that looks interesting. What do you think?

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD A8-6500 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor 68.20€
CPU Cooler: RAIJINTEK ZELOS 41.0 CFM Fluid Dynamic Bearing CPU Cooler 23.10€
Motherboard: Asus A88XM-E Micro ATX FM2+ Motherboard 66.80€
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws Series 4GB (1 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory 40.30€
SSD: Kingston SSDNow V300 Series 120GB 2.5" Solid State Drive 66.30€
HDD: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive 55.50€
Case: Zalman ZM-T3 MicroATX Mini Tower Case 28.70€
Power Supply: Corsair VS 350W ATX Power Supply 44.10€
Optical Drive: Lite-On iHAS124-14 DVD/CD Writer 17.90€
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8.1 (OEM) (64-bit) 98€
Case Fan: NoiseBlocker NB-BlackSilentFan XL-1 40.6 CFM 120mm Fan 9.30€

Total: 518,20 €

Just be carefull with the SSD, Kingston did a bait & switch on the SSDNow, TBH i would look at getting a different SSD if you can

 

[Feronix]

Is your father a tech savvy person that would realize that he needs new folders to store images/music/video and install software to the harddrive? Otherwise you might be better off with an SSHD or a cahching solution.

Also, I have built family members €300 computer with the cheapest Haswell i3 (still hyperthreaded dual core with HD 4400 graphics), Fractal Core 1000, Caviar Blue, 4GB 1600MHz RAM and the VS350. Maybe a nice idea to have a look at that, unless he needs the APU for light gaming. The i3s run very cool and really don't need aftermarket cooling either. I always set the bios settings for CPU fan to silent and they're great

 

[Highlander89]

Just be carefull with the SSD, Kingston did a bait & switch on the SSDNow, TBH i would look at getting a different SSD if you can

Is your father a tech savvy person that would realize that he needs new folders to store images/music/video and install software to the harddrive? Otherwise you might be better off with an SSHD or a cahching solution.

Also, I have built family members €300 computer with the cheapest Haswell i3 (still hyperthreaded dual core with HD 4400 graphics), Fractal Core 1000, Caviar Blue, 4GB 1600MHz RAM and the VS350. Maybe a nice idea to have a look at that, unless he needs the APU for light gaming. The i3s run very cool and really don't need aftermarket cooling either. I always set the bios settings for CPU fan to silent and they're great

Hmm, well let's scrap the SSD. And no, my father is not very techy at all. He likes to look at cars, that's about it .

Gave it another shot with an SSHD and a i3:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i3-4130 3.4GHz Dual-Core Processor 126.20€
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-H81M-HD3 Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard 63.00€
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LP 4GB (1 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory 45.40€
Storage: Seagate Momentus XT 500GB 2.5" 7200RPM Hybrid Internal Hard Drive 84.70€
Case: Zalman ZM-T3 MicroATX Mini Tower Case 28.70€
Power Supply: Corsair VS 350W ATX Power Supply 44.10€
Optical Drive: Lite-On iHAS124-14 DVD/CD Writer 17.90€
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8.1 (OEM) (64-bit) 98€
Case Fan: NoiseBlocker NB-BlackSilentFan XL-1 40.6 CFM 120mm Fan 9.30€

Total: 517.30€

 

[Feronix]

Oh wow, everything is so much more expensive in Finland The Haswell i3s are all in the €90 range here. Oh well, looks like a very solid build and plenty of room for upgrades!

 

[Doomslayer]

Hmm, well let's scrap the SSD. And no, my father is not very techy at all. He likes to look at cars, that's about it .

Gave it another shot with an SSHD and a i3:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i3-4130 3.4GHz Dual-Core Processor 126.20€
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-H81M-HD3 Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard 63.00€
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LP 4GB (1 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory 45.40€
Storage: Seagate Momentus XT 500GB 2.5" 7200RPM Hybrid Internal Hard Drive 84.70€
Case: Zalman ZM-T3 MicroATX Mini Tower Case 28.70€
Power Supply: Corsair VS 350W ATX Power Supply 44.10€
Optical Drive: Lite-On iHAS124-14 DVD/CD Writer 17.90€
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8.1 (OEM) (64-bit) 98€
Case Fan: NoiseBlocker NB-BlackSilentFan XL-1 40.6 CFM 120mm Fan 9.30€

Total: 517.30€

Also with the case you could do a bit better IMO swap the case over to a Fractal Core 1000 or Fractal Core 1100 or even Fractal Design Core 1300 there around the same price as the Zalman, Just my 2 cents worth

 

[barnsley]

If you're after reliability, Kingston's SSDnow are very good. We use them almost exclusively at my work for our PCs (~100 of them) and the failure rate has dropped off from what it used to be. They're not fast, but I do trust them.

 

[Doomslayer]

If you're after reliability, Kingston's SSDnow are very good. We use them almost exclusively at my work for our PCs (~100 of them) and the failure rate has dropped off from what it used to be. They're not fast, but I do trust them.

From what i heard about the SSDNow that Kingston did a bait and switch on the controllers.

 

[Highlander89]

Oh wow, everything is so much more expensive in Finland The Haswell i3s are all in the €90 range here. Oh well, looks like a very solid build and plenty of room for upgrades!

HA! Finland expensive? Preposterous! It's only the most expensive country in europe (except norway)

As for the i3, I could switch it to a Pentium G3440. It's 100Mhz slower and no hyper threading but it's only 80€ -.-

Also with the case you could do a bit better IMO swap the case over to a Fractal Core 1000 or Fractal Core 1100 or even Fractal Design Core 1300 there around the same price as the Zalman, Just my 2 cents worth

Yeah Ffractals are good. Although they are 25€ more expensive here, and the computer will be hidden away in a cupboard anyway.

But with the G3440 and the Fractal Core 1000 the cost would be just under 500€. Giving me a 50€ for a job well done

Cheers for the replies!

 

[Feronix]

Aye, do keep in mind the Pentium will also have generic 'Intel HD Graphics' rather than 'HD 4400' but if it's just for browsing either will be fine!

 

[barnsley]

From what i heard about the SSDNow that Kingston did a bait and switch on the controllers.

. This article covers it pretty well . The reason why I still would buy SSDNow from Kingston is that they're cheap but reliable. We used to have mostly Corsair Force/Force LS SSDs but they tend to die after a year and a half of reasonable usage. To be fair to them, they were quite early SSDs.

Kingston stuff has always worked for me. Never the fastest but you can trust it.