Hello everyone, Im driving myself insane looking at different CPU/MOBO combos for Intel and AMD. I have been out the game for a while and i was hoping for a bit of help from you kind people. This is a basic build for my parents to use as their new home machine. I'm hoping it will last them at least 5-6 years. Budget: £350-400 Main uses of intended build: Google sketch up, word processing, web browsing, Skype, light photo work, general old people stuff. Parts required: Everything including OS Monitor resolution: 1440x900 Storage requirements: I'd say at least 500GB, maybe a small SSD? Will you be over clocking: Probably not Any motherboard requirements (no. of USB, Xfire/SLI, fan headers): WiFi would be a plus Extra information about desired system: No peripherals needed. Would preferably be Mini-ITX or Micro-ITX. Any help would be greatly appreciated!
When I built my folks their last rig in 2011 (I think), I put together a mATX Pentium Dual Core build with a 128GB SSD and a Radeon HD5450, housed in a Silverstone FT03. That all came in at around the budget you're looking at. Remember, being older folks they're lass likely to be concerned with the inside (and possibly the outside) of the rig, but my mum was well chuffed it wasn't just another beige/black box sat on her desk.
Thanks for the response! What are your thoughts on AMD, and in particular the 8320? I must confess to never building an AMD rig before but from what I've read AMD might be the way to go for lower end builds. Yes the aesthetics are not a big concern as my folks will not appreciate them! I was thinking maybe the Fractal Design Core 1000 Series Micro ATX Case? Only £26 on Amazon.
If building a PC for my folks I would have a look at AMDs Kaveri released in Jan. Just so I would be able to game on it when i went to see them. I don't think the CPU/mobo is going to be much of an issue as everything seems plenty fast enough. 120gb SSD for about £60 will make it seem fast. 4gb ram. Cheapest 1155 setup i could find:- £40 1155 mitx mobo £30 1155 celeron Definately weigh up the AMD alternative. 5400k is about £40and motherboards (not sure on compatability and there will be some old chipsets) should start at about £35 for a m-atx. tdp is 45 vs 55w; amd will I'm pretty sure have better graphics.
Fractal Design Core 1000 MicroATX Case - £25.60 Kingston 8GB 1600MHz DDR3 Non-ECC CL10 DIMM HyperX Blu Red Series - £56.42 AMD FX-8320 3.5GHz Socket AM3+ 16MB Cache Retail Boxed Processor - £113.00 Asus M5A78L-M/USB3 AMD Socket AM3+ 8 Channel HD Audio mATX Motherboard - £53.73 Kingston 60GB SSDNow V300 SSD SATA Rev. 3.0 / 2.5 - £49.08 be quiet! PURE POWER L8 400W - £35.02 Samsung 500GB Spinpoint M8 Hard Drive - 2.5" SATA-II - 5400RPM 8MB Cache - £35.99 Microsoft Windows 8.1 DVD OEM- 64- Bit - £72.98 LG Optical Drive - £13.49 Total - £455.31 (All parts from ebuyers) Would this be a suitable build? Any changes i should make? Definitely overkill for my parents needs but I'm looking at longevity here.
You might want to spec a better cooler there, because as I understand it, the AMD FX chips have a tendency to get a bit on the warm side. I'd take a second opinion on that though, 'cos recent AMD CPUs are not my strong suit.
Do you need to get a monitor within that? If not, this seems reasonable at £415. I went for an SSD and a 2tb, and 8gb of RAM... http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/2ebNn
