Budget PC

[petrow]

Hello,

After buying my own gaming PC my dad ha asked if I can sort him out a new one. Max budget £500. I threw this one together quickly. I went AMD to save a little cash. He will use it for word, excel, we browsing and photo/video editing. He generally always uses PC World (I know, I know) but I have banned him from that now. Either way a PCS PC will be a hell of a lot better than a "store" bought one. Any tips or advice will be great.

I must stress the budget though. Unless I pay an extra £100 as a present. So if anyone has the time to make a £500 and a £600 option would be great.

Cheers!


Case
COOLERMASTER ELITE 310 BLUE CASE
Processor (CPU)
AMD PHENOM II X4 955 (3.20GHz/8MB CACHE/AM3) - BLACK EDITION
Motherboard
ASUS® M5A87: AM3+ PLATFORM, DUAL DDR3,SATA 6.0GB/s, USB 3.0
Memory (RAM)
4GB SAMSUNG DDR3 DUAL-DDR3 1333MHz (2 X 2GB)
Graphics Card
1GB AMD RADEON™ HD6450 - DVI,HDMI,VGA - DX® 11
Free Item
FREE Total War Shogun™ 2 with any AMD® Radeon™ Graphics card!
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
500GB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD5002AALX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 32MB CACHE (7200rpm)
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
Memory Card Reader
INTERNAL 52 IN 1 CARD READER (XD, MS, CF, SD, etc) + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT
Power Supply
450W Quiet 80 PLUS Dual Rail PSU + 120mm Case Fan (£29)
Processor Cooling
STANDARD AMD CPU COOLER
Sound Card
ONBOARD 8 CHANNEL (7.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Facilities
ONBOARD 10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT - AS STANDARD ON ALL PCs
USB Options
6 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL (MIN 2 FRONT PORTS) AS STANDARD
Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£79)
Office Software
FREE Microsoft® Office Starter 2010 (Limited functionality Word & Excel)
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£5)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 10 to 12 working days
Quantity
1

Price: £505.00 including VAT and delivery.

Configure Here: http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/computers/amd-top-spec-pc/

 

[Wozza63]

if you can, get a gt440, nVidia cards usually require less power, so it may give you the option to downgrade PSU

seeing as you are on a very tight budget you can remove the memory card reader if you do not need it, most devices with a memory card have a USB option and he can use that instead, its only a fiver but may be crucial

this is actually a solid PC for the price and should be ok, its just the graphics card that worries me, im not too good with lower end graphics cards, but i prefer nVidia due to less power required

unless you cant stand the look of the cheaper cases you can always get the £14 one or the £29 one, they should be ok

 

[stegor]

if you can, get a gt440, nVidia cards usually require less power, so it may give you the option to downgrade PSU

seeing as you are on a very tight budget you can remove the memory card reader if you do not need it, most devices with a memory card have a USB option and he can use that instead, its only a fiver but may be crucial

this is actually a solid PC for the price and should be ok, its just the graphics card that worries me, im not too good with lower end graphics cards, but i prefer nVidia due to less power required

unless you cant stand the look of the cheaper cases you can always get the £14 one or the £29 one, they should be ok

Mmmm, not sure that's the case with these 2 cards....
http://forums.atomicmpc.com.au/index.php?showtopic=264
....if you can find them!

 

[mantadog]

How much photo and video editing are we talking here. Just the holiday photos or is he really into it?

If your looking to spend £500 then your spec should do fine.

It might be worth going along the intel route with their integrated graphics, which you could get for £519. The processors are a generation ahead of AMD's current offering and are MUCH faster.

I bought my pc with only integrated graphics, fully intending to buy a seperate GPU and slot it in myself. I have had my pc about 6 months now and still havnt got round to getting hold of one yet. Im not gaming or anything but for day to day uses i have found the integrted graphics to be perfect for what i need - i.e not alot.

So buy buying intel with integrated graphics you save money on a seperate graphics card and get a processor that is as much as 50% quicker, which can be upgraded with a stand alone GPU, providing you buy a slightly bigger power supply than you need when buying your pc, if and when you need one. Or you can ad something like the gt440 mentioned above and stick within the £600 limit right now.

 

[petrow]

Thanks for the replies people much appreciated. He does some
Photo editing but only an occasional hobby. It will be a multiple purpose PC rather than a dedicated gaming or CAD machine etc.

I may push the budget to £600 and pay the extra for him. I'll have to do a bit more playing with the builder.

 

[DeadEyeDuk]

I'll have to do a bit more playing with the builder.

Which as we all know (on here), that that is the most fun bit

 

[-SyLar-]

i have a similar budget so will pose a question

question: if i will never use my computer to play games should i just opt for the integrated graphics as opposed to a gpu? or if it is within my budget should i get a gpu just for future proofing persay?