Help with basic new build

tritium

Hi folks

I'm looking to upgrade my desktop to something a bit more modern. I built the current one 6 or 7 years ago so I guess most of the parts are redundant now but if I can re-cycle parts all the better. Funds are tight for now so I'm hoping to spend €300 ish on a basic build that I have room to modify upwards as I can afford to. This is a spec I've cobbled together for now

As rock H77 pro4 MVP socket 1155 atx
Intel celeron G530 lga1155
8gb pc3 12800u corsair vengeance cl9
Super flower amazon 80plus 450w
Seagate barracuda 7200 1tb sata3 drive

(sorry I can't get the hardwareversand form to imbed)

Thoughts on the above would be welcome. A couple of more questions:

I have an old hiper 425w power supply- could I use that in the short term or would that be crazy. I also have a hard drive from the old machine but it's not sata - is this useless now (sorry if it's a dumb question, it's been a while since I did this last)

Will the spec above allow me to upgrade with higher end parts as I go- longer term I'd like to go i5 and decent graphics card with decent sata drive

And I'm assuming an old case should be fine

I'm ok for monitor, key board and mouse etc. This is really a project for me as much as anything else and to also allow me to do reasonably heavy photoshop and a bit of light gaming (though I know it will be limited initially here)

Any feedback greatly appreciated

Procrastastudy

I would suggest, given the amount of time you keep hardware, you invest in a Z77 board. When you can afford an i5-2500K or 3570K you'll be able to extend the life of it by over-clocking. At the very least, to save a tenner, look at the Z75 chip set boards.

I see more and more people specing the faster RAM - given how cheap it is that probably not a bad idea and it looks cool! I just had the gskill in my basket already - its a bit cheaper and will do the job just as well.

I've included a DVD drive as if your hard disc is IDE your optical probably is as well. Quite a lot of people are foregoing these completely these days though.

As for the PSU I have no idea about the one you have someone else would be better placed to advise you on that. I've left it out. One word of warning though. GPUs need power directly from the PSU these days. You normally get converters in the box of the GPU but just check you have all / enough headers on your current PSU if you are going to reuse it.

If you are going to reuse your case makes sure you give it a damn good clean and get all the gunk out of the fans.


Item|Price
LG GH22NS50/70/90 bare schwarz|€17.78
8GB-Kit G.Skill PC3-10667U CL9|€36.44
Intel Celeron G530 Box, LGA1155|€37.56
Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 1TB SATA 3 6GB/s|€74.42
ASRock Z77 Pro3, Sockel 1155, ATX|€90.77
Shipping|€18.99
Total|€275.96

I think this gives you a good base. Fire in a second hand i5-2500K when they start selling on adverts. User the integrated GPU until you can afford to get yourself something with a bit more guts. Another thing thats changed in the last 6 years is it's worth putting in a Solid State Drive (SSD) for Windows and applications - it really speeds up the feel of the machine.

One thing you could do, is go for a 128Mb SSD instead of the hard disc and see about getting an adapter or external caddy for your current hard drive. I use a cheap USB plastic yoke I got for €20 that will take any HDD sata or IDE.

tritium

Thanks for that! The SSD is something I hadn't considered but I've plenty of external space so maybe that would be the way to go! Your point on the case is well made- I opened it yesterday to find a lot of gunk accumulates over time Ah well, guess the first thing is to make an honest appraisal of what can be reused....