Suggested Builds for September/October 2012

Squarewave

I was thinking while daydreaming in work today that it would be a good idea to make a thread for pc builds of varying budgets and for different purposes (e.g. gaming, office, htpc, etc.), kind of as a reference point for anyone building a pc - so they can get an idea of what kind of budget they need and what they can get for their money. It can then be updated every month or 2 or whenever prices drop/ new products hit the market.

Anyway a few notes before I start:

BEGIN NOTES
-I've tried to use products or brands that either I have experience with myself or that I've seen recommended on this forum so you can be confident that all the products will be of high quality and won't blow up in your face, probably.
-Cases are pretty much down to your own tastes and budget - the ones I've mentioned here are ones I know and trust, there are cheaper ones out there.
-For this series of builds I've tried to make all the components as inclusively interchangeable as possible, i.e. all the cpus and motherboards will work with each other, as will ram, cases (well, except for the Atx mobo and the mAtx case obviously) , etc. So you can pretty much pick and mix components.
-I'm only including core components so no peripherals, monitors, OSs, fans, cpu coolers, flashy lights, etc
-I'm not a professional, I'm only doing this because I'm bored - if you're going to follow one of these builds then it's best to start a new thread using this format and get someone to double-check that it'll suit your needs
END NOTES


€200 - €250- Office work, internet browsing, multimedia
Item|Price
FRACTAL DESIGN Gehäuse Core 1000 black|€35.10
Antec BasiQ VP350|€34.55
ASRock H61M-S (B3), Sockel 1155, mATX|€40.46
Intel Celeron Dual-Core G550 Box, LGA1155|€38.74
4GB G.Skill PC3-10667U CL9|€14.64
Seagate Barracuda 7200 500GB SATA 6GB's|€55.64
Shipping|€18.99
Total|€238.12

Pros: Apart from being cheap -
-1 DIMM slot free for future ram ugrades
-Has one PCIe x16 slot so a graphics card can be thrown in for gaming, the cpu might struggle with some games though HOWEVER..
-..the LGA115 socket means you can put in an sandybridge or ivybridge core cpu at a later stage for a serious boost in processing power.

Cons:
-No USB 3.0, sata 3, or pcie 3.0 support - mightn't be a problem if you're building a computer for your parents on a tight budget or for some light office work. however if you think you might throw in an SSD or use an external hd then sata and usb 3.0 would add a big benefit to read/write speed.
-No overclocking with the cpu or motherboard.

I wouldn't recommend that build unless you are on a really tight budget.
The build I'd recommend is more like this:

€250 - €300- Office work, internet browsing, multimedia
Item|Price
FRACTAL DESIGN Gehäuse Core 1000 black|€35.10
Antec BasiQ VP350|€34.55
4GB G.Skill PC3-10667U CL9|€14.64
Seagate Barracuda 7200 500GB SATA 6GB's|€55.64
ASRock B75M-GL, Sockel 1155, mATX|€52.47
Intel Pentium G850 Box, LGA1155|€60.00
Shipping|€18.99
Total|€271.39

Pros: Same as above, however:
-Has usb 3.0 , sata 3 and pcie 3.0 (cpu only supports 2.0 though) ports
-Better cpu
-More pcie ports

Cons:
-No overclocking with the cpu or motherboard.
-Only one sata 3 port.

If you're looking for a build with more upgrading options and future-proofing I'd go with:

€300 - €350 - - Office work, internet browsing, multimedia
Item|Price
ASRock Z77 Pro3, Sockel 1155, ATX|€86.09
Super-Flower Amazon 80Plus 450W|€42.14
BitFenix Merc Beta|€32.10
4GB G.Skill PC3-10667U CL9|€14.64
Seagate Barracuda 7200 500GB SATA 6GB's|€55.64
Intel Pentium G850 Box, LGA1155|€60.00
Shipping|€18.99
Total|€309.60

Pros
-You could throw in a SB/IB Core cpu, another 4gb stick of ram and a graphics card and have a very decent gaming build.
-More powerful psu - will give plenty of headroom for upgrades
-Lots more dimm slots, pcie slots, usb ports, etc
-Bigger case and motherboard - more room for cpu cooler, gpu, etc

Cons
-You're not going to see any performance boost over the previous build, the only advantage is having more upgrade options.

Anyway, that's all for now - I figure that there's not much point getting into low budget gaming builds until AMD drops their trinity APUs next week(?)

I'll try to do up some HTPC or Intel gaming builds tomorrow, if anybody wants to add their own builds or suggestions feel free!

Sweet zombie jesus, I'm bored..

JackieChan

I was gonna advise you to swap the MB for the ASRock H61M-HVS but I see HWVS are not stocking it anymore. I wouldn't mind it was listed on their site over the weekend as I was planning to use it for a cheap as chips build.

szines

Hi Lads,

I am thinking on this conf. What do you think? Could you suggest other website where I would get cheaper maybe? Actual prices from dabs.ie.

Corsair Memory Special Edition White Graphite Series 600T Mid-Tower Case -- €188.71
Asus P8Z77-V DELUXE S1155 Intel Z77 DDR3 ATX

---

€233.62
Intel Core i7-3770K S1155 3.5GHz 8MB

---

€339.04
Corsair Memory TX850 V2 850W ATX Enthusiast Series

---

€113.40
Samsung 256GB 830 Series SATA 6Gb/s 2.5" Solid State Drive Desktop Kit ---- €222.53
Asus AMD Radeon 7870 HD 2GB PCI-Express 3.0 HDMI DIRECTCU II TOP

---

€288.18
Kingston 16GB (4 x 4GB) HyperX 2133MHz DDR3 Non-ECC DIMM 240-pin CL11 -- €109.99
Pioneer BDR-207DBK 12x SATA Int BD-RW Burner Black Bare

---

€74.68
Corsair Memory Cooling Hydro Series H100 High-Performance CPU Cooler

---

€87.08

All together:

---

€ 1,660.63

H100 cooler will fit in T600 case?
Do I need Drive Desktop Kit version from Samsung SSD?

Thank you very much for your help.

joconnell

That config is actually very similar to this which I got for a mate recently - http://www1.hardwareversand.de/Intel/58313/HWV+%5BX%5Dpress+Intel+i7-3770K-N680-16GB.article