PC build for £500 or less

Kage

Golden Master
Messages
13,873
Hey all,

I've been asked to build a PC for a mate at work, but struggling to think of parts. Its a while since I've done research, but I'm not sure on where to fall for the price range, etc.
While I would find it easier to build a top of the range PC. One to fit in a budget, I find particular hard to think of.

Hes asking around £400-500 at the most for the components, and case.
He doesn't need a monitor, or a keyboard/mouse.

He wants it to be upgradeable (so with newish parts), but doesn't need that powerful of a graphics card since he has consoles he uses, but may branch out at some point.

He will mostly be using it for internet usage, listening to music, Photoshop, etc.

So not sure wheather to go with an I branded Intel for example, and go that route to keep with the times, or for example to go with an AMD X2-X4.

My suggestion would be to go with a quad to keep it future proofed, as that is the way I think, but I'm not sure with this.

Any suggestions will be welcome
 
Yeah, I was thinking of integrated graphics to start off with, but those never exactly give the best performance, especially if he'll be watching a lot of videos for example straight onto a TV (I forgot to mention that)
 
ill just get adding all the pieces together then post it back and with the price just for the time being, so then people can alter and make it better/ worth the money if wanted

hers a list I quickly did in about 5 mins, feel free to change/ add anything extras - you lot probably can find betetr and more ideal parts than I have ;)

Total for £380

case - Shiny Black Mid Tower Case 120mm fan - http://www.ebuyer.com/product/160914
mobo - Gigabyte GA-MA785GMT-UD2H 785G Socket AM3 MATX Motherboard - http://www.ebuyer.com/product/170230
cpu - AMD Phenom II X2 545 3GHz - http://www.ebuyer.com/product/168972
ram - OCZ 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 1600MHz/PC3-12800 Obsidian i5 Memory Kit 1.65V CL9(9-9-9-24) - http://www.ebuyer.com/product/173933
gpu - Sapphire HD 5670 512MB HyperMemory GDDR5 HDMI DVI VGA PCI-E Graphics Card - http://www.ebuyer.com/product/190139
psu - Huntkey Titan 650W 12cm Fan PSU - 4x SATA 2x PCI-E - http://www.ebuyer.com/product/176436
 
Here's a suggestion:

ASUS M4A785T-M 785G Socket AM3

AMD Phenom II 550 3.1GHz 6MB L2 Cache Socket AM3

Kingston 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 1066MHz

Coolermaster Elite 330 Case With Coolermaster eXtreme Power 460W PSU

Western Digital WD6400AAKS 640GB Hard Drive SATAII

LiteOn IHAS124-19 24x DVD±RW SATA

Total inc vat: £330.98

It has onboard graphics which is fine for watching videos, surfing the web, etc. It is fully upgradeable if he decides he needs a more powerful CPU, graphics card and more memory.
 
Thanks you two! :D

Any reason to go for an Athlon II X2, rather than the Phenom II X2 Madanchi's posted? What are the differences between them?

Seeing as he is a novice computer user, I'm wondering whether to put 2 drives in a RAID 1 in case backing up proves an issue.

The only reason I'm saying this, is because I've got yet another hard drive failing on me now. Its started blue screening since the power cut we got a few days back :( I will have to check the memory though also...

That GPU, madanchi, what would that be expected to play? More than most integrated?

Thanks for all the info. I'll get scowering and picking out soon :)

I think AMD is definitely the best choice for a budget build, and 4GB's of memory seems about right to me.
 
Coolermaster Elite 330 Case
550W Corsair CMPSU-550VXUK PSU
Gigabyte GA-890GPA-UD3H Motherboard
AMD Phenom II X4 955 BlackEdition CPU
4GB (2x2GB) Corsair XMS3 DDR3 PC3-12800 (1600) RAM
640 GB Western Digital WD6400AAKS Caviar Blue Hard drive
Sony AD-7240S-0B Optical Drive Optical Drive

About £500.

The case is cheap but the bottom line is that it will hold everything in the list. The motherboard is great! The integrated HD 4290 isn't the most powerful but it's fine for Photoshop stuff and has HD 1080P support, supports the 6 core AMD's and it's a great OC'er too. 550W PSU which will support the GPU upgrade later, fast 4GB RAM, with 640GB HD and Optical drive. I'd say 'not a bad rig' for a monkey!
 
Same cpu as mine ^^ ad my cpu plays and runs everything smooth as silk, programs load lightening fast etc

well, the difference between the onbaord gpu is that, well, most seperate cards will always be better than onbaord anyway, the card I put will play most games pretty high - differs on resoltuions tho

for what he wants, I'd say add the gpu I gave (if he wants to do gaming) and add it to Atomic Rooster's list, (im also looking at price wise when gpu is added rather than onboard alone)
 
i might add that everything is good from what i see but a ati 5670 or nvidia 240gt will do the trick for graphics and there cheap enough too. plus the video cards all have vga, dvi, and hdmi on them even tho ASUS M4A785T-M 785G does have this all on board, they won't run as nice as the video card would, plus these cards are good for gaming if he wanted to. IMHO
 
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