Building a desktop pc

[Nihilisaurus]

So I'm building a new desktop PC, as my old one died shortly before I started university this year. I'm trying to spend about £300 and what I need at this point is advice on what I've chosen thus far, and where I can find a decent value power supply to feed it all. OS & Case are taken care of, the case may not be brand new but it's served me fine with the previous components in and I'm using the same form factor. Ventilation is fine, old components ran at a very nice temperature, even if they didn't get cleaned as often as they'd have liked. I'm not planning on Overclocking this rig, next upgrade will probably involve quite a few part switchovers and probably not happen for a decent timespan unless there's a big jump in game requirements for multi-platform games when the next console generation shows up.

 

Build thus far:

 

Asus P8H61-MX £43.17

 

Intel Core I3 2120 £88.66

 

Western digital WD1001FALS 1TB SATA Hard drive £44.99

 

Samsung DVD RW drive (already own)

 

1 x 4GB 1333Mhz Corsair DDR3 £14.99

 

MSI AMD Radeon HD 7750 2048MB GDDR3 £72.98

 

 

 

 

Total: £264.79

 

 

 

 

PSU under consideration:

 

OCZ OCZ-CXS500W-UK CoreXStream Series 500W (£32)

 

 

 

 

Total w/considered PSU £296.94

 

I could stretch this budget a bit further if one of the components is known to be unreliable, or scale down something if I really need to. Thanks for reading.

 

 

[Erik005]

It looks good for a standard game pc.

 

But I have my doubts about the graphics card, why is it GDDR3? Just get a normal 1gb GDDR5 version. It looks like they used a larger amount of cheaper and slower memory to get a better sales pitch.

 

500W will be overkill for this pc a good 350watt PSU will be better (still overkill though)

 

What is the price difference between the i3-2120 and the i3-3220? this might be worth the price difference.

Edited October 20, 2012 by Erik005

[Nihilisaurus]

I've been looking for stock ATI cards but nowhere seems to sell them, everywhere I look I see aftermarket cards like that one. Nowhere seems to sell them, the only place I've seen a 7750 with the 1 gig of GDDR5 is amazon where they want something like £125 for it. I'd quite like to have a smaller amount of faster VRAM but if the price for it is the same as the hard drive I'll compromise on the larger, slower amount. I used to have an HIS version of the 4670 that had a gig of slower memory instead of the fast 512 the originals came with and it was enough to run new Vegas on almost maximum settings (everything full except 4x AA not 8x). I may be able to get one second hand (unused) but although I'm happy to assemble the machine myself I'd like the warranty someone like novatech offers with the 3 year warranty for part failure.

 

The difference between the 2120 and 3220 is the generation, same nm architecture, clock speed, cache size, integrated graphics capabilities, the lot.

 

What PSU would you recommend?

 

 

[Erik005]

I know the difference between the two I meant that the 3220 is faster and here in the Netherlands is only 5 euros more expensive.

 

I see your problem they only have GDDR3 versions on site site you mentioned

[Nihilisaurus]

I looked a bunch of places and couldn't find a stock HD 7750 (or just a 7750 with GDDR5 on) anywhere for a price that wasn't heavily inflated. The i3 3220 seems to be a bit more than 5 euros more expensive when I look around too, though thanks for suggesting it.

 

If those two aren't much of a stumbling block I guess I'm just looking for a decent PSU that doesn't cost a ridiculous amount. You said a decent 350W would be capable of handling the system easily, are there any brands you stick with/avoid? I had a moderately fancy (ocz fatal1ty) OCZ 550 watt in my last rig but I've no brand loyalty so long as the product works reliably.

[edit] Thinking about a Corsair 430W CX Builder Series, for the price (£36) it seems really damn good.

Edited October 21, 2012 by Lt Albrecht