Custom PC build - is this spec ok or can you do better for the dollar?

[DanielJames]

Spec as follows:

Corsair 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 1600MHz/PC3-12800 XMS3 i5 Memory Kit CL9(9-9-9-24) 1.65V -£38
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/173122

AMD Phenom II X4 840 Socket AM3 3.2GHz 2MB Cache Retail Boxed Processor - £76
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/257236

Hitachi 2TB 3.5" Deskstar Coolspin SATA-III 6GB/s Hard Drive - 5900rpm 32MB Cache - HDS5C3020ALA632 £50
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/254429

Asus M4A78LT-M Socket AM3 AMD SB710 DVI VGA HDMI 8 Channel Audio mATX Motherboard £45
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/200981

Western Digital WD10EARS 1TB Hard Drive SATAII 5400rpm 64MB Cache - OEM Caviar Green £38
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/182435

Edimax Wireless-N150 Mini USB Adapter £9
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/167337

Coolermaster Elite 430 All Black Case With Elite 500W PSU £55
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/235611

Total is about £320 delivered, Pc will be used for internet browsing, video, photoshop etc.

I will be buying a video card later on but I don't intend to do any gaming on the machine.

Can I do better for the money?

Dan

 

[iain187]

I've got a very similar PC... same processor, similar mobo and ram... I had the rest of the bits. You'll be fine

 

[Darren S]

Do you have a specific require for mATX, m8? Is it just space consideration?

The onboard Radeon 3000 will really be pushed if you're doing heavy usage of Photoshop, etc. But as you say, if you're planning on getting a better gfx card at a later date, then that should be fine. Just be wary of the capability of the 500w within the case. It might not be up to the job of providing juice for a decent gfx card, so consider a swap-out for that too.

D.

 

[Steven103]

The CM "Elite Power" is AFAIK a rebranded "Extreme Power Duo." To be fair these were the best budget/cheapy solutions available. They're nosiy and need updating (I see they've been discontinued actually!) but they provide decent power (none of this 12v +- 1.0 or being 200w over-rated) have a decent range of connectors and if you get the latest revision then they have PFC (which means if the PSU blows up everything else is safe. Few other cheap PSUs have this) The price, especially since you get a CM case with it is also very good. FYI the 430w and 460w versions of this PSU are probably best avoided, but the 500w to 650w versions always did fine.

Hard drive is 5900 RPM (lolwut, they've made up their own speed?) which is rather slow but I guess you were attracted by the £ per GB which you won't beat. Of course a Samsung F3, for example, will be more reliable and much faster (the F3 is actually the fastest "normal" HDD on the market and also the cheapest of the proper brands) but 2TB for £50 really is very good...

Also the case is a mid tower, so you have the option of an ATX motherboard but tbh virtually all the MOBOs in that price range are mATX anyway.



They're the only things that jump out, in terms of out-the-box performance at that price & for what you have planned I don't think you could do substantially better.

 

[DanielJames]

Thanks for the replies! I will be doing a lot of extracting/writing to DVDs so would I see the benefit from 7200rpm over 5400rpm?

 

[Steven103]

No because reading/writing DVDs is about a million* times slower than reading/writing your hard drive. Even if you had an SSD the data would still come off the DVD at the same speed. The only useful thing there is to say about optical drives for the average user is that the budgets ones are really nosiy compared to say a Samsung. In the middle of watching something and you suddenly hear VVVVRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR as it decides to buffer the next few minutes.

*completely made up number alert.



For a browsing/video/PS budget build that really does look like a very good set of choices. There is nothing that can be substantially improved without a sizeable amount of money IMO. All the comments I can think of are very minor (e.g. you'll have to set the speed of the memory manually to get the full 1600MHz on that MOBO, but the MOBO is rated to take that speed so really who cares if you have to spend 20 seconds adjusting one setting [which you can always ask for help doing, or even not bother for the sake of a tiny tiny bit of performance])

I tend to ramble when it comes to computers :/

 

[Darren S]

As Steven said - the optical drives are the weakest link. Legacy technology that's cheap - so people just put up with it.

I'd always go for 7.2k drives myself over 5.4k, however.

D.

 

[Wilkeh]

Do you really need 3TB's of storage? I'd look into a SSD drive

 

[Dink]

The CM "Elite Power" is AFAIK a rebranded "Extreme Power Duo." To be fair these were the best budget/cheapy solutions available. They're nosiy and need updating (I see they've been discontinued actually!) but they provide decent power (none of this 12v +- 1.0 or being 200w over-rated) have a decent range of connectors and if you get the latest revision then they have PFC (which means if the PSU blows up everything else is safe. Few other cheap PSUs have this) The price, especially since you get a CM case with it is also very good. FYI the 430w and 460w versions of this PSU are probably best avoided, but the 500w to 650w versions always did fine.

Hard drive is 5900 RPM (lolwut, they've made up their own speed?) which is rather slow but I guess you were attracted by the £ per GB which you won't beat. Of course a Samsung F3, for example, will be more reliable and much faster (the F3 is actually the fastest "normal" HDD on the market and also the cheapest of the proper brands) but 2TB for £50 really is very good...

Also the case is a mid tower, so you have the option of an ATX motherboard but tbh virtually all the MOBOs in that price range are mATX anyway.



They're the only things that jump out, in terms of out-the-box performance at that price & for what you have planned I don't think you could do substantially better.

for a start PFC stands for power factor correction which only help out electricity companys

also 5900rpm isnt made up it's picked because of trade off between power useage and data throughput (nearer 7200 throughput with near 5400 power useage)

 

[Steven103]

Do you really need 3TB's of storage? I'd look into a SSD drive

This is a budget build, so slapping an extra £50 on for an SSD doesn't really make sense. I do however agree that 3 TB sounds excessive. What's more is 1TB (Bill Oddie Edition) + 2TB (compromise edition) doesn't seem an ideal way around to do things in terms of performance, it's a setup more akin to power concious users?

for a start PFC stands for power factor correction which only help out electricity companys

also 5900rpm isnt made up it's picked because of trade off between power useage and data throughput (nearer 7200 throughput with near 5400 power useage)

Fair enough wrong words, right sentance as I believe those PSUs also have over voltage protection. I thought PFC went two ways as, with a bad PF, you could be drawing more current than your home's errr power infrastructure (struggling for the right words lol) can take?

Obviously thought goes into it, it's not an established standard like 5400, 7200, 10k, 15k are, isn't it just Seagate & Hitatchi doing 5900 RPM? If it's throughput & seek times (i.e. general every day performance) you're after then there is still no substitue for a 7200 RPM drive (talking mainstream drives here) with a big platter. If you want to be particularly economical then great, but if this is supposed to be an ecobuild then it doesn't look like one.



Q for OP, what is the second hard drive for? Manual backup? having the view of 1 TB + 2 TB = 3 TB? OS and data drives? I think this is the point where too much thought is being put in to things that ultimately don't make a massive difference.

 

[DanielJames]

Q for OP, what is the second hard drive for? Manual backup? having the view of 1 TB + 2 TB = 3 TB? OS and data drives? I think this is the point where too much thought is being put in to things that ultimately don't make a massive difference.

The 1TB hdd will be for OS and downloads etc... the 2tb is going to be used just as a data store (currently have about 1.5tbs worth so it is required)

Dan