Cheap first build...

[thomasdb11]

UPDATE: Better and extra pictures can be found on page 2

 

Hi y'all,

I finished this build over a year ago, mostly collecting a few second hand peaces to keep the price down. I was very proud of myself when I managed to build this good gaming system for under 300€ (ie: around US $390). After a year of use I feel that it needs an update but I'm not sure what to start with, tips and advice is always welcome. If anybody has this case, do you know what pre-filled water cooling options it might be compatible with? Here is a list of the components and specs, and I will attach a couple of photos underneath. Enjoy!

 

Bitfenix survivor core
AMD Phenom II X3 710 Processor
CPU cooler Artic Cooling Freezer 7 PRO Rev. 2
Asus M4N75TD
bequiet 600W PSU
Asus geforce GTX 460
8 gb Corsair RAM
500 gB Seagate
2tB WD caviar green
3tB WD caviar green

There is also a Asus U3S6 (USB 3.0 ans SATA 6GB/s pci-e card since my mobo didn't have those features :angry: )

 

 

 

 

 

 

BTW, My case is always dirty because of this monster who loves to sit on the top exhaust fan... :angry:

 

 

Need to get some gaming peripherals as well :P

 

 

And sorry for some of the pic quality, I had to compress some of them because they were too good a quality, ironic...

 

Anyways hope you enjoyed even if it wasn't really a build log, feel free to give me some advice on what I should start by updating and what needs improving.

Thanks! ;)

[theMrDanielPetersen]

Thats a nice budget build.

 

Why do you need it upgraded? What do you want it to do, that it doesn't?

 

Also, what is your budget for the upgrade?

[thomasdb11]

I think I might start with an SSD because it's slow on boot up and load times. Maybe just get a small capacity just for the OS and frequently used applications. My budget would be around the 200€ mark so not a big budget :)

[Nicktrance]

Yeah, SSD is a good idea, followed by GPU and CPU. You can get a Samsung 840 120GB for around 100 EUR depending on where you live.

[thomasdb11]

I live in France so I will check it out, but pc parts seem rather expensive here... Whats a decent upgrade for a GPU that cost less than 150€ from the GTX 460 OC?
Thanks

[nsyedhasan]

How's the performance?

[thomasdb11]

It's alright, but not great. For example I can't play Far Cry 3 on high settings, only on low or medium with low fps. But BF3 plays good.
And I'm having problems with either the CPU or the GPU as on occasions the video and audio is choppy, maybe somebody knows a solution to this problem? or knows what the problem is?

[Homicidium]

Looks good. The only thing that really bothers me about the Freezer Pro that it blows the air out of the top and cannot blow the air out the back on AMD sockets.

If you have the money you should upgrade to a Phenom x4 965. They're fairly cheap now and still deliver awesome bang for the buck!

[thomasdb11]

Looks good. The only thing that really bothers me about the Freezer Pro that it blows the air out of the top and cannot blow the air out the back on AMD sockets.

If you have the money you should upgrade to a Phenom x4 965. They're fairly cheap now and still deliver awesome bang for the buck!

 

Thanks man! True that is annoying but the 200mm fan is extracting the air from the CPU cooler so it's alright...

I will check that CPU out, see how much it costs.. Will it bring that much extra performance?

[Homicidium]

Absolutely! I has four cores and is overclockable since it's a black edition. 

You should be good to go with around 70€ I think

[thomasdb11]

Ok great thanks! The cheapest I found was 79€

[legopc]

about the closed cooling loop you could probebly fit a 120mm rad in the back 

[KieranThePCGuy]

Absolutely! I has four cores and is overclockable since it's a black edition. 

You should be good to go with around 70€ I think

 

 

Ok great thanks! The cheapest I found was 79€

As Homicidium has said, if you can get one of the Phenom X4's that would be a good investment. If you can get an SSD, I personally think that's where you'll notice the biggest performance increase :D Good budget rig by the way!

[thomasdb11]

As Homicidium has said, if you can get one of the Phenom X4's that would be a good investment. If you can get an SSD, I personally think that's where you'll notice the biggest performance increase :D Good budget rig by the way!

Thanks! Yeah I will see what I can do, and how much money I can get together...

If I do get Phenom X4 and OC it would it be fine on the CPU cooler I have?

 

 

about the closed cooling loop you could probebly fit a 120mm rad in the back 

 

Probably, but it seems that not many people have this case that have used a water cooling, and I understand why, this case is a real pane in the ass, crap cable management, crap clearance for a top mounted rad...

Anyways for my budget I will probably go with the CPU upgrade and the SSD upgrade to start with...

 

Also does anybody know if I would need to update my 600W PSU if I update the CPU? (I don't think so, but I'm not sure)

[FloGer]

I would go with either a new CPU or an SSD, maybe you can squeeze both into your budge. The GPU seems fine - its not a new one, but in my opinion you would get a greater benefit from a new CPU.

SSD is less for the performance in game than the general behavior of the system, so if you're looking for better game performance, the priorities would be CPU, GPU then SSD.

Cheers

[thomasdb11]

I would go with either a new CPU or an SSD, maybe you can squeeze both into your budge. The GPU seems fine - its not a new one, but in my opinion you would get a greater benefit from a new CPU.

SSD is less for the performance in game than the general behavior of the system, so if you're looking for better game performance, the priorities would be CPU, GPU then SSD.

Cheers

 

Not looking for much more gaming performance, as it's good enough for the games I play regularly. More for the general system behavior so I will be ordering a new CPU and SSD ASAP...

Thanks for all your help and input!

[legopc]

Thanks! Yeah I will see what I can do, and how much money I can get together...

If I do get Phenom X4 and OC it would it be fine on the CPU cooler I have?

 

 

 

Probably, but it seems that not many people have this case that have used a water cooling, and I understand why, this case is a real pane in the ass, crap cable management, crap clearance for a top mounted rad...

Anyways for my budget I will probably go with the CPU upgrade and the SSD upgrade to start with...

 

Also does anybody know if I would need to update my 600W PSU if I update the CPU? (I don't think so, but I'm not sure)

you dont need a new powersuply im using a 550w one with my overclocked i3 550 and an 560ti 

[thomasdb11]

you dont need a new powersuply im using a 550w one with my overclocked i3 550 and an 560ti 

 

Yeah I thought so, thanks a lot mate. (I was just looking up the difference between the two CPUs and noticed that the Phenom II X4 965 uses quite a bit more W than the Phenom II X3 710, so just wanted to check :) )

[M4XvPA1N]

The first thing I would ask is why so many hard drives??? For a budget build like that a wd black 1tb had is enough. Otherwise to better upgrade your system an ssd would do great. On top of that depending on what your socket your CPU is I would get a newer one so in the future you have the option to get a modern gpu. Other than that its a solid build but I think if you upgrade in bits and pieces you can get the most out of your system.

[thomasdb11]

The first thing I would ask is why so many hard drives??? For a budget build like that a wd black 1tb had is enough. Otherwise to better upgrade your system an ssd would do great. On top of that depending on what your socket your CPU is I would get a newer one so in the future you have the option to get a modern gpu. Other than that its a solid build but I think if you upgrade in bits and pieces you can get the most out of your system.

 

I've got a 2Tb WD green external HDD as well, why so many, well because series, films, games, photos and work ans I'm rapidly running out of space  :D. But some of them I had left over from my old PCs (one is just used to store photos that are backed up somewhere else and sounds like it is about to die but who cares it's like 6 years old :D).

Anyways what CPU do you have in mind? that is more 'modern' that is under 170€ and is compatible with my mobo (Asus M4N75TD) and for an SSD is an OCZ vertex 3 any good as its the cheapest with the most capacity (90GB)? Around 70€. Other ones I'm looking at are the Samsung 840 120GB SSD for 84€ or the SanDisk 64 GB SSD for 58€ or finally the Crucial M4 64 GB SSD for 72€. Which ones the better option concerning value for money? (Linus and others seem the raise the Samsung 840 so I was thinking on going with that one...)

Thanks!

[That Norwegian Guy]

Wow this case looks rather bad in your pictures compared to real life. Try taking the pictures in daylight next to a window without the flash.

 

Nice build though, I love seeing builds that actually use the available space! And the Survivor is my favourite case ever (though it needs some work IMO, especially air flow)

[thomasdb11]

They were good quality when I took them but they were 4 MB so had to compress them making them look crap. I will upload a few more pictures with good lighting some time tonight, but the case was second hand so not great looking. Will clean it up a bit a take a few more. It is a good case however it does have a few problems one of them being airflow and the other cable management, was planning on putting a window in but it might destroy the clean looks of the case.

[stufyal]

i can't really help you seeing as i'm not really the best with finding the best price to performance parts (i realised i spent about $300 more then i needed to on my pc) but i was just wondering what speakers and amp you use cause im currently searching for a good speaker setup :D

[thomasdb11]

i can't really help you seeing as i'm not really the best with finding the best price to performance parts (i realised i spent about $300 more then i needed to on my pc) but i was just wondering what speakers and amp you use cause im currently searching for a good speaker setup :D

 

AH yes good question, well can't really help you there either I'm afraid it's a very complicated setup. The speakers that you can see are from an Akai sound system that I brought years ago for a 100€ (originally a DVD player thingy, with iPod dock), after buying it a built this computer and I realized that there was no real option to input into the current setup so went and brought a crap pair of Philips speakers that came with a bass (for 20€ I believe) and a Lepai 20W digital amplifier (20€ from Hong Kong). So what I have at the moment is my PC plug into the bass/amp of the Philips speakers that I brought then the Lepai amp plug into the the speaker output of the Philips bass/amp and my Akai speaker plug into the Lepai amp. So wouldn't really recommend what I have at the moment, but it actually sounds really good, which is rather surprising. Anyways hope you managed to follow so far  :P, but it turned out alright since the whole thing cost me 140€ and sounds better than anything else I have listened to at the same price. One rather annoying thing with this setup with two amps is that if you turn anything up to max it would brake your ears  :D. Good luck finding a good pair of speakers, and that brings me on to another question I have about sound cards, what is the best sound card you can get for around 40€ (USD $50)?

[FireFox]

That's a pretty nice build, also do you have two different sticks of RAM?