Budget Build

[MLG Doge]

So my four year old HP hasn't been pulling its weight recently and i'm going to let it go.

 

its a Celeron E3500 and while it performs everyday tasks decently, its not keeping up with relatively modern titles, e.g World of tanks which are quite hard on the CPU.

 

So i would've upgraded but with it being a socket 775 there is not much of an upgrade available. 

 

I thought about buying an alienware PC but even i could tell (with my puny computer hardware knowledge) that they were a HUGE rip-off.

 

So i looked around and after a while figured out that building a budget Computer was for me.

 

However.

 

I hit a wall because i had no idea how to build one, but i stumbled across the newegg guides and now i FEEL like an expert.

 

(Note the Feel)

 

Then i found PCPARTPICKER.com and i set about researching the parts in my price bracket.

i used CPUboss.com & PC-specs.com to compare parts and also payed attention to forum reviews.

 

So here is my Final plan and i'm ready to pull the trigger, Please bear in mind that im just a teen so in order to get the go ahead  

from my masters i had to build something around the price of a console. £300~400.

 

So here is the link. http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/gyPfD3

 

Breakdown:

 

CPU (Pentium G3258): it was this or the Athlon 760K and judging from reviews i gathered that this was the one to choose 

thanks to (from what i've read) its superior core quality/performance and power consumption andddd it overclocking ability.

as i mentioned earlier, World of tanks is my game of choice and this should perform well.

 

MoBo (MSI Z87 G41 PC Mate LGA1150) this motherboard does what i want it to. Overclock, support crossfire, and is capable of OC'ing 

Haswell Refresh processors - for later upgrades. Sata3 and USB3 is a plus. its also the cheapest Z87 i could find....

 

RAM (Corsair XMS3 1x8gb): Not much to say...i might OC the RAM seeing as its only 1333Mhz but for now it will do.

i might take advantedge of dual channel later on.

 

Storage (AData Premier Pro 32GB SSD) for the OS and other Major files because apparently these (SSD's) are a must have now...

 

More Storage (Hitachi Ultrastar 1TB 7200rpm) its a HDD so its not as fast as SSD's but of course its got a lot more storage.

1TB is all i will need and it shouldnt be too slow.

 

'Video Card' (MSI Radeon R9 270 2GB Twin Frozr) Reviews look good. Supposedly runs games at High/Ultra at 1080p. At the moment my monitor is only 720p 

But this should be more that enough. apparently its really easy to OC w/ MSI Afterburner - Literally slide everying to max.

and i might Crossfire later <---- opinions on if its worth crossfiring this card.

 

PSU (500W EVGA 80+ Bronze power supply) it has reasonable efficiency for the price bracket but isn't modular so ill have to tie down some cables in the corner. ;(.

Its one of those "Gets the job done" items....

 

Case (Cooler master N300): Has some Cable management and spaces for drives. USB 3.0 ports which is spiff and dandy.

Looks decent Aesthetically and has some preinstalled fans to help with cooling.

 

OS: i would rather use Linux (Ubuntu) than lose £70 of parts so free is the only way.

Besides Ubuntu is compatible with quite a few games now.

 

Notes. No need for a ODD because ill use a USB ISO for installing.

and there is an Ethernet cable for £1.20 however i dont know if it'll actually have good speeds, its has plenty of good reviews though.

and i may win the Antec Giveaway.... Fingers crossed! - just one hand though.

 

Info.

My IS speeds are 130Mb/s

and i know you guys like to show your wisdom in creating plans on a budget so:

I live in the UK.

Would like to use Amazon and Ebuyer ( for £0.00 P&P)

and my budget is £350 but i dont mind going over by £25 or less.

 

 

Thanks for helping me become a High FPS MLG doge.

 

Such Thanks. Many you's

 

 

[MLG Doge]

Yes i know this is past the budget... but i want to know how to beat it at a lower price.

 

I could drop the SSD....

but i dont wanna ;(

But i must...

but i dont wanna ;(

But i must...

but i dont wanna ;(

But i must...

but i dont wanna ;(

But i must...

but i dont wanna ;(

But i must...

but i dont wanna ;(

But i must...

but i dont wanna ;(

But i must...

 

So i will

[StarFire]

Please no.

 

Ok, lemme help you, you're imbalancing storage & other things.

[StarFire]

Sorry, I over-reacted.
 

I saw a 32GB ssd and flipped my lid. .

 

However, as nice as the G3258 is, if you have any intention of playing AW, I'd choose something else (code locked)

 

World of tanks, eh? @ plays that, ask him what he recommends.

 

But for now, I can try to build you the best budget system I can.

[lx_srs]

The z87 board won't work unless you have a previous CPU designed for z87.  It needs a BIOS update in order to work with CPU's designed for the z97 chipset.

[Megazero]

Yes i know this is past the budget... but i want to know how to beat it at a lower price.

 

I could drop the SSD....

but i dont wanna ;(

It seem like you are new to the whole PC building things right? If so I dont recommend getting a Z87 Mobo with that CPU, since you may need to do BIOS upgrade for the CPU to work, not that's it's hard but better not deal with it to begin with :3 Get a Z97 instead. Any board is fine, MSI Z97 PC Mate or this http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/part/gigabyte-motherboard-gaz97pd3

IDK About Hitachi's HDD quality so I cant really comment... I can definitely recommend Seagate Barracuda HDD though, only 0.94 GBP more.

For your RAM, you better get 2x4GB instead of 1x8GB though, since dual channel Ram run better than single channnel. But to be honest if you dont do stuff that can really use the ram speed, it doesnt matter all that much.

And well... I think you better drop the SSD. Usually that's not what I would recommend, but at this price range + only a 30GB SSD... I'd rather save up more and get a 120GB SSD later on.

I was thinking for a while about that CPU, then I come to this conclusion: WOT dont use multi core, at all... and the closest option we have with more core that I can recommend is the FX 6300 or 8320, which will bump the price up so... Yeah, the Pentium is fine.

[StarFire]

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

 

CPU: AMD Athlon X4 740 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor  (£46.22 @ CCL Computers) 

Motherboard: MSI A88X-G41 PC MATE ATX FM2+ Motherboard  (£45.34 @ Amazon UK) 

Memory: Corsair XMS3 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR3-1333 Memory  (£45.20 @ Amazon UK) 

Storage: Toshiba  500GB 2.5" 5400RPM Hybrid Internal Hard Drive  (£41.94 @ Aria PC) 

Video Card: PowerColor Radeon R9 270 2GB TurboDuo Video Card  (£109.99 @ Amazon UK) 

Case: Cooler Master N300 ATX Mid Tower Case  (£32.00 @ Amazon UK) 

Power Supply: EVGA 500W 80+ Certified ATX Power Supply  (£31.15 @ Aria PC) 

Total: £351.84

Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available

Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-11-07 17:52 GMT+0000

 

I managed to pare it down to $350, if you dont mind Bclock overclocking. (it works fine, just is a little trickier)

 

I PMed @, he said the CPU should perform fine in WoT, as it's basically the same as his. (clock for clock, Piledriver is quite close to Deneb), he uses an HD7870XT (think: R9-275), and a Phenom.

[MLG Doge]

The z87 board won't work unless you have a previous CPU designed for z87.  It needs a BIOS update in order to work with CPU's designed for the z97 chipset.

 

It seem like you are new to the whole PC building things right? If so I dont recommend getting a Z87 Mobo with that CPU, since you may need to do BIOS upgrade for the CPU to work, not that's it's hard but better not deal with it to begin with :3 Get a Z97 instead. Any board is fine, MSI Z97 PC Mate or this http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/part/gigabyte-motherboard-gaz97pd3

IDK About Hitachi's HDD quality so I cant really comment... I can definitely recommend Seagate Barracuda HDD though, only 0.94 GBP more.

For your RAM, you better get 2x4GB instead of 1x8GB though, since dual channel Ram run better than single channnel. But to be honest if you dont do stuff that can really use the ram speed, it doesnt matter all that much.

And well... I think you better drop the SSD. Usually that's not what I would recommend, but at this price range + only a 30GB SSD... I'd rather save up more and get a 120GB SSD later on.

I was thinking for a while about that CPU, then I come to this conclusion: WOT dont use multi core, at all... and the closest option we have with more core that I can recommend is the FX 6300 or 8320, which will bump the price up so... Yeah, the Pentium is fine.

 

Ok, Points taken.

i'll take the Gigabyte Z97 and ill drop the SSD like you say, o' course the great thing about pc's is that i can just drop one in later.

[MLG Doge]

 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

 

CPU: AMD Athlon X4 740 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor  (£46.22 @ CCL Computers) 

Motherboard: MSI A88X-G41 PC MATE ATX FM2+ Motherboard  (£45.34 @ Amazon UK) 

Memory: Corsair XMS3 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR3-1333 Memory  (£45.20 @ Amazon UK) 

Storage: Toshiba  500GB 2.5" 5400RPM Hybrid Internal Hard Drive  (£41.94 @ Aria PC) 

Video Card: PowerColor Radeon R9 270 2GB TurboDuo Video Card  (£109.99 @ Amazon UK) 

Case: Cooler Master N300 ATX Mid Tower Case  (£32.00 @ Amazon UK) 

Power Supply: EVGA 500W 80+ Certified ATX Power Supply  (£31.15 @ Aria PC) 

Total: £351.84

Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available

Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-11-07 17:52 GMT+0000

 

I managed to pare it down to $350, if you dont mind Bclock overclocking. (it works fine, just is a little trickier)

 

I PMed @, he said the CPU should perform fine in WoT, as it's basically the same as his. (clock for clock, Piledriver is quite close to Deneb), he uses an HD7870XT (think: R9-275), and a Phenom.

 

Thanks for the plan.

 

I'll take this into consideration for and AMD build vs Intel

 

also, wtf is a Hybrid drive (The toshiba) is it any faster than a regular HDD? Ifo so, Is it worth it? Because if no i could save some pennies whilst getting moar storage

[MLG Doge]

Yes, im keen to learn more.

 

aka knew.

[lx_srs]

Thanks for the plan.

 

I'll take this into consideration for and AMD build vs Intel

 

also, wtf is a Hybrid drive (The toshiba) is it any faster than a regular HDD? Ifo so, Is it worth it? Because if no i could save some pennies whilst getting moar storage

A hybrid drive is a standard hard drive with an 8GB SSD.  Your most used files like OS and sometimes games get loaded onto the SSD. So you get SSD like speeds at a lower price.

[MLG Doge]

A hybrid drive is a standard hard drive with an 8GB SSD.  Your most used files like OS and sometimes games get loaded onto the SSD. So you get SSD like speeds at a lower price.

Oh, Clever.

 

Use that then.

does the OS treat it as two separate drives then?

[lx_srs]

Oh, Clever.

 

Use that then.

does the OS treat it as two separate drives then?

No, it's treated as a single drive.  You can't access the SSD cache as the hard drive automatically caches things to the SSD based on the amount of usage that a file gets.  I know this because I have one in my laptop.

[MLG Doge]

No, it's treated as a single drive.  You can't access the SSD cache as the hard drive automatically caches things to the SSD based on the amount of usage that a file gets.  I know this because I have one in my laptop.

 

No, it's treated as a single drive.  You can't access the SSD cache as the hard drive automatically caches things to the SSD based on the amount of usage that a file gets.  I know this because I have one in my laptop.

Ok thanks alot! 

 

btw Great Ninja on Linus

[Megazero]

Oh, Clever.

 

Use that then.

does the OS treat it as two separate drives then?

It mostly use as one big cache for the HDD though, You wont really get SSD performance from it, but it is slightly better than a normal HDD if you run the OS on it

[lx_srs]

Ok thanks alot! 

 

btw Great Ninja on Linus

Oh thank you sir!

[lx_srs]

It mostly use as one big cache for the HDD though, You wont really get SSD performance from it, but it is slightly better than a normal HDD if you run the OS on it

I have one in my laptop.  For games and the OS, it works just as fast as an SSD.

[thatguyjerry]

I wouldnt pair the g3258 with any chipset other than z97. IMO, the point of buying a funny little unlocked pentium k is to squeeze every little bit of performance for a really cheap price. You should try and get a hyper 212 evo in there too.

[Megazero]

I have one in my laptop.  For games and the OS, it works just as fast as an SSD.

I have one on my laptop too. Games dont benefit much from running on SSD to begin with, and Windows 8 is really fast by itself. It's not the same as running on SSD Like I said it work kinda like a cache, so it do run faster than normal HDD, but no where near true SSD performance.

[MLG Doge]

http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/BbjWyc

 

What about this if i stretched my money?

 

 

 

 

 

[lx_srs]

http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/BbjWyc

 

What about this if i stretched my money?

That would be fine, you won't get anywhere near SSD speeds but it looks good for a budget-friendly build.

[MLG Doge]

That would be fine, you won't get anywhere near SSD speeds but it looks good for a budget-friendly build.

 

Roger that.

[lx_srs]

Roger that.

If that's all, can you please mark my post as solved?

[Megazero]

http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/BbjWyc

 

What about this if i stretched my money?

The 270x perform just a little bit better than the 270, if you OCing your 270 it will perform the same as the 270x, so you dont need to upgrade a 270 to 270x. If you want to upgrade up to a 280 instead, but it's about 20-30GBP more than a 270x I think?

[MLG Doge]

The 270x perform just a little bit better than the 270, if you OCing your 270 it will perform the same as the 270x, so you dont need to upgrade a 270 to 270x. If you want to upgrade up to a 280 instead, but it's about 20-30GBP more than a 270x I think?

but i can always OC the 270X