No Gaming Build

[Kalevala]

Hi guys,

 

first sorry for my bad english but it is not my native language and i do try my best. Secound i've been out of the DIY PC-Building for quite some time, so i'm just getting back into it and i'm getting more and more confused.

 

Thrid i'm on a really tight budget my Granny (8 Year Old Core 2 Duo with 2 Gig Ram) is dying and i just need to get something new. I'm not happy with my granny but yea she was still standing.

 

I do not game and i don't want to game if i would like to game i would go into the next room and boot up the gaming rig of my buddy ... he got a dual 780 Ti, i7 3770K, 64Gig Ram beast for that and every console out there...

 

But as i said my granny is dying and the big bottleneck was the RAM.

 

What will i do with my new PC. Writing - Internet - Watching Movies and and this is the improtant part - i need it to do a lot of Photoshop and In Design Work. I need at least 6 SATA ports for my Hard Drives

 

Price Limit 400 - 500 $ the cheapter the better

I will use Win 7

Case: i don't care

 

This is the solution i came up with is as follows.

 

PC Part Picker: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/fdC4wP

 

CPU:AMD A10-7800  (133 $)

CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Seidon 120M (46$)

Mainboard: Asus A88X-Pro ATC FM2+ ( 89,99 § )

RAM: Apotop 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR 2133 CAS 9 (130 $)

Harddrive: Got a Couple of SSD's fly around so i don't need to buy one

PSU: EVGA 120 G1 0650 XR (650 Watt 80+Gold) [in case i want to buy a Graphics Card later] (50 $)

 

i hope you can help me or can show me something that should do it better.

 

all the best and thanks

[Hansell]

I also still new in this, but let we discuss something

1st. is it has to be APU? since you do want to consider buying a GPU later.

2nd, are you sure about water cooling?, why not get air cooling for better performance(this is usually people question when I add a 120mm rad in my build)

3rd,in case of 6 ports you need, just use porthub?

 

what do you think

[Kalevala]

1. No it doesn't but when i looked at the benchmarks this APU looked like a sweetspot compared to an i3 or even some i5 and i get some decent graphics (R7) that should do what i want

2. Just personal preference i'm just used to water cooling and didn't really look at at air cooling solutions Any suggestions that would be better?

3. Thats actually planned in i have a lot of data stored that needs to be redundand so ... right now i'm planning with 10 Hard Drives

 

thanks for the input

 

best

[Lotus]

This is what I would probably do if I were you (edit: maybe not, check second build)

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-4460 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor  ($179.99 @ Newegg)
Motherboard: ASRock H97 PRO4 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard  ($72.98 @ Newegg)
Memory: Team Dark Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory  ($57.99 @ Newegg)
Case: NZXT Source 210 (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case  ($32.99 @ Micro Center)
Power Supply: EVGA 500W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply  ($34.99 @ Amazon)
Total: $378.94
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-12-24 14:24 EST-0500

 

The motherboard does have 6 Sata 3 ports, which are 6 GB/s. It's $17 overbudget, but worth it in my opinion for the extra multi-threaded horsepower of the i5 for the kind of workload you have in mind. An FX-6300 would be another possible option, except for the problem that it doesn't have an iGPU, which makes the cost of the platform too expensive to really fit in at $400, even if you went a bit over like I did. I'm still going to try though. I'll get back to you

 

edit: removed HDD, change a few things around for an overall better and cheaper build.

Edited December 24, 2014 by Lotus

[Lotus]

Well, I actually made it work. This is an FX-8320 build for around $400. Be warned though that you'll want to replace the stock CPU cooler as soon as possible, but this will have excellent multi-threaded performance, significantly better than the i5 build, and only costs around a little more. I'm not sure about the GPU. I just slapped whatever cheapest one was there since you said you don't game, and I would have gone with an iGPU if the FX CPU had one. As long as it can do video playback at 1080p, I didn't think it mattered. You're probably better off buying a used last years GPU than this one TBH, but it should be okay for the web browsing and such, and the CPU is great for your workload, and the mobo still has 6 Sata ports like before. If you can, because you suggested you already had hard drives, remove the HDD from this build, and get a case that's large enough to fit a 212 Evo, as well as a 212 Evo.

 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD FX-8320 3.5GHz 8-Core Processor  ($132.99 @ SuperBiiz)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler  ($30.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-970A-UD3P ATX AM3+ Motherboard  ($84.99 @ Micro Center)
Memory: Team Dark Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory  ($57.99 @ Newegg)
Video Card: Sapphire Radeon HD 5450 1GB Video Card  ($29.99 @ Newegg)
Case: NZXT Source 210 (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case  ($32.99 @ Micro Center)
Power Supply: EVGA 500W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply  ($34.99 @ Amazon)
Total: $404.93
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-12-24 14:22 EST-0500

 

edit: I made the changes I suggested. Now it's good to go, once you add your HDDs.

Edited December 24, 2014 by Lotus

[Kalevala]

@Lotus thanks thats awesome ... but i made a mistake ... i forgot that the $ is quite week compared to €  and im living  in € Land its more like 550 $ than 400 - i tweeked my original build a little bit from what i read ... and i'm still trying to tweek  your I5 and the AMD build for my budget (I don't really like the mainboards) but thank of your suggestions... they are helpfull.

 

Here is the update from my original plan.

 

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/wfFbGX

 

 

Took you changes to heart and this is my build based on your AMD Suggestion what do you think?

 

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/GV2WjX

 

CPU: AMD FX-8320 3.5GHz 8-Core Processor  ($132.99 @ SuperBiiz)
CPU Cooler: be quiet! Shadow Rock Slim 113.8 CFM Rifle Bearing CPU Cooler ($29.90)
Motherboard: Asus M5A99X EVO R2.0 ATX AM3+ Motherboard (98,99)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1866 Memory ($79.99)
Video Card: Sapphire Radeon R7 250 1GB Eyefinity Edition Video Card  ($89.99 @ Newegg)
Case: BitFenix Shinobi ATX Mid Tower Case (§69.99 @ Micro Center)
Power Supply: EVGA 500W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply  ($34.99 @ Amazon)

Edited December 24, 2014 by Kalevala

[Lotus]

The motherboards are the main ways of getting cost down. The 970A-UD3P is the cheapest board with heatsinked 8+2 phase VRMs borrowed from a 990FX board, so it's fully capable of handling the high power demands of the FX-8 core monster CPU, and the i5 has a very low TDP and can't be overclocked, so a cheap h81 MoBo is perfectly sufficient. Remember, motherboards don't have performance numbers, just featuresets and compatibility, and there's nothing to be gained by going to more expensive motherboards since both of those motherboards have all of the features and compatibility we need, so any more is a waste and will go unused.

 

If you can afford an I5 or FX-8 core build, you really don't want to limit yourself to an APU. While sufficient for low-demand tasks, the i5 and FX are way, way better. I think you should spend much less on the parts that don't have performance numbers (MoBo & Case) and more on the parts that do (CPU). Yes it looks worse, but it'll perform better.

[asusfan]

i would look into a laptop / netbook even you can get good refurbished ones.

 

or a small form factor APU type build. like a m-itx m/board A88 with a kaveri A10-7700K APU on a Gigabyte GA-F2A88XN-WIFI-FM2+ m/board would work really well. 8 gig of high speed ram, an SSD or SSHD and you will be good to go.

[Kalevala]

Thanks for the input. I think i know what to do now - i'll keep you guys updated and post some benchmarks and some opinions when i got the system running