£300 pc build

[othertomperson]

I'm building a PC for my brother and before I finalise it I just want to run it past you guys to see if there's anything I've missed or that you'd change.

 

Note: I don't need a GPU or case. I'm giving him one of my old GTX 580s and my old CM Cosmos.

 

Budget is as close as possible to £300, OS must be included.

 

CPU: Intel Core i3-4160 3.6GHz Dual-Core Processor  (£85.25 @ Ebuyer) 

Motherboard: MSI H81M-P33 Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard  (£30.20 @ Ebuyer) 

Memory: Kingston 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory  (£35.90 @ CCL Computers) 

Storage: Toshiba  1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  (£32.34 @ Aria PC) 

Power Supply: Silverstone Strider Essential 600W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply  (£48.84 @ Scan.co.uk) 

Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8.1 OEM (64-bit)  (£75.34 @ CCL Computers) 

Total: £307.87

[Tedster]

I think you can probably go cheaper on the PSU, but I'm not familiar with how much the 580 draws.

Also /r/microsoftsoftwareswap for a Windows key? Far cheaper?

[Dzzope]

 

I'm building a PC for my brother and before I finalise it I just want to run it past you guys to see if there's anything I've missed or that you'd change.

 

Note: I don't need a GPU or case. I'm giving him one of my old GTX 580s and my old CM Cosmos.

 

Budget is as close as possible to £300, OS must be included.

 

CPU: Intel Core i3-4160 3.6GHz Dual-Core Processor  (£85.25 @ Ebuyer) 

Motherboard: MSI H81M-P33 Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard  (£30.20 @ Ebuyer) 

Memory: Kingston 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory  (£35.90 @ CCL Computers) 

Storage: Toshiba  1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  (£32.34 @ Aria PC) 

Power Supply: Silverstone Strider Essential 600W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply  (£48.84 @ Scan.co.uk) 

Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8.1 OEM (64-bit)  (£75.34 @ CCL Computers) 

Total: £307.87

 

try an xfx psu.

[Antibull]

Cant you ditch the OS ? And take a i5.  (use a windows "trail")

[david cassar]

I think you can probably go cheaper on the PSU, but I'm not familiar with how much the 580 draws.

Also /r/microsoftsoftwareswap for a Windows key? Far cheaper?

The 580 draws a lot of power, similar to a 290.

[Dzzope]

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

 

CPU: Intel Core i5-4460 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor  (£139.54 @ CCL Computers) 

Motherboard: MSI H81M-E34 Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard  (£34.68 @ CCL Computers) 

Memory: Kingston HyperX Fury Black 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory  (£37.07 @ Amazon UK) 

Storage: Western Digital RE3 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  (£35.00 @ Amazon UK) 

Power Supply: XFX 550W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply  (£46.40 @ CCL Computers) 

Total: £292.69

Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available

Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-06-28 14:59 BST+0100

[othertomperson]

The 580 draws a lot of power, similar to a 290.

 

Yeah I'm hesitant to go too low... I think 430W would be pushing it, do you agree?

 

Guys, I don't want to go grey-market on the OS. I'm aware it can be very cheap, but there's always an element of risk involved that I would be more willing to accept if this were my own build rather than something for someone else.

[Dribblestain]

Cut down the windows price by getting a key off g2a?

[othertomperson]

Actually I think this warrants some actual testing, in terms of PSU needed.

 

I'm going to disable some cores on my dad's 4960X to try and copy an i3 (Ivy Bridge i3, but ehhh closest I can do with what I have) and test power consumption drawn from the wall while benchmarking of both one 580 and two in SLI. Not the ideal testing methodology, but it'll give a ball-park estimate. And it will also be an over-estimate if anything, too, which is better than an underestimate.

[david cassar]

Yeah I'm hesitant to go too low... I think 430W would be pushing it, do you agree?

 

Guys, I don't want to go grey-market on the OS. I'm aware it can be very cheap, but there's always an element of risk involved that I would be more willing to accept if this were my own build rather than something for someone else.

430w would be definitely pushing it. I would keep the power supply as it is.

[othertomperson]

430w would be definitely pushing it. I would keep the power supply as it is.

 

OK so I've done the testing that I said I was going to do. I turned off all but two of the cores on dad's 4960X and downclocked to 3.6GHz. Again, not a foolproof comparison but hopefully it resembles an i3 enough to make power usage more comparable.

 

I ran Firestrike Extreme followed by Sky Diver benchmark in 3DMark, and stared at a power wall meter and recorded the biggest number it displayed. For shits and giggles I also benchmarked the system with the cores fully enabled and the original overclock to 4.6GHz back.

 

"i3" and single GTX 580: 395W

"i3" and 2x GTX 580 SLI: 650W

i7 4960X @4.6GHz, 2x GTX 580 SLI: 703W

 

So really what it comes down to is future expandability. For a single 580 and an i3 450W is probably about right, but it makes upgrading in the future a bit less seamless. On the other hand, such is the price of saving money now.