best money can buy: 637 € complete system build

hi guys,

recently a friend of mine upgraded his pc. it was a i7 upgrade, which consisted of graphics card, motherboard, ram and cpu. it had cost him around 750€ for these 4 components alone - so power supply, hdd and case are not counted and they would produce additional costs.

sure, he bought good hardware. but, do you really need that much power for your home pc? do you really want to spend that much money just for a good pc? and are you looking for the best option to buy hardware which is worth its money? i hope so. coz i will show you now a pc system build that will have enough power to give you that feeling of a ultra slick machine that comes at a really low price. i wrote these guide also for people who have 0 clue of computers in case they search for a good advice on buying hardware in this or the next months.

note: please google the respective items on google picture search or others to get an impression so as to i am avoiding posting pictures here coz of guidlines.

components:

case: 25€

Cooler Master Elite 342


hdd / ssd: 139€

Samsung SSD 840 Series 250GB, 2.5", SATA 6Gb/s


power supply: 38€

Thermaltake Germany Series Hamburg 530W ATX 2.3


motherboard: 88€

ASRock 990FX Extreme3, 990FX (dual PC3-14900U DDR3)


ram: 100€

G.Skill DIMM Kit 16GB PC3-10667U CL9-9-9-24 (DDR3-1333) (F3-10600CL9D-16GBNT)


graphic card: 149€

PowerColor Radeon HD 7850 V2, 2GB GDDR5, DVI, HDMI, DisplayPort (AX7850 2GBD5-DHV2)


cpu: 98€
AMD FX-6300, 6x 3.50GHz, boxed


ok, so first of all i decided these components after 3 criteria to build a complete system: price, quality and performance. for example, the ram gives you lifetime warranty and if your ram dies someday you can replace it with warranty. combine that with the price and performance and its the best 16gb kit out there at the moment.

the graphic card is also a very good choice at the moment. it is placed at the same price level like its nvidia counterpart the 650 ti boost. but compared to the nvidia card its easy to notice that the amd card would be the better choice, because it dominates in all criteria. if you want to save a few more bucks you could go with geforce 650 ti boost too.

for example this card would be an alternative to the amd 7850 if you want to save more money or dont need really that much graphics power in the future: 129€
EVGA GeForce GTX 650 Ti Boost, 1GB GDDR5, 2x DVI, Mini HDMI, DisplayPort

the power supply gives you 3 or 5 year warranty (may vary from country to country / distributor), features an effective and quiet high quality cooling solution and many protection features in order to avoid hardware damages.

although there are many motherboards available for the am3+ socket, the 990fx seems to be the best choice of all chipsets in terms of performance and future reliability. the asrock extreme 3 990fx will give you all you need at a very low price and it is also high quality, reliable and fast.

the cpu of this computer is a six-core, means you have like six cpus. the amd multi-core technology is different from intels but also very interesting. if you really want to read into it, you can do so on the specific amd website for example or wikipedia and others: en.wikipedia.org...(microarchitecture) and www.tomshardware.com... this cpu is a very good choice at the moment, coz it will give you excessive power in your pc for no money.

for hard drive i chose a ssd with 250gb because that will be enough for you to run an operating system, movies, games, internet, downloads, streaming, working, etc.. compared to its bigger brother, the 840 pro, the standard 840 only lacks in a few disciplines while remaining an excellent choice for a cheap and fast quality ssd.

ok, i think thats it. i hope you liked this one. i nearly forgot one thing, the case. i picked this case but just any atx 2.3 case will do it. just be sure you clean an old case well and check for defects when you install new hardware in it. all in all, this system will totally shock and awe you for sure.

im looking forward to your replies, best regards

BIGGER power supply! 550 is NOT enough.

BIGGER Hard drive! I've got 2 terrabytes and I'm running short on space already!

I'll go look at the graphics card you suggest now but I've always prefered nvidia.

Back soon.

It looks like the system is for gaming. I would bump the PSU to a 750w besides that the system looks fine.

reply to post by VoidHawk


Personally I'd drop the ram down to 8 gb if it saves a few bucks and get a better case. Something with better airflow.

hey im glad you liked it so far. plz notice i designed this build for maximum cost / performance efficiency. for a normal user all will be more than suficient. of course there are upgrade options, but then it would become yet another build. the psu will be also suficient for the hardware i selected.

you wana check this out: gpuboss.com...

reply to post by april1


What is the translation in price to dollars? The system rocks. As I stated more airflow would be my choice since I sit in 90 degree f weather all day long . But if your sitting in a nice ambient tempt room the ram is overkill but nice for the future.

637€ equals roughly 836 us dollar. your prices and availability may vary, but you could chose equal products in the price range.

in terms of cooling. just put a huge fan inside your case and / or leave it open. if you have a closed case, there will be always good airflow if the position and direction of your fans are right. i personally have an open case with several additional fans. just think of it as a car engine. hardware temperature will always become critical at 70°C +.

One thing I'd consider as well. Looking into higher priced gtx 650 ti's. The one on gpu boss has 1k less effective clock memory and 1gb less ram.

www.newegg.com...

$174.00 in US, compared to the $154.00 card. Brings it a little closer to the radeon card. Personally though, since you are going AMD chipset, get an AMD card. I love Nvidia and will never buy another product. I've gotten great customer service. There is just nothing wrong with AMD, they preform well.

Although a Power supply is rated at 550 watts you cant expect it to supply 550, it would go pop in just a few minutes if you did. 550 is its max rating!

Multicore cpu/gpu are power hungry! If either one suddenly peaks on its consumption and your power supply is not up to the job you'll see the BSD (blue screen of death) so with multicore cpu/gpu you really need to have spare power.
Also so many devices draw power via the USB sockets these days, I've often got 3 or 4 devices connected.
As poster above mentioned, I'd also go for 8gigs of ram.

reply to post by Antipathy17


yeah i pointed to the 650 ti boost before, too. another option would be the 660 gtx: gpuboss.com...

or you could even go with an amd hd 7870. all in all, the 7850 appears to be at the top in midrange i'd say. the 7870 can be considered a high end choice.

reply to post by VoidHawk


hehe i see your concerns. but trust me, this power supply will work just fine. im sitting next to a enermax 500w and it powers an i7 4770, gtx 760, 16gb ram, sdd, hdd and external usb. ;P

so dont panic, all has been selected well.

and still i truly believe 8gb could be an option, but 16gb wont do any harm and are cheaper in total.

Originally posted by Antipathy17
reply to post by VoidHawk

 

Personally I'd drop the ram down to 8 gb if it saves a few bucks and get a better case. Something with better airflow.

Do you know what has the biggest impact on a cpu's temps? Its the ambient room temperature. A friend of mine spent tons of money messing about with different heatsinks and cases etc, and I kept telling him to open his window.
One day I proved my point, I opened the window and his temps dropped by 8 degrees.

reply to post by VoidHawk


i can confirm this one. good point made there. this would be an effective cooling solution, but if your environment temperature is too high cooling will be in vain. www.youtube.com...

Originally posted by april1
reply to post by VoidHawk

 

hehe i see your concerns. but trust me, this power supply will work just fine.

For how long?
A components life is governed entirely by the temperature it runs at. A lower wattag supply will run hotter than a higher spec supply.
I think it was the us military that discovered for every 5 degree temp you put on a component you shorten its life by 10 years, or something like that

reply to post by buster2010


thats a compliment. this pc will do just any work for you...!

reply to post by VoidHawk


you have a good point there. let me give you a few examples. the psu i pointed out has 3 / 5 year warranty. usually in this time frame a component dies. i owned several psus myself from enermax and they all work up to now, oldest one being a socket a psu. and two years ago or so i bought a 27€ psu for a similar system and it has never made any problems. i also believe that you can get real good quality today for a low price.

regarding temperatures. i recently fixed a really dusty pc that had ram errors on the graphic card in windows. i then installed linux and it worked. later i then discovered the fan of the gfx card didnt work anymore. so i just put a huge fan on the side of the case to cool gpu, mobo, cpu, etc.. works like a charme again! ^^

theres also a review on the psu available, its really good.

Id recommend an traditional or hybrid drive for more storage.

Use the SSD as application and System, and another hd for everything else.

SSD was probably the most impressive upgrade I have done in recent years as far as speed of system when loading and opening apps.

Games load times are almost non-existent now.

As far as all the other specs decent rig but id also bump the Power Supply for future upgrades (crossfire, sli)

Originally posted by Antipathy17
reply to post by VoidHawk

 

Personally I'd drop the ram down to 8 gb if it saves a few bucks and get a better case. Something with better airflow.

Single worst PC advice ever.

How about cutting down the SSD as well, maybe get a nice cheep 5400 rpm old hd cause who needs performance right?

heres a review about the motherboard and cpu: www.youtube.com...

Ha I laugh at your system here is mine.

ZX Sinclair spectrum

Firmware:
3.54 MHz Zilog Z80A CPU

16K / 48K RAM (later 128K RAM)
Display: 32 x 22 character text display
256 x 192 pixel resolution
8 colours
Sound: 1 channel, 5 octave (16/48K Spectrums)
3 channel, 7 octaves (128K Spectrums)
I/O: Z80 bus, tape, RF television (All Spectrums)
External numeric keypad (Spectrum 128)
RS232 - Midi Out, RGB, Joystick (Spectrum 128, +2, +2A, +3)
Storage: Built-in tape recorder (Spectrum +2, +2A)
Build-in 3" disk drive (Spectrum +3)


So take that Mr PC man