Student build - UK

[marksct]

Hi guys

I built a pc for my family a few years ago, now i need a new one for uni.

due to being a student my buget is tight, BUT i want this pc to last the 4 years of my course
perhaps with some upgrading

i wont be overclocking much, if at all, since i dont think its worth the effort

so the question is, i7 or AMD Phenon?
clearly AMD is cheaper, but after 4 years will the pc still be around med?
would i need to replace the mb and cpu in a few years?

planning to do some gaming (limited to cod6, total war, diablo 3)
but mainly just working. was thinking about a 4900 for the gpu... would this run cod6 well?


So the budget is about £700 with no monitor/keyboard/os - if it can be less then that is good
(i think ebuyer is the cheapest UK site - is this correct?)

thanks for all help!!!!

 

[Toasty411]

An i7 for a student build for around £700 is going to be tight. A 4870 can run COD6 max no problem so a 4900 should be fine.

Im not from the UK so Im not sure about the ebuyer site.

Just my two cents

 

[kmote]

ebuyer has fairly good prices on average but you should at least check scan and aria. You aren't going to get an i7 build for less than £700 but it doesn't matter what you buy now it will be old and slow in 4 years time - thats just how it goes.
If you want to make a computer last for 4 years the best thing you can do is spend some money on a decent case and PSU and make sure your data is as safe as it can be from failure - particularly important on a student's working machine. That will ensure the PC will at least works for as long as possible.

 

[philbar71]

with that budget you are best off going with a phenom II X3 and the GPU you are talking about is most likely the 4890 there is no such thing as a 4900

 

[dirkpitt45]

Yeah, I looked around on ebuyer. I made a phenom II X4 build that ended up being £627 with a fairly inexpensive case. I didn't include a cpu cooler, wasn't sure if you wanted to overclock or not. That'll add another £30 or so.

Cheap Laptops, Hard Drives, LCD Monitors, TVs and more at Ebuyer

Link should work...

 

[Toasty411]

Yeah, I looked around on ebuyer. I made a phenom II X4 build that ended up being £627 with a fairly inexpensive case. I didn't include a cpu cooler, wasn't sure if you wanted to overclock or not. That'll add another £30 or so.

Cheap Laptops, Hard Drives, LCD Monitors, TVs and more at Ebuyer

Link should work...

You cant give people your shopping cart because its linked to your account that you are logged in with. Why do people not understand this.

 

[Muffin Man]

£661.99 (inc. vat. and shipping)

https://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Com...Black+Edition+(Retail,+AM2+)+?productId=34834 phen II 940 quad
https://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Com...+Socket+AM2/AM2++Motherboard+?productId=35327 gigabyte 790x
https://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Com...6400+DDR2+Reaper+HPC+(2x2GB)+?productId=34468 ocz reaper @ 800
https://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Com...+F1+SATA2+7200RPM+32MB+cache+?productId=30998 samsung f1 1TB 32mb cache
https://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Com...+Radeon+HD4890+1GB+PCI-E+2.0+?productId=35431 sapphire 4890 1gb
https://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Com...+/Corsair+550W+VX+Series+PSU+?productId=29383 corsair 550 vx
https://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Com...+Cool+and+Quiet++Gaming+Case+?productId=31087 antec 300

 

[dirkpitt45]

You cant give people your shopping cart because its linked to your account that you are logged in with. Why do people not understand this.

I was not logged in. Checked on a second computer... I guess it just tracks the network or something.

It was the same as Muffin's except I had a 500 gb HDD, and a different case.

 

[The Zune Guy]

My little bit of advice: I'm upgrading my current pc because I'm going into college myself this year and need a good pc for this (plus its a good summer project )
I'm buying my new cpu, motherboard, RAM and graphics from the US! I did this before and got all the major (but not heavy!!) parts I've just listed from there and got someone I knew of to forward them over. Then I bought the optical and hard drives, plus the case, psu etc. locally as they wouldn't pay to send (heavy items!)
Saved me a fortune, maybe £100-150. If you can I'd say do that. The US has great prices!

Oh and the "Phenom II x4 940" seems your best bet if you can get it, however the "Phenom II x4 955" uses the AM3 socket and supports DDR3. Perhaps this would be better as DDR3 and the AM3 socket should be more future-proof than the DDR2 and AM2+ socket used by the 940, i.e. You could swap out the processor in 2-3 years time?
Sadly the 955 is a tad bit overpriced at the moment I think

 

[marksct]

thanks to all of you for your help
i have taken your suggestions and put together this list:

CPU: AMD phenon x4 955 AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition 3.2 GHz Socket AM3 8MB Cache Retail Boxed Processor - Ebuyer
Mb: Gigabyte Gigabyte GA-MA790XT-UD4P 790X Socket AM3 DDR3 8 Channel Audio ATX Motherboard - Ebuyer
Ram: OCZ 6gb DDR3 https://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Com...hannel+(3x2GB)+?productId=34297&rqcType=r#rqc
HD: Smasung 1TB Samsung HD103UI Eco Green F1 1TB Hard Drive SATAII 32MB Cache - OEM - Ebuyer
GPU: Sapphire HD8900 1GB https://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Com...+1GB+PCI-E+2.0+?productId=35431&rqcType=q#rqc
Case: Antec 300 Antec 300 Three Hundred Black Case - No PSU - Ebuyer

I really wanted DDR3, hence these parts, i think this will be more future proof?

also, the MB seems cheap? is it still good?
and finally, do i need 6gb of ram? i sort of assumed that would be best, since when i upgrade i can hopefully keep the ram?

thanks