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New PC under $500

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Hello all!

Here are the answers to the template questions:

Approximate Purchase Date: This month (October)

Budget Range: Under $500. Better if around $400.

System Usage: Will be used by my niece. She's 8 years old. She will be using it for what she's learning at school - Paint, Typing, Word, Online gaming (flash games for kids), internet browsing, Youtube and other similar tasks.

Are you buying a monitor: Yes

Parts to Upgrade: NA

Do you need to buy OS: Yes but don't include its cost in system cost.

Preferred Website(s) for Parts: newegg.com / flipkart.com (India)

Location: City, State/Region, Country - India

Parts Preferences: I guess AMD will be a better choice? Not sure about present scenario.

Overclocking: No

SLI or Crossfire: No

Your Monitor Resolution: I'll get a new monitor as well. A 20 inch LED monitor. Dell or some other brand and model? Please suggest.

Additional Comments: Should be silent and cool.

And Most Importantly, Why Are You Upgrading: NA


I used to be a techie but that is now a "once upon a time story". :)  I've no idea what's going on with processors now a days. I myself have AMD Athlon II 64 X4 based PC which I got a couple of years back and another AMD Athlon 64 X2 machine. I am not sure if those processors are discontinued now. All I see now are APU based and bulldozer AMD processors. I don't want a Sempron. I've no idea about Intel processors. I guess they will make the machine costlier. The machine should be decent enough to run for 4-5 years for her requirements.

Also please suggest a firewall for kids which keeps updating the websites database and blocks all the websites which are not suitable for kids - adult/violence related. If it's free it's good if there's no free app available then suggest something which isn't too costly.

Thanks a lot for your help. Much appreciated. :) 

More about : 500

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Antec Three Hundred Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case
$54.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

Western Digital WD Blue WD2500AAKX 250GB 7200 RPM SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive
$49.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

XFX HD-675X-ZDFC Radeon HD 6750 1GB 128-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready Video Card
$89.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

SeaSonic M12II 520 Bronze 520W ATX12V v2.3 / EPS 12V v2.91 SLI Ready 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply
$69.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 4GB 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL9S-4GBRL
$20.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

ASRock H67M (B3) LGA 1155 Intel H67 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard
$69.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

Intel Core i3-2100 Sandy Bridge 3.1GHz LGA 1155 65W Dual-Core Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics 2000 BX80623I32100
$119.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

this build should be sufficient hope this helped

Hi jrunv,

Thank you very much for your recommendations. Seems great!

I read the motherboards reviews at newegg and it seems many have got a defective mobo. Any other suggestion for mobo?

Also, since the processor is dual core won't an AMD processor like A6 3500 be a better choice as it's triple core and has an GPU? I am not sure...

Can you also post an AMD config? Thanks a ton! :) 
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Okay, given your intended usage, I think an AMD APU is probably the way to go. Say one of the new Trinity A8-5600ks to start at $105, with a compatible Asrock motherboard for another $60.

I don't imagine you would need a ton of drive space. This Seagate 1Tb Green would give you plenty of capacity and save a bit on power and price, whereas a WD Blue 500GB would cost a little more for half the space, but give you slightly better performance. Neither are going to compare to an SSD for speed though, and if her space requirements are low enough, it might actually be better to just get an inexpensive 120-128GB. I've seen Kingston 120GB SSDs go on sale for $60 twice in the last couple weeks, so you might just want to keep an eye out for deals.

For RAM, I'm sure she wouldn't even need a full 8GB, but it's so cheap you might as well future proof a little. These G.Skill 1600 sticks are $35 right now, I've seen a lot of sales lately for 8GB pairs at $30. Dropping down to 4GB would only save about $10.

A simple Samsung DVD Burner should cover your optical needs for $18.

This Corsair 430W PSU should give you plenty of juice for $25.

All that should still leave you a good range of options for cases. Something like the Antec 300 would be a good choice for $40, but there are a ton of options here and you could even pick one that might be more appealing to a young girl, like this Apevia Cruiser or Dreamer.

For monitor, this Acer 20" for $100 catches my attention. I was pretty happy with my Acer 23" before I upgraded.


I can't really help with the firewall / parental control software, but I hope this helps on the hardware side of things. :) 

Looks like someone else got here first! I would say that jrunv has some good suggestions if you were going to build a gaming rig, but it seems he forgot that you need to include a monitor in your purchase and skipped the optical drive.

Considering what your intended use is though, I think you'll be much better served by an AMD build. The Trinity integrated graphics will be more than capable for your needs, you don't need to spend $90 on a discrete graphics card.

Seasonic is a great brand for power supplies, but 520W is more than you need, and $70 is a bit much for the budget. Corsair PSUs are usually built by Seasonic, so I don't think you'll have any reliability issues going with the less expensive 430W I linked.

Here's a consolidated PCPartPicker list with my recommendations (using the 128GB SSD option) if you want to play with it or make adjustments:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: AMD A8-5600K 3.6GHz Quad-Core Processor ($104.99 @ Newegg)
Motherboard: ASRock FM2A75M-DGS Micro ATX FM2 Motherboard ($65.98 @ Newegg)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($34.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Samsung 830 Series 128GB 2.5" Solid State Disk ($89.99 @ Newegg)
Case: Antec Three Hundred ATX Mid Tower Case ($39.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: Corsair Builder 430W 80 PLUS Certified ATX12V Power Supply ($24.99 @ Newegg)
Optical Drive: Samsung SH-222BB/BEBE DVD/CD Writer ($21.98 @ Newegg)
Monitor: Acer S201HLbd 60Hz 20.0" Monitor ($99.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $482.90
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)

CPU: AMD A10-5800K (129.99)
Mother Board: BIOSTAR Hi-Fi A85W FM2 AMD A85X (94.99)
PSU: COOLER MASTER Elite 460 (24.99 after rebate)
Ram: G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) (29.99)
Memory: Western Digital WD Blue 250GB 7200 RPM (49.99)
Monitor: Acer S201HLbd Black 20" 5ms LED-Backlight LCD (99.99)
Case: Rosewill CHALLENGER (49.99)
Optical Drive: SAMSUNG DVD Burner (17.99)

Total: 497.94 (all from newegg, if you need links let me know)

With the AMD A10 CPU you won't have to buy a graphics card because the processor itself can play a game like Sleeping Dogs at 30fps by itself. Seeing as your daughter won't be playing games like this it will easily handle games that she plays plus it will easily handle programs as that is more so what it is built for.

As well as she gets older you want to throw, I think it is a radeon 6850 to match the power of the cpu itself (may be wrong on that) you can upgrade its graphical power some more with as well overclocking the system. Though I would recommend a higher PSU when that time comes.

P.S. - Also note worthy if you can get these in combo's you can also probably save a hefty 20 to 60 bucks if you look hard enough.


Hi,

Thank you ckholt83 and Astralman! I tried finding the processor and motherboards you guys suggested online on Indian websites. It seems the FM2 socket processors and motherboards aren't yet launched here. Have they been launched recently in the USA? ASUS doesn't even have FM2 category for motherboards on the Indian version of their website.

I am quite sure the local shops won't have them as well as the largest shopping portal flipkart.com doesn't have them. They aren't even available on ebay.in

I'll try contacting flipkart. Can you guys suggest an alternative? How's A6-3500?

Once again thanks a lot for your effort, guys. Much appreciated. :) 

they launched in teh USA on Tuesday...should have been worldwide. flipcart shows most of the Llano cpus as ''out of stock,'' so the new Trinity chips should show up very soon.


the a6-3500 should do what your daughter needs to do for the next year or three, by which time you can just build another inexpensive machine.

ScrewySqrl said:
they launched in teh USA on Tuesday...should have been worldwide. flipcart shows most of the Llano cpus as ''out of stock,'' so the new Trinity chips should show up very soon.


the a6-3500 should do what your daughter needs to do for the next year or three, by which time you can just build another inexpensive machine.


Oh! In that case they should be launched here in this month. Should I wait?

All the F1 socket motherboards are out of stock on flipkart. Not sure why… I'll ask the local dealers for F1 motherboards. Any recommendations?


Thanks!

Astralman said:

As well as she gets older you want to throw, I think it is a radeon 6850 to match the power of the cpu itself (may be wrong on that) you can upgrade its graphical power some more with as well overclocking the system.



Does trinity A10-5800K builtin gpu is as good as the radeon 6850 ?

Or if not - then what radeon / nvidia GPU it is as good as ?

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