Build me a machine for £500

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I am after a reasonable machine which is going to used as a workstation and must be capable of outputting to 3 monitors. I have already priced up various bits but I am curious to see how other people might build this machine. eg 2x gt220 cards or a single triple head card?

Processor is not too important but an AMD quad core or i5 would be nice, the case only needs to be very basic and simple and ideally a SSD would be best. So what do you guys suggest?
 
Soldato
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just over budget, you wont get an i5 and ssd for 500 quid, not without seriously skimping on everything else

budgetquadSSDbuild.png
 
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I would drop the SSD - in Seraph's build it leaves you with only 25gb storage after the OS and some basic applications are accounted for.

Also leaves you without an optical drive :) (unless that was intentional)

I would go for a Spinpoint F3 500gb and slightly up the quality of case/other components.

Unless 40GB SSD is big enough for you.
 
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Storage isn't a major issue as we can always use a separate drive for bigger files/applications and besides the system is to be used in a corporate environment when all files should be held on a server anyway. a 64gb SSD would be lovely but it is tight with the budget.

Dont forget 3 screen though! that is paramount and as long as it all fits in a case I dont care how bland it is, it will live under a desk anyway. :)
 
Soldato
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if it's for a corporate environment, then why no corporate budget? 500 quid for a workstation is poor at best and for a 3 screen set-up, you'd have a lot more scope with 750-1000 quid ;)

just to *edit*
whats the machine being used for exactly?
 
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in a nutshell, server and network administration and a bit of development work. It is the screen real estate we are after and already have the monitors. But its also a case of proving what can be assembled with a minimal budget.
 
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specs.jpg


Dropped the quad for a dual to include the SSD but could always swap this back for a quad. What do you think?

My only concern is will it all fit in that case?
 
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XFX ATI Radeon HD 5770 XXX Edition 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £129.24
(£109.99)
OCZ Vertex 2E 60GB 2.5" SATA-II Solid State Hard Drive (OCZSSD2-2VTXE60G) £124.98
(£106.37)
AMD Athlon II X4 Quad Core 640 3.00GHz (Socket AM3) - Retail £76.36
(£64.99)
Gigabyte GA-MA785GMT-UD2H AMD 785G (Socket AM3) DDR3 microATX Motherboard £66.99
(£57.01)
OCZ Gold 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-10666C9 1333MHz Low-Voltage Dual Channel (OCZ3G1333LV4GK) £66.96
(£56.99)
Corsair CX 400W ATX Power Supply (CMPSU-400CXUK) £29.99
(£25.52)
Xigmatek Asgard Midi Tower Case - Black £26.99
(£22.97)
Samsung SH-S223C/BEBE 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £13.99
(£11.91)
Sub Total : £455.75
Shipping : £11.75
VAT : £81.81
Total : £549.31

Or drop back to the 5750 to hit 500. Didn't include a hard drive as if you can just upload stuff to the server; 60GB will hold the OS + anything you're currently working on. If you do need mass storage, swap the OCZ SSD with the Intel 40GB Value one, and factor in a £35 500GB seagate 7200.
 
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