Mini PC - Budget - £90

I decided to transform my old crappy Compaq Presario SR3002UK PC into a "monster" (reasonably specced gaming PC) PC for as little money as possible!

 

PC Specs before upgrades:

  • Pentium D 3.0 Ghz Dual core CPU
  • 120GB Seagate sata HDD
  • Cheap nasty Foxconn Motherboard with NO PCIe lanes!
  • 250W "bestec" PSU
  • 512mb DDR2 memory
  • Reasonably nice case with acceptable airflow considering the age and size

 

Specs after upgrades (Not complete yet):

  • Pentium D 3.0ghz Dual core CPU (future plan for a Q6600)
  • Asus P5G41-M LX2/GB REV 1.01 LGA775 Motherboard
  • 4gb integral ddr3 1333mhz memory (Cheap with good reveiws)
  • same 120gb HDD
  • same case with an added arctic 92mm fan in the back
  • Antec 500w PSU (cheap but reliable brand)
  • Nvidia Geforce GTX 630

 

All the new parts were purchased from sellers on Ebay or amazon for a total of £90 (The GPU was a steal!)

I will post pictures of the completed build next weekend when all the parts have arrived and it's all put together!

 

I have now decided to make it an "all in one PC" by attaching a 15" 1366x768 TV to the side panel. The TV doesn't work as a TV anymore but does just fine as a monitor. (I hate using TVs as monitors but it was just laying around and had no use!)

 

[Edit] This is STRICTLY a budget system! I want to stay with the 775 socket and still be able to play games like the source games and minecraft!

This is not a fancy gaming build! I built this as a secondary rig so that if a friend comes over we can both play games together!

make a nice little linux box or light gaming rig.

DO NOT get a q6600 Because my sandy bridge CELERON beats it in many games,

this   http://www.amazon.co.uk/Intel-Pentium-3-00GHz-Extended-Technology/dp/B00EF1G9DW/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1391402752&sr=8-1&keywords=intel+pentium

and this http://www.amazon.co.uk/MSI-H81M-P33-LGA1150-M-ATX-Motherboard/dp/B00EPLE3J4/ref=sr_1_2?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1391402832&sr=1-2&keywords=lga+1150

will pwn it for the same price of a q6600

Firstt get a new hdd or a small boot ssd. You wont believe the 50% performance boost.

and watch out because your case looks btx

My tests show about 300% performance boost....  

yes but i was thinking of just an hdd. but yes youre  right if he got an ssd he would get a good 300% boost

This is purely for if a friend comes over, they have something to play on, nothing fancy or expensive. I already have a system with a 7870 in it for my main rig

 

That's the plan, when linux can run enough games i will install SteamOS or Ubuntu!

make a robot

I was worried about that too, i looked up the model of PC it originally was and the current motherboard is a standard Matx.

...You might be onto something!

 

I was looking to stick with 775 for a while as this is just a side project and it wont be used very heavily. But in the future if i do an overhaul i will get a haswell I3

 

fucking aye

Wow, that's an awesome job on making an old piece of crap PC into a decent gaming PC.

You mentioned Minecraft and Source games, how well do they run? Friend of mine has a similar rig, was wondering what a new GPU could do for him.

 

My 630 hasn't arrived yet, but with a G210 i have about  60-70fps on high settings with low AA on source games eg Gmod or portal.

Minecraft is about 45-65ish on far render distance with optifine running. So not awesome but playable yes!

 

It's small, quiet and runs cool. More than i can say about my main rig!

 

Even that's a hekuva lot better than my buddy's PC - will show him this!

It's small, quiet and runs cool. More than i can say about my main rig!

Undoubtedly, but my main rig is almost silent most of the time. Maybe not "cool" but good enough. What're you running? Didn't see anything on your profile.

Phenom II x4 965

8gb Corsair Vengeance

MSI 7850 power edition

500w corsair PSU

1tb WD RED NAS drive

xclio touch 320 case

970A - G46 motherboard

I'm looking it to building a new PC for my Son, something that will be faster than his AMD 4400+ 3GB AGP 4650 (128bit) 8 year old one

I need a very cheap build that will be used as a tv box or lan file server when I give him my PC at a later date

believe it or not he can run most games, the only ones that slow are octodad and saints row (cpu)

so need a very cheap cpu gfx card

anyone recommend a few

id like to keep it under £150 uk ($244 us)

oh and he will want to multi boot in to macos so the cpu needs

virtualize VT or equivalent

thx and as I'm new to the forum... Hi all :-)

 

Yeah, those are some fairly warm parts no matter what. At least you have plenty of room for fans in than case, and it has some fan control. I suppose you could get some low dB fans if it mattered that much to you.