Low budget PC for £200

salman

Member
Hey guys,

I haven't been on here for a while and I'm quite behind on what's currently going on in the computing world.

I've been asked by a family member to build or buy a ready made desktop with a maximum budget of £200. I only need a tower, no mouse, keyboard or monitor and the price needs to include an OS too.

The PC is for a business so it needs to be reliable. It will be used for internet browsing, word processing, graphics packages including Corel Draw and some of the Adobe packages like photoshop and fireworks as well as more specialist software for running embroidery machines and vinyl cutters (so no really demanding software).

With £200 can I get a desktop that is very capable of doing all of this smoothly without bogging down?

Thanks a lot in advance for any help or advice, you guys on here have been great in the past.
 

wolfeking

banned
My advice is a bigger budget. seems (at least from overclockers) the best you are going to get is a dual core celeron with no OS. Add windows 8 and budget is gone out the window.
 

salman

Member
Thanks for the speedy responses guys.

A quick Q: do software packages such as Photoshop and corelDraw use much processing power from the graphics card? Or is the work done by the main CPU?

Will a mobo with a built in graphics chip be upto the job?

I'll have a hunt around in the attic and see what old components I can salvage, I may have a case and a DVD drive which would shave a bit off of the cost.
 

spirit

Moderator
Staff member
Some programs benefit from GPU acceleration. I know Photoshop certainly does. But a good CPU would also be nice.

I don't see why you couldn't use onboard graphics if you're not doing serious editing, but a dedicated card may help speed things up a bit.
 

salman

Member
Cheers, yeah it will be fairly light weight editing, just slightly tweaking and tidying up photos.

I'll keep researching for now, I'm thinking a second hand PC might be the way forward with such a tight budget. The cost of an OS is a lot.
 

Shane

Super Moderator
Staff member
Extremely tight budget,best i could do £259...whilst not the best at all,it should do what it needs to!..And has an OS!

AMD A4 3300, S FM1, Lynx Core, Dual Core, 2.5GHz, GPU AMD Radeon HD 6410D 443MHz, 65W, Retail
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/amd-...ghz-gpu-amd-radeon-hd-6410d-443mhz-65w-retail

MSI A55M-P33
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/msi-...up-to-16gb-1x-pci-ex16-6x-sata2-gbit-lan-matx

Corsair Memory XMS3 Classic 4GB DDR3 1333 Mhz
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/4gb-...6-(1333)-non-ecc-unbuffered-cas-9-9-9-24-150v

CiT 1015B Black Micro ATX Case fitted with 500w PSU Mini Tower *Chuck the included PSU in BIN!*
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/cit-1015b-black-micro-atx-mini-tower-case-with-500w-psu

be quiet! BN081 System Power S6 Power Supply - 350W
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/350w-be-quiet!-system-power-s6-bn081-80-plus-fan-atx-v22-psu

Seagate 500Gb 3.5" Barracuda Hard Drive 7200rpm 16MB Cache
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/500g...racuda-sata-6gb-s-7200rpm-16mb-cache-85ms-ncq

Microsoft Windows 8 64bit DVD OEM

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/microsoft-windows-8-64bit-dvd-oem-the-most-popular-one!

Its windows that pumps the price right up,Greedy microsoft! :mad:
 
Last edited:

Shlouski

VIP Member
Trying to be careful here, the only way i can see this build happening is if you were to find windows for free, which can be done quite easily, try googling about a bit.
 

spirit

Moderator
Staff member
I think he's trying to imply that the reason that machine may be so cheap is because the OS installed on it may be pirated. May need to be a bit careful or ask if you can buy it without the OS so that you can buy it and install it yourself but will be more expensive, but at least you'll be sure your software is genuine.
 
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