[biffyclyro27]

(Original post by AmyJ)
£700 was the maximum amount I was prepared to spend, that's all. I took the advice of earlier posters in regards to what was/wasn't "overkill" and my current component list comes to around £520. If nothing else, it means I have more money spare to buy a decent screen etc.

Fair enough, then you made the right decision. Spending the extra cash would not have made any difference for your purposes

[tanveer2k12]

Sorry but why on earth do you need a Sound card? and a LIquid cooling >?? you arent even gaming
Stick with nothing else but a i5 Sandy bridge or ivy bridge

Building your PC is the best solution for experience and getting the highest quality parts
GET RID OF that low profile Graphics card
you DO NOT match a **** card with a good CPU
it has to balance out
either switch to AMD A8 with its fast integrated graphics which is £95
Also get RID of that PSU
cooler master PSU's are lower quality for that price, add another £10 get a high quality XFX, Corsair TX series or seasonic
For you 450w+ is recommended
WHY oN EARTH Would you need A SSD if you AREN'T gaming?!!!!
switch to a Sata 3, 1 terabyte HDD you will save bucks

If you want to save money go to AMD, if not stay with Intel is what I say
personally I dont care its all preference

[Iqbal007]

(Original post by tanveer2k12)
Sorry but why on earth do you need a Sound card? and a LIquid cooling >?? you arent even gaming
Stick with nothing else but a i5 Sandy bridge or ivy bridge

Building your PC is the best solution for experience and getting the highest quality parts
GET RID OF that low profile Graphics card
you DO NOT match a **** card with a good CPU
it has to balance out
either switch to AMD A8 with its fast integrated graphics which is £95
Also get RID of that PSU
cooler master PSU's are lower quality for that price, add another £10 get a high quality XFX, Corsair TX series or seasonic
For you 450w+ is recommended
WHY oN EARTH Would you need A SSD if you AREN'T gaming?!!!!
switch to a Sata 3, 1 terabyte HDD you will save bucks

If you want to save money go to AMD, if not stay with Intel is what I say
personally I dont care its all preference

"focused on system speed and stability"

Hence the lower profile graphics card, so that the processor focuses on it's job and SSD does make the system fast regardless of gaming.

[tanveer2k12]

(Original post by Iqbal007)
"focused on system speed and stability"

Hence the lower profile graphics card, so that the processor focuses on it's job and SSD does make the system fast regardless of gaming.

"focused on system speed and stability"

regardless of what apps you are running the CPU will Always focus on it's job, I dont understand your point, if you are running a game for example then yes it will focus on that game with both the CPU and GPU, the OP is not buying for gaming purposes there is no need for such a graphics card in the first place the sandy bridge/ivy bridge which will do the job or outputting the display.
I have SDD it's useful for faster loading times and transferring things around, not so you can run microsoft office faster
(i install my games on a SSD so the textures load faster) but besides that it isnt worth it, its opinion i will admit that but Skip the SSD for now, if you just want to save money.

"stability" is not even a option here regardless of what PC you build as long as its all good quality parts and you can look after the PC it will run smooth and stable, the small amount of storage on the SSD is a problem though

you are mistaken if you think a rubbish graphics card will make the processor focus on its job, thats not how things work, video processing won't even be noticed here, like i said unless she is running programs which need the GPU.

you should never bottle neck your parts always match

(i know my spelling/grammar is terrible)

[Iqbal007]

(Original post by tanveer2k12)
"focused on system speed and stability"

regardless of what apps you are running the CPU will Always focus on it's job, I dont understand your point, if you are running a game for example then yes it will focus on that game with both the CPU and GPU, the OP is not buying for gaming purposes there is no need for such a graphics card in the first place the sandy bridge/ivy bridge which will do the job or outputting the display.
I have SDD it's useful for faster loading times and transferring things around, not so you can run microsoft office faster
(i install my games on a SSD so the textures load faster) but besides that it isnt worth it, its opinion i will admit that but Skip the SSD for now, if you just want to save money.

"stability" is not even a option here regardless of what PC you build as long as its all good quality parts and you can look after the PC it will run smooth and stable, the small amount of storage on the SSD is a problem though

you are mistaken if you think a rubbish graphics card will make the processor focus on its job, thats not how things work, video processing won't even be noticed here, like i said unless she is running programs which need the GPU.

you should never bottle neck your parts always match

(i know my spelling/grammar is terrible)

I'm just concerned with having a integrated graphics card on your motherboard, as it can take up space for other use. And having a dedicated one, even if it's cheap, it's good to maintain even a little graphic performance.

SDD should allow programs to run much smoother and using any files from such. It'll definitely help them with speed.

[alexs2602]

(Original post by tanveer2k12)
Sorry but why on earth do you need a Sound card? and a LIquid cooling >?? you arent even gaming
Stick with nothing else but a i5 Sandy bridge or ivy bridge

Building your PC is the best solution for experience and getting the highest quality parts
GET RID OF that low profile Graphics card
you DO NOT match a **** card with a good CPU
it has to balance out
either switch to AMD A8 with its fast integrated graphics which is £95
Also get RID of that PSU
cooler master PSU's are lower quality for that price, add another £10 get a high quality XFX, Corsair TX series or seasonic
For you 450w+ is recommended
WHY oN EARTH Would you need A SSD if you AREN'T gaming?!!!!
switch to a Sata 3, 1 terabyte HDD you will save bucks

If you want to save money go to AMD, if not stay with Intel is what I say
personally I dont care its all preference

Omg, I've figured it out! You're an idiot. SSDs don't do **** for gaming performance. SSDs are great for boot up times and starting programs. So why shouldn't she get it? She has the money and she's willing to splash out on all these other bits and bobs so an SSD seems logical to get. For smoother running.

AMD does ****ty processors.

I own an Antec TruepowerNew PSU. Seasonic's the OEM and got it for a pretty decent price. Ordered from Dixons, would you believe?

[ThatPerson]

(Original post by AmyJ)
So I have a budget of £700 to build a new desktop. It will not be used for gaming so I don't need particularly advanced graphics cards etc, I'm mainly focused on system speed and stability. I have £300 to use separately for a decent monitor/printer, and I already have an external hard drive so I factored that out. This is what I've come up with so far:

Attachment 150018

..it comes to £697.

I'm concerned that it might be "overkill" for a standard office machine, and since someone else is putting it together for me (I'm only picking the components ), I'm also worried that a couple of things I selected might be incompatible. I went for a dedicated sound card because on-board sound tends to be rubbish, but it might be a little unnecessary. Thoughts/suggestions?

I don't think you need the SSD, Liquid Cooling or a CPU as powerful as the i5-3570k.

[alexs2602]

(Original post by ThatPerson)
I don't think you need the SSD, Liquid Cooling or a CPU as powerful as the i5-3570k.

Wrong, right, wrong.

[ThatPerson]

(Original post by alexs2602)
Wrong, right, wrong.

Yeah I just looked through the thread. Maybe she/he does need the SSD. But I'm curious, why do you need the i5-3570k for an office build? Why not go cheaper to the i3 series or to an i5-2500k?

[SMed]

(Original post by ThatPerson)
Yeah I just looked through the thread. Maybe she/he does need the SSD. But I'm curious, why do you need the i5-3570k for an office build? Why not go cheaper to the i3 series or to an i5-2500k?

Lots of graphical work, including photoshop etc.

[Intriguing Alias]

(Original post by ThatPerson)
Yeah I just looked through the thread. Maybe she/he does need the SSD. But I'm curious, why do you need the i5-3570k for an office build? Why not go cheaper to the i3 series or to an i5-2500k?

As SMed says, photoshop can be a bitch so i3 is on the low end. Could get an i5-2500k but I'm a firm believer of 'might as well go for the new version for an extra £10-£15'.