I bought my last PC in 2007. This was when I was at university and very skint. So I got myself a bog standard PC, then as I’ve been using it I’ve been upgrading the pieces bit by bit. Graphics card, new ram, extra HD. So now the next thing to replace was the motherboard.
When I looked into replacing my motherboard, I realised it was old! Looking forwards I would have wanted to replace the PCU next. I was stuck. If I replaced the mobo with one that fitted my current PCU I wouldn’t be able to upgrade to a decent one in the future. However if I bought a future proof mobo I couldn’t use my current PCU. Ok fine I’ll just buy a PCU as well … nope. Same scenario with my RAM, current RAM IS DDR2 and I would need DDR3 for current motherboards. This was getting too expensive.
I was planning on spending about £90 on a new motherboard. ( I like spending around £100 per component), but as I’ve just said I’d need RAM a PCU and then probably a PSU! Well I found an lternative, a barebones PC, these come as a motherboard, ram, PCU, PSU WIN! I just have to plug my current harddrives in, my graphics card, my dvd drive and away we go!
I went for the “Primo PLUS 500i” Intel H61 DDR3 Ready Barebones (Socket 1155). It is ACE. £125 what a bargain, granted I would have got a lethal mobo for £125 but I like the compromise for upgradeability.
Here’s the innards:
And the front on view:
System Specification
– Case: OcUK IMP microATX case – Black
– Motherboard: Asus P8H61-MX Intel H61 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard
– Power Supply: OcUK Value 500W PSU
– CPU: Intel Celeron G530 2.40GHz (Socket 1155) CPU
– Memory: OcUK Value 4GB 1333MHZ C9
Now it’s not the most top end PC, but it’s good. Now I can start my cycle again of upgrading each piece one at a time and hopefully this PC will last me another 5 years!
Installation was easy by the way. Simple if you’ve ever been inside a PC and straight forward if you haven’t. HD sata cables connected, graphics card into the PCIE, turn it on, done!
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