25k budget - pc for office work / movies / music

B

1. What is the purpose of the computer?
Primary: Office work - excel / word etc.
Secondary: Internet / Movies / Music

2. Are you open to alternate ideas/products giving similar better performance but offering more VFM/ sellers? If not- why?
?

3. What is your MAX budget?
25-30k

4. Planning to overclock?
No.

5. Which OS are you planning to use?
Windows 7 (will buy an original copy)

6. How much hard drive space is needed?
1 tb (fills up with music and movies rather fast)

7. What resolution will the screen run at & whats the size of the screen you want?
As big as possible within my budget.

8. How would you rate your hardware knowledge from the count of 1-10? (1 being the lowest, 5 being you are somewhat in sync with the current performers and 10 being the highest)
0

9. Have you ever built a desktop before or will this be done by an assembler?
Nope, never. This will be assembled.

10. When are you planning to buy the system?
In the next week, hopefully.

11. Are you one of the types looking out for "future proof" configurations?
Nope.

12. Are there going to be any components that you don't want to include in this new rig? If yes, do mention.
Nope, i need a complete new system.

13. Which city do you live in and are you open to buying from shops from other city/states?
Lucknow

14. Mention any other points if deemed necessary
I need 4 gb of ram.
A good speaker system would help.

Since you dont want gaming, get this Intel based rig

else this AMD rig with a graphic card

@thetechfreak, since OP is not into gaming, no point in adding a GPU..

Here's my suggestion..

Component | Make | Price Processor |Intel Core i3 2100|5500|
Motherboard |Intel DH67BL-B3|5200|
RAM |Corsair value DDR3 1333MHz 2GB|900
HDD |Seagate 1TB 7200.12|2700
DVD Writer |LG 22X SATA DVD|900
PSU |FSP saga II 500W|2000
Case |Zebronics Bijli (w/o psu)|1000
Monitor |Benq G2220HD|7200
Keyboard & Mouse |Logitech MK100|500
UPS |APC 600VA|1800
Speakers |Altec lansing VS2621|1600
Total ||29300

OR

Component | Make | Price Processor |AMD Athlon II X4 635 |4500|
Motherboard |Gigabyte GA-MA785GMT-US2H|3400|
Total ||26500

Megamind, the config is good but does he need a i3 2100 for the kind of work he mentioned? A Athlon II X4 640 @ 4K and a 785G based 3/3.5K mobo will serve the Op's purposes efficiently and will come under far cheaper price.

^^Athlon II X4 640 is retailing @ 4.8k in chennai.. Thats why suggested i3..

Are they really 4k?

Yes they are. At 4.8K, you will get a Phenom II X4 840. Check the smc and theitware prices.

How about a llano based rig here guys?

vickybat said:
How about a llano based rig here guys?

Wont that be over OP's budget?
Also Athlon ii wil do the job for OP's requirements..

^^ Within 30k, i think a llano can be easily squeezed.

Here you go mate:

^^But for OP's requirements, SB i3 or athlon would do good than LLANO..

Also Pls change the price of Z313...

Its 1.6k around and at that price AL VS2621 is better..

^^ Yes i3 2100 is a powerful cpu but llano offers a balanced multimedia rig. Since its under op's budget, no harm in going for it.

The llano gpu will provide a good punch if op plans some light gaming in future. No need to add a discrete gpu then.

Yes i will edit the z313. Actually i have these personally and purchased them for 1.5k in my hometown.

Right, If OP plans on gaming, llano is good.. Else no point in getting it.. OP's choice..

MegaMind said:
Right, If OP plans on gaming, llano is good.. Else no point in getting it.. OP's choice..

I'd say that's not true.

Even if OP doesn't play any games, they will be useful for Full HD movies. Many full HD movies do not play so well without a good GPU.

Secondly, with most people now using windows 7, it is always good to have decent graphics performance, windows 7 needs it. And with Windows 8 due next year, it would be better to be on the safe side and buy a config assuming it will need even better gpu.

If OP can go for Llano, I'd say that's his best bet. Else I'd suggest:
AMD Athlon II X4 640 - 4k
GIgabyte GA-880GM-USB3L - 4.2k
Corsair value DDR3 1333MHz 4GB - 2k

Cool Buddy said:
Even if OP doesn't play any games, they will be useful for Full HD movies. Many full HD movies do not play so well without a good GPU.

Nope..
AMD Athlon II X4 635
Gigabyte GA-MA785GMT-US2H

This combination can play Bluray movies w/o any stuttering/hickups.. Tried n tested..

^^ Actually when playing 1080p movies, you would want to enable gpu acceleration in players like media player classic homecinema or s-player etc. So DXVA acceleration will be enabled and a user can apply shaders and a lot of post processing effects to enhance the image quality.

Believe me, watching a 1080p movie with dxva acceleration is totally a different experience and you can make out the rich colours along with extra shaders.

For these effects, onboard gpu of a 785 chipset won't cut it and needs atleast a discrete class gpu higher than lets say a 5450.

Therefore llano with its 5570 class gpu can handle these with ease and totally worth the investment. The x4 config is fine if op plans to add a discrete gpu but if he doesn't , then llano is a better option because it has the same processing power of an x4 but has a much much better embedded gpu.

^^Agreed, Jus made a comaprison of homecinema vs VLC in Hangover bluray...

*i705.photobucket.com/albums/ww54/mailmemanju/Bench/1.jpg

*i705.photobucket.com/albums/ww54/mailmemanju/Bench/2.jpg

*i705.photobucket.com/albums/ww54/mailmemanju/Bench/3.jpg

Cilus said:
Yes they are. At 4.8K, you will get a Phenom II X4 840. Check the smc and theitware prices.

Sorry but the prices of x4 635 is 4.8 k even here. the x4 840 costs around 5.1k

The prices in that website is the lowest in the country we should be a bitrealistic

No offence

MegaMind said:
^^Agreed, Jus made a comaprison of homecinema vs VLC in Hangover bluray...

*i705.photobucket.com/albums/ww54/mailmemanju/Bench/1.jpg

*i705.photobucket.com/albums/ww54/mailmemanju/Bench/2.jpg

*i705.photobucket.com/albums/ww54/mailmemanju/Bench/3.jpg

Yes , that's what i was talking about. The mediaplayer screenshots look way better and in comparison vlc without gpu acceleration looks washed out.

Very nice comparison. The op can actually check them out before making a decision. :smile:

thetechfreak said:
Sorry but the prices of x4 635 is 4.8 k even here. the x4 840 costs around 5.1k

The prices in that website is the lowest in the country we should be a bitrealistic

No offence

In Kolkata, Phenom II 840 is available @ 4.6K.

T

Go with Vickybat Config or Megamind (With AMD Option).

i Core for those uses is a money waste

MegaMind said:
^^Agreed, Jus made a comaprison of homecinema vs VLC in Hangover bluray...

*i705.photobucket.com/albums/ww54/mailmemanju/Bench/1.jpg

*i705.photobucket.com/albums/ww54/mailmemanju/Bench/2.jpg

*i705.photobucket.com/albums/ww54/mailmemanju/Bench/3.jpg

What are the filters you using?

Nonody is taking my name in GPU accelerated Video playback... I'm kinda hurt...

I think I started to tell everybody in the 1st place about the the beauty of it and gave Vicky a demo when I visted his house 1st time.

Skud, normally if you are playing a 720P movie, use the YV12Chroma upscaling, BT601 —> BT701 (supposed to be BT709) colour conversion. The former colour set is used in SD videos like DVD while the latter is used in HD videos like DVB-T broadcasts or even HD-DVD/Blu-ray movies. So it will improve the color of Non-HD videos

Description of Some other Shaders

16-235 –> 0-255. This improves the color depth of an image and always improves the quality. This can be set by Catalyst Control center or nvidia control panel in the Video quality section and you don't need to use it from MPC-HC.

sharpen complex, sharpen and edge sharpen: All three of them tried to achieve the same thing with different algorithms. In my opinion, sharpen complex comes first, then followed by edge sharpen and sharpen respectively.

Cilus said:
playing a 720P movie, use the YV12Chroma upscaling, BT601 —> BT701 (supposed to be BT709) colour conversion. The former colour set is used in SD videos like DVD while the latter is used in HD videos like DVB-T broadcasts or even HD-DVD/Blu-ray movies. So it will improve the color of Non-HD videos

Cilus, can u go a bit deep here.. About where they should be adjusted?

^^ Didn't get you. do you want to know how to enable the shaders in MPC-Home Cinema?

Oh, i got it.. while playing, everything is accessible.. reps for u n batman..

Yup cilus has to be credited for this and actually he showed me the effect of gpu accelerated videos personally when he visited my house. I was spellbound when i saw the effects for the first time. He really knows a lot on video encoding, decoding and post processing effects and has taught me a lot of things. :smile: