Haswell Powered CPU Build Guide for Low End Gaming, Word Processing and Browsing; for October 2013 (Pakistan Market Prices and Parts Availability)

This build is recommended for casual CAD users, rendering at very high resolution will take lot of time on this build, nearly impossible and very casual gamers.

CPU

Intel® Core™ i3-4130 Processor (3M Cache, up to 3.40 GHz) ~15,000 PKR, average rendering performance, it will stay for 3 years easy! It has 2 cores and HT technology, will perform everyday tasks and simple CAD tasks like charm! It will struggle a bit with the rendering software and large CAD assemblies, and of course running games at high resolution.

Motherboard

Intel® Desktop Board DB85FL ~10,000 PKR, using 3rd party mother boards is not recommended in Pakistan because of no-warranty issues. Most of the importers buy from Intel and they come with warranty, others simply don't. This board supports 4 6 GB/s SATA, USB and PCI-e 3.0.

PSU + Case + Extra Fan

~3,000 PKR. For this build you can go for the built in 300 Watt power supply that comes with you casing, but due to large time spent gaming and/or rendering and due to hot temperature in Pakistan, the system heats up pretty bad, so be SURE to buy and add an extra 120 mm fan.

RAM

Kingston® KVR16N11/4 4 GB DDR 3 1600 MHz, ~4,000PKR  x1, as RAM is expensive these days, was at around half the price last year, so go for 1 DIMM 4 GB memory. I don't recommend buying 2x DIMM of 2GB capacity, because if you want to upgrade to full capacity later (and most of you will, that's why one buys a Desktop and not a Craptop), (capacity of the recommended motherboard is 8GBx4 = 32 GB maximum) it will not use up extra DIMM slot.

HD

Seagate® Barracuda™ 7200 rpm 32 MB Cache 500 GB ~6,500 PKR. Buy the smallest/cheapest capacity/price available because most of us pre own portable hard drives anyway, use them for backup.

Optical Drive

Yeah, it was something too, something dinosaurs used! NOT recommended. Just wastage of money! We use USB ports to install any of the current OS, obviously. but of you don't have the ability to install the OS from USB port, or are afraid to make changes to your BIOS, please buy yourself a Super Drive.

WIFI

TP Link® WN722N ~1,000 PKR, it is a must as most of us have WIFI routers these days, so to get internet to your desktop, you will have to use this or a ~2,500 PKR 50+ meter LAN cable. The choice is yours! This isn't even a hard one!

This all adds up to 40,000 PKR without Graphics Card, Keyboard, Mouse, Speakers and a Monitor which most of us pre own and do not change for ~8-10 years.

If you are buying everything from start, add ~2,500 PKR for keyboard and mouse, and ~12,000 for 900p monitor (Dell® or HP® only because of warranty issues).

 

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