New PC Build, Am I Making The Right Decision?

[#1]

Have you looked at refurbished or ex-display stuff?
I used a lot of both when I built my pc (CPU, power supply, water-cooler) kept the price down to under a grand

[#2]

Wow this thread has really become popular xD. @vilefox I've gone for 8gb because I will be doing a little gaming and could help with having multiple tabs open in browsers and things like that. I have thought about going AMD on the CPU but from my research I haven't found any AM3/AM3+ socket ITX motherboards and there wouldn't be any advantage of going AMD whilst using more power and making more heat.  @ReedRichards I am not comfortable with going with that powersupply. I would feel much more comfortable with going for something from Corsair or EVGA or any of those brands. Yes I'd be saving 40 quid but im not sure if that psu isn't just a cheap firework show. @nanotm I am not a fan of biostar motherboards and that CPU is weaker than the Intel CPU I have in my parts list. I don't play csgo at max settings. I normally play at 1280x960 4:3 stretched and lowest settings apart from antialiasing. I've pretty much completely written off AMD CPUs for this build. @FreddieFlint no I havent but I'd rather go all new. JUst for the warrenty and free 1-day delivery. Thankyou all so much for your input. I'll be posting a little revised version soon!

[#3]

CPU: Intel Pentium G3460 3.5GHz Dual-Core Processor  (£50.99)
Motherboard: Asus H81I-PLUS Mini ITX LGA1150 Motherboard  (£52.38 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: *Patriot Signature 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory  (£29.99 @ Amazon UK)
Case: Silverstone Sugo SG13B-Q Mini ITX Tower Case  (£39.50 @ Amazon UK)
Power Supply: EVGA 500W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply  (£38.49 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £211.35
So this is the revised version. I have removed the GPU and HDD as I think this confused a few people (I already have both.) I will be using a spare Corsair SP120 Quiet Edition fan which is supposed to be on my main PC but I forgot to put it on. I have only changed the PSU. This is because I've had a bad experience with the lower end Corsair PSUs. The one I got was very noisy and died after a few months of decent use. I understand that this new GPU is not modular but I think I will be using most of the cables and if not I can simple tie/tape them together and move them out of the way of the airflow into the pc.

[#4]

Quote from: vilefox

There's no way you can use 8GB on a Linux Desktop, unless you are going to be running multiple VM's - so you could save a small amount there.

[tt]
Tasks: 206 total,  1 running, 205 sleeping,  0 stopped,  0 zombie
%Cpu(s):  3.6 us,  0.3 sy,  0.0 ni, 96.2 id,  0.0 wa,  0.0 hi,  0.0 si,  0.0 st
KiB Mem:  8088752 total,  3839548 used,  4249204 free,  152472 buffers
KiB Swap:  7932924 total,        0 used,  7932924 free.  1937152 cached Mem[/tt]
Linux will quite happily use memory for buffers and cache....

[#5]

Quote

Tasks: 190 total,  1 running, 189 sleeping,  0 stopped,  0 zombie %Cpu(s):  2.4 us,  0.4 sy,  0.0 ni, 96.5 id,  0.6 wa,  0.0 hi,  0.0 si,  0.0 st KiB Mem:  8094912 total,  2082164 used,  6012748 free,  102344 buffers KiB Swap:  4194300 total,        0 used,  4194300 free.  1004432 cached Mem

i.e. I've got 8GB on board, but I'm using about 800MB of about 2,000MB including buffers & cache.
6GB isn't currently used at all.

[#6]

Quote from: vilefox

i.e. I've got 8GB on board, but I'm using about 800MB of about 2,000MB including buffers & cache. 6GB isn't currently used at all.

This is my Tosh laptop after being used for a day doing things like browsing and editing documents
[tt]
top - 23:37:09 up 1 day,  3:48,  2 users,  load average: 0.17, 0.15, 0.20
Tasks: 208 total,  2 running, 206 sleeping,  0 stopped,  0 zombie
%Cpu(s):  4.3 us,  0.8 sy,  0.0 ni, 94.9 id,  0.0 wa,  0.0 hi,  0.0 si,  0.0 st
KiB Mem:  8088752 total,  5140064 used,  2948688 free,  210040 buffers
KiB Swap:  7932924 total,        0 used,  7932924 free.  3372552 cached Mem
[/tt]

[#7]

Have you thought of a Chromebook for your folks?  I've been in IT since 1970 and built many PCs over the years, but I'm really impressed with the Acer Chromebook I bought a year or so ago. It has good battery life, starts quickly and you don't need to worry about patching the OS. If you need the facility you can manage the device remotely. It covers email, browsing and google docs is pretty good nowadays.

[#8]

Funny you should say that, I have. I was thinking how awesome it would be to have ubuntu on a small, light laptop. But I already have a laptop and the price to performance of any laptop is not that great in my opinion.