New Build Help £450 - £600

chrismscotland · 24 Jul 2010 at 21:49

Hi folks,

Looking for some advice really, came home on Friday to find that my 5 year old desktop PC has given up the ghost, I think its either the motherboard / cpu or gpu as it was fine and then suddenly no output to the monitor and it won't boot, I've been meaning to replace it anyway but wasn't expecting it just to go!

I've been leaning toward spending around £500 - £600 on a laptop but as I don't expect to need to move it anywhere I was kinda thinking a new desktop build for around the same cost could be a better idea and maybe give me some additional gaming horsepower that while I'm not building specifically with gaming in mind it wouldn't hurt to have a better GPU!!

Anyway looking to spec a build for between £450 - £600, as I've said gaming isn't a huge concern but I know a £600 build desktop is going to be more powerful than a £600 laptop!!!

That budget excludes a monitor and I've got Windows 7 kicking about somewhere so I don't need an OS either,

Cheers,

Chris

Jayster · 24 Jul 2010 at 21:51

What will you be using the computer for and what could you salvage from your old desktop?

chrismscotland · 24 Jul 2010 at 21:54

Jayster said:
What will you be using the computer for and what could you salvage from your old desktop?

To be honest my old pc is 5 - 6 years old now so I don't think any of the components would be savlageable and even the case I would replace as its very small!!

Its really for browsing, video, music, bit of gaming but nothing too taxing, would like something thats a bit quicker for encoding video but I would imagine there are smartphones which are quicker than my old desktop pc is! lol

Jayster · 24 Jul 2010 at 22:04

Im not sure about the ram as ive heard bad things about the ocz gold but not the reaper stuff but for the price its good also i assume you wont be overclocking?

chrismscotland · 24 Jul 2010 at 22:07

Jayster said:
Im not sure about the ram as ive heard bad things about the ocz gold but not the reaper stuff but for the price its good also i assume you wont be overclocking?

I'd maybe like the option to overclock just to leave scope for if I upgrade / want to mess around with it later!

Jayster · 24 Jul 2010 at 22:10

chrismscotland said:
I'd maybe like the option to overclock just to leave scope for if I upgrade / want to mess around with it later!

Its just if you want a aftermarket cooler or not you will probably get a slight overclock out of the stock cooler, It would be a pretty easy item to add later on.

thingemajib · 24 Jul 2010 at 22:12

^nah, the issues seem to be confined to the gold range.

tbh i dunno why OCUk stopped stocking the platinums. Seems like a good halfway house between golds and reapers.

oh, and the 500w OCZ modxstream will power that lot fine, whilst being cheaper and modular

Jayster · 24 Jul 2010 at 22:21

swapping the psu brings you down to 590 inc shipping if you dont get it free.

Redmint · 24 Jul 2010 at 22:32

OcUK Value GeForce GTX 460 768MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £152.74
(£129.99) £152.74
(£129.99)
AMD Phenom II X4 Quad Core 955 Black Edition 3.20GHz (Socket AM3) - Retail £129.24
(£109.99) £129.24
(£109.99)
Gigabyte GA-870A-UD3 AMD 870 (Socket AM3) DDR3 Motherboard £84.99
(£72.33) £84.99
(£72.33)
OCZ Reaper Low-Latency 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 12800C6 (1600MHz) Dual-Channel (OCZ3RPR1600C6LV4GK) £82.99
(£70.63) £82.99
(£70.63)
Sapphire Pure 625W Modular Power Supply £64.61
(£54.99) £64.61
(£54.99)
Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (ST3500418AS) £31.71
(£26.99) £31.71
(£26.99)
Xigmatek Asgard Midi Tower Case - Black £26.99
(£22.97) £26.99
(£22.97)
OcUK 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £12.98
(£11.05) £12.98
(£11.05)
Sub Total : £498.94
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £11.75
VAT is being charged at 17.50% VAT : £89.37
Total : £600.06

(grr, 6p off!)