£500 PC spec reqd

pcAnywhere · 10 Mar 2006 at 12:46

First time poster and new to 'build your own' PCs, so please treat with kid gloves!

I would like a PC that can handle games such as Rome - total war and other 'simulation' type games (i.e. no immediate need for super powerful graphics card) for around £500 (keyboard, mouse and monitor not required).

There's one other requirement - the system should allow for future expansion / upgrades to be made (I've had 'off the shelf' systems before and found that upgrades were not possible etc) - for example, I would like to have a 4 188pin slots, PCI-E and socket 939 motherboard...

I would *like* to have 2gb of ram and a minimum 80gb HDD and DVD-R too..

Suggestions greatly appreciated

Explicit · 10 Mar 2006 at 13:18

AMD Athlon 64 3200+ Venice 90nm (Socket 939) - Retail (ADA3200BPBOX) (CP-118-AM)
£111.57
Asus A8N-E nForce4 Ultra (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-088-AS)
£72.79
OcUK Value 2GB (2x1GB) PC3200 184pin DDR Memory Dual Channel Kit (MY-006-OK)
£105.69
PowerColor ATI Radeon X800 GTO16 256MB GDDR3 TV-Out/DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-055-PC)
£123.32
Hitachi Deskstar 7K80 NCQ 80GB SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM (0A30356) (HD-000-HI)
£38.72
Antec SLK1650B Black Quiet Mini Tower Case - 350W SmartPower PSU (CA-023-AN)
£46.94
NEC ND4551 16x16 DVD±RW Dual Layer LabelFlash ReWriter (Black) - OEM (CD-026-NE)
£32.84

Total inc VAT: £531.87

The DVD-RW pushed it £30 over budget.

Forbidden · 10 Mar 2006 at 13:28

AMD Athlon 64 3200+ Venice 90nm (Socket 939) - Retail
Asus A8N-E nForce4 Ultra (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard
GeIL 1GB (2x512MB) PC3200 Value Dual Channel Kit CAS2.5
PowerColor ATI Radeon X850 XT 256MB GDDR3 TV-Out/DVI (PCI-Express)
Samsung SpinPoint P HD080HJ 80GB SATA-II 8MB Cache
Asus TA-212 Series Midi Tower (Silver) - 360W PSU
NEC ND4570 16x16 DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM

Total £508.37

ACESHIGH · 10 Mar 2006 at 14:15

AMD Athlon 64 3500+ Venice 90nm (Socket 939) - Retail (ADA3500BPBOX) (CP-119-AM)
£139.77
Gigabyte K8NMF-9 nForce4 Micro ATX (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-041-GI)
£49.29
OcUK Value 2GB (2x1GB) PC3200 184pin DDR Memory Dual Channel Kit (MY-006-OK)
£105.69
Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 NCQ 80GB ST3808110AS SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-051-SE)
£36.37
Antec SLK3800BUK Black Quiet Midi Tower Case - 400W SmartPower PSU (CA-048-AN)
£61.04
Samsung SH-W162C 16x16 DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) (CD-068-SA)
£23.44
PowerColor ATI Radeon X800 GTO 256MB GDDR3 TV-Out/DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-054-PC)
£105.69
Total £521.29 including VAT.

Fast 3500+ CPU.
2 gig ram
Good case with ATX 2.0 PSU
Very quiet DVD burner, i have one.
Good graphics for the price

semi-pro waster · 10 Mar 2006 at 15:39

Welcome to the forums, all are pretty good specifications but I think that ACESHIGH's gives the best overall balance for the price. If you can push the budget slightly get the X800 GTO16 for not much more money but other than that it looks fine.

Paul -C- · 11 Mar 2006 at 00:25

ACESHIGH said:
AMD Athlon 64 3500+ Venice 90nm (Socket 939) - Retail (ADA3500BPBOX) (CP-119-AM)
£139.77
Gigabyte K8NMF-9 nForce4 Micro ATX (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-041-GI)
£49.29
OcUK Value 2GB (2x1GB) PC3200 184pin DDR Memory Dual Channel Kit (MY-006-OK)
£105.69
Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 NCQ 80GB ST3808110AS SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-051-SE)
£36.37
Antec SLK3800BUK Black Quiet Midi Tower Case - 400W SmartPower PSU (CA-048-AN)
£61.04
Samsung SH-W162C 16x16 DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) (CD-068-SA)
£23.44
PowerColor ATI Radeon X800 GTO 256MB GDDR3 TV-Out/DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-054-PC)
£105.69
Total £521.29 including VAT.

Fast 3500+ CPU.
2 gig ram
Good case with ATX 2.0 PSU
Very quiet DVD burner, i have one.
Good graphics for the price

After looking through the forums for a couple of weeks I decided this spec was perfect. I changed the HD to 120gig and ordered it today, along with a Samsung 940B 19" TFT.

Thanks Aceshigh!!

Trigger · 11 Mar 2006 at 08:43

pcAnywhere said:
First time poster and new to 'build your own' PCs, so please treat with kid gloves!

I would like a PC that can handle games such as Rome - total war and other 'simulation' type games (i.e. no immediate need for super powerful graphics card) for around £500 (keyboard, mouse and monitor not required).

There's one other requirement - the system should allow for future expansion / upgrades to be made (I've had 'off the shelf' systems before and found that upgrades were not possible etc) - for example, I would like to have a 4 188pin slots, PCI-E and socket 939 motherboard...

I would *like* to have 2gb of ram and a minimum 80gb HDD and DVD-R too..

Suggestions greatly appreciated

I'd go with ACESHIGH's spec because it seems to have the best balance between the components :cool:

Just as a side note: those 188 pin slots you talk about actually have 184

pcAnywhere · 16 Mar 2006 at 12:56

Thanks for all the replies - I'll be purchasing the "AcesHigh" spec system after the next pay day

pcAnywhere · 20 Mar 2006 at 15:02

Just a quick question related to the parts suggested...

Would a San Diego 3700+ be a significantly better buy (for only a few pounds more) due to the 1mb of L2 cache?

I've never built my own PC before and after reading around this forum it doesn't appear to be too difficult.. apart from getting the heatsink attached to the CPU. Am I being paranoid or is this really a diffcult task (esp as I'm not know for my delicate fingers!). Would I be better getting an OEM CPU and a screw down heatsink and fan? If so, can anyone suggest a suitable make?

I will not be overclocking - so I guess a simple (and cheap) one would suffice.

Also - why a mini-ATX mobo?

Noni · 20 Mar 2006 at 15:16

A 3700+ will only be better if you overclock it to be honest. Stay with what you got mate