£200 to spend on Motherboard, CPU and Ram!

I'd save your monies if you're not using it for gaming. Get a budget 45nm celeron (really core2) processor - like and e3200 and 4GB of RAM for headroom. Pick a nice board with solid caps to minimise reliability issues.
 
Athlon II x3 425.
Will work out at around the same price ( or less if you need to ) than the e5300 setup and be better with newer socket and upgrade possibility.

i3 is a bit overkill for your needs.

Would be good to know the rest of your setup tho, maybe some other parts could use upgrading as well so taking cheaper cpu/mobo/ram might be better idea depending on what else you have.
 
CPU - E3200/E3300 or E3400 (£30 to £45) - E3300 seems to be bang for buck at around £35
Mobo - This is a bit more difficult depending on what you'd like to do with the machine, try to think about upgrades (for example a P45 mobo may take up-to 4 sticks of 4GB DDR2 DIMMS which would offer you a good upgrade path for a few years to come - DDR2 should get cheap at some point in the next 24-36 months if it follows the same cycle as DDR too). Some things you should aim for are a good brand and good caps - someone like ASUS, Gigabyte or DFI are good brands. One suggestion might be the P5Q SE2 - http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-374-AS&groupid=701&catid=5&subcat=1155.
RAM - I'd go for one dimm of this: KVR800D2D4F5/4GI. It's a single 4GB DDR2 stick, and offers you a much better upgrade path than buying a kit of 2x2GB sticks of DDR2. It costs around £105 and this is where I would choose to sink your money - more RAM will make a performance difference in many day-to-day computing tasks and in casual gaming. A faster chip won't be noticable most of the time and neither will an expensive motherboard (until the cheap one blows a cap).

Edit:// a note of caution - make absolutely certain that the RAM is compatible with your choice of mobo before purchase. I have not checked if the SE2 is compatible with the RAM listed here.
 
cavonia said:
I wouldn't go LGA775
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Intel for me as you very well know Wayne. Just got to decide which setup.

Got a Hard drive case etc etc. Just need a CPU, motherboard and 4g of ram.

I do game occasionally but mostly use the PC for general stuff, surfing, writing, some video stuff, pic stuff. Would nice to have it able to work a bit harder if need be.
 
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Then 2nd hand 775 setup like e5200 / 4gb pc6400 c4/ p35mobo.
The lot could be had for just over 100.

If not then athlon II x3 for around 140.

You don't need i3, if you have too much cash you can transfer some to my account instead of wasting it on PC that you not gonna use : ).
 
the 4gb of ram is your price cruncher. RAM is siily expensive for the most part atm, worldwide not just the uk
 
If the OP wants to stay with Intel they should get the following:

Intel Core i3 530 2.93GHz ~ £98

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CP-311-IN

Gigabyte GA-H55M-S2H ~ £75

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-234-GI&groupid=701&catid=5&subcat=1124

2GB 1333MHZ DDR3 ~ £41

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-234-CS&groupid=701&catid=8&subcat=1516

The memory will only be running in single channel though!

The total comes to around £214 excluding postage.
 
PhoenixUK said:
Then 2nd hand 775 setup like e5200 / 4gb pc6400 c4/ p35mobo.
The lot could be had for just over 100.

If not then athlon II x3 for around 140.

You don't need i3, if you have too much cash you can transfer some to my account instead of wasting it on PC that you not gonna use : ).
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775 setup is a waste of money as that is old tech now. i3 looks ok to me. Plus, i may not use it to its full potential now but a couple months down the line i may be pushing it a bit more. Nothing wrong in have a bit of extra power under the hood.
 
cavonia said:
775 setup is a waste of money as that is old tech now. i3 looks ok to me. Plus, i may not use it to its full potential now but a couple months down the line i may be pushing it a bit more. Nothing wrong in have a bit of extra power under the hood.
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In a couple of years more likely than months, and it will be not only cheaper but more efficent to upgrade later or spend the extra cash on GPU than burn it now on cpu/mobo.

i3 is waste of money - it doesn't give good enough performance for it's price.
If only it was 50quid cheaper for mobo+cpu on i3 then it would be different story but 50 pounds in that low budget is a lot of money.

If you want long lasting NEW intel setup, then get i5. i3 is a joke.
 
cavonia said:
775 setup is a waste of money as that is old tech now
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I am a big fan of LGA775 and have been since 2006, I know that platform better than any platform in the world but sadly it is now 2010 and it's been outmoded. I think if someone is looking to put a used computer together then picking up a few second hand LGA775 parts makes a lot of sense but I will cry if I see *anyone* spending even 1p on a new LGA775 product! :p

I just wished Intel would have not been as greedy and slashed the prices of LGA775 tech to clear their invetory but sadly their a business, a greedy business . . . .

cavonia said:
i3 looks ok to me
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Yeah it looks ok to me to apart from comparing it to AMD products it looks expensive £££ . . . You are basically paying through the nose for Branding and a true overclocker is not intersted in such things . . they just care about performance for as less price as possible . . .

I respect your wishes to buy *only* Intel products but I don't understand why anyone would do this, that's all, I just want to understand! :)
 
Big.Wayne said:
I will cry if I see *anyone* spending even 1p on a new LGA775 product! :p
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I bought an mATX board recently for my 775 setup so I could move to a smaller case. I'm also gunna buy a new LGA775 cooler (if I can't find one on the marketplace) as the Xigmatek is so much smaller and lighter than the IFX-14!

So - go on then, start crying.
 
Chris Beard said:
I bought an mATX board recently for my 775 setup so I could move to a smaller case. I'm also gunna buy a new LGA775 cooler (if I can't find one on the marketplace) as the Xigmatek is so much smaller and lighter than the IFX-14!

So - go on then, start crying.
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Don't need all the hate and WoW like comments here my friend.

He said on *NEW* 775 PC.
And yes, as things stand now if you're buying a new 775 setup you're doing something wrong.

Cooler is a different story as it comes with different mounting brackets and will most likely last for the next upgrade or two : ).

As for 2nd hand it still is an amazing platform and can deliver great gaming performance adequate to pretty much anyones needs starting from 2nd hand e2xxx/e5xxx at just around 30quid mark through e8xxx at 60-80 and q9xxx at around 100. You can also grab an excellent board for as low as 30quid now which can make up for some amazing machine for less than a 100.

If you wanna buy intel setup and don't have enough cash for i5, get 2nd hand 775 really. i3 is so much fail on every side unless the only thing you want is maximum single threaded performance on dead socket and crappy feature low motherboards @ exactly 100GBP price mark.

The only place where I think i3 is good is probably packing winrar files 24/7 @ 100gbp price mark and using integrated gpu for internet browsing ... seriously it's such a fail on every front it hurts .
 
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