£300-400 Spec Me

syke · 23 Dec 2006 at 18:13

My friend is in the market for the cheapest (decent) dual core pc he can for light music production (fruityloops etc).

Requirements, full tower basically.
Dual Core
80GB HD Minimum
1GB RAM

If you could add a monitor on top of that, to just see what total price is that would also help.

TIA

semi-pro waster · 23 Dec 2006 at 18:22

This is very nearly the cheapest you can do it although I've included a 160gb hard drive as I don't think 80gb will last hugely long if experimenting with loads of samples.

Corsair 1GB DDR2 Value Select PC5300 Dual Channel Kit (2x512MB) (VS1GBKIT667D2) ( £71.99
(£84.59) £71.99
(£84.59)
Asrock Conroe945G-DVI (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £43.99
(£51.69) £43.99
(£51.69)
Intel Pentium 4 805 Dual Core "LGA775 Smithfield" 2.66GHz (533FSB) - Retail £57.99
(£68.14) £57.99
(£68.14)
Antec NSK4400 Mini Tower Case - 380W SmartPower PSU £42.99
(£50.51) £42.99
(£50.51)
Samsung SpinPoint P HD160JJ 160GB SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM £36.49
(£42.88) £36.49
(£42.88)
NEC AD5170 18x18 DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM £16.99
(£19.96) £16.99
(£19.96)
OcUK Value Hanns-G HC174D 17" LCD Monitor - Silver/Black £99.99
(£117.49) £99.99
(£117.49)
Sub Total : £370.43
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £10.95
Vat : £66.74
Total : £448.12

trojan698 · 23 Dec 2006 at 18:25

Tough, assumed you didn't need an OS, 19" monitor would be about £120 on top of this

Product Name Qty Price Line Total
Antec Sonata II Piano Black Quiet Case - 450W Smart Power PSU £66.99
(£78.71) £66.99
(£78.71)
Intel Core 2 DUO E6300 "LGA775 Allendale" 1.86GHz (1066FSB) - OEM £93.99
(£110.44) £93.99
(£110.44)
Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro CPU Cooler (Socket 775) £13.99
(£16.44) £13.99
(£16.44)
Pioneer DVR-111BK 16x16 DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter - (Black) OEM £18.35
(£21.56) £18.35
(£21.56)
Samsung SpinPoint P HD080HJ 80GB SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM £25.99
(£30.54) £25.99
(£30.54)
Gigabyte GA_945PL_S3 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £49.99
(£58.74) £49.99
(£58.74)
OcUK 1GB (2x512MB) PC2-6400 800MHz DDR2 Dual Channel Kit £63.99
(£75.19) £63.99
(£75.19)
BFG 3DFuzion GeForce 6200 LE Turbo Cache 256MB DDR TV-Out/DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail £24.99
(£29.36) £24.99
(£29.36)
Sub Total : £358.28
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £9.95
Vat : £64.44
Total : £432.67

Hmm, didn't realise the above ASRock board had onboard graphics neglecting the need for the 6200 turbocack, might wanna go for that instead.

revised spec -
Product Name Qty Price Line Total
Asrock Conroe945G-DVI (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £43.99
(£51.69) £43.99
(£51.69)
Antec Sonata II Piano Black Quiet Case - 450W Smart Power PSU £66.99
(£78.71) £66.99
(£78.71)
Intel Core 2 DUO E6300 "LGA775 Allendale" 1.86GHz (1066FSB) - OEM £93.99
(£110.44) £93.99
(£110.44)
Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro CPU Cooler (Socket 775) £13.99
(£16.44) £13.99
(£16.44)
Pioneer DVR-111BK 16x16 DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter - (Black) OEM £18.35
(£21.56) £18.35
(£21.56)
Samsung SpinPoint P HD080HJ 80GB SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM £25.99
(£30.54) £25.99
(£30.54)
OcUK 1GB (2x512MB) PC2-6400 800MHz DDR2 Dual Channel Kit £63.99
(£75.19) £63.99
(£75.19)
Sub Total : £327.29
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £9.95
Vat : £59.02
Total : £396.26

syke · 23 Dec 2006 at 18:26

semi-pro waster said:
This is very nearly the cheapest you can do it although I've included a 160gb hard drive as I don't think 80gb will last hugely long if experimenting with loads of samples.

Corsair 1GB DDR2 Value Select PC5300 Dual Channel Kit (2x512MB) (VS1GBKIT667D2) ( £71.99
(£84.59) £71.99
(£84.59)
Asrock Conroe945G-DVI (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £43.99
(£51.69) £43.99
(£51.69)
Intel Pentium 4 805 Dual Core "LGA775 Smithfield" 2.66GHz (533FSB) - Retail £57.99
(£68.14) £57.99
(£68.14)
Antec NSK4400 Mini Tower Case - 380W SmartPower PSU £42.99
(£50.51) £42.99
(£50.51)
Samsung SpinPoint P HD160JJ 160GB SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM £36.49
(£42.88) £36.49
(£42.88)
NEC AD5170 18x18 DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM £16.99
(£19.96) £16.99
(£19.96)
OcUK Value Hanns-G HC174D 17" LCD Monitor - Silver/Black £99.99
(£117.49) £99.99
(£117.49)
Sub Total : £370.43
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £10.95
Vat : £66.74
Total : £448.12

great spec, although he may keep his CRT for a little while before getting an LCD straight away. Would you recommend going for a C2D or an X2 knowing this?

Trigger · 23 Dec 2006 at 18:27

Don't think you can beat semi-pro waster's spec for the money- top job as always

semi-pro waster · 23 Dec 2006 at 18:45

Syk3 said:
Would you recommend going for a C2D or an X2 knowing this?

If he is going to stick with his old monitor then I'd probably go for a 6300 chip right away, the X2s are decent chips but simply outclassed at the moment by Conroe in price/performance and overclocking terms. However that motherboard won't be great for overclocking although it allows some potential but then if overclocking was the aim you'd probably need PC6400 Ram and a better cooler and .... Overall I'm saying just change to the 6300 and keep the rest the same if that is the budget, if your mate wants to get the monitor immediately then the 805 will be fine to keep the budget relatively low.