£300 build, possible?

[cozm01]

My friend is poor, can only afford £300 to build a system, is this possible, if so, please spec one below, thank you.


- He's keeping his 17" CRT for now to help the cost.
- He likes games.

edit: can stretch to £350

 

[goujon945]

Does he need a case and operating system as well?

 

[mmorpheus1]

you need to be looking at the value systems , but they wont be great gaming machines

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/syscon_class.php?catid=1053

 

[pastymuncher]

If he needs an OS as well then no. A decent build without a OS comes in at just under £296.

Product Name Qty Price Line Total

Sony NEC Optiarc AD-7200S 20x DVD±RW SATA Dual Layer ReWriter (Silver) - OEM £13.99 (£16.44)

Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 250GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (ST3250410AS) £28.99 (£34.06)

Antec NSK 4480 Mini Tower Case (Silver) - 380W Earth Watts PSU £44.99
(£52.86)

Gigabyte GA-P31-DS3L Intel P31 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £39.99 (£46.99)

Intel Core 2 Duo E2180 "LGA775 Conroe" 2.00GHz (800FSB) - Retail £38.99
(£45.81)

GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC2-6400C4 800MHz Ultra Low Latency DDR2 Dual Channel Kit (GX22GB6400UDC) £23.99 (£28.19)

OcUK ATI Radeon HD 3850 Pro 256MB GDDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail £49.99 (£58.74)

Sub Total : £240.93
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 is being charged at 17.5% VAT : £44.08
Total : £295.96

Add an OS to that for another £56-69 (depending on XP or Vista) and you have the basis for a good system. That lot should clock to 3-3.6Ghz depending on how good a cpu you recieve. Personally i have hit 3.6Ghz with that board, cpu and memory combination. You may want to get a Freezer 7 Pro for clocking as well so that's another £13.

 

[azab350]

check this link, its got all different builds for different budgets!!

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=17883751

 

[Arthalen]

Does he need a case and operating system as well?

This is the key question here...

However, here's what I would look at for a budget system:

Your basket

Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 160GB SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM (ST3160815AS)

Sony NEC Optiarc AD-7200A 20x DVD±RW IDE Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM

Akasa AK-ZEN-01-WH Rev.2 Zen White Case - No PSU

OCZ 2GB (2x1GB) PC2-6400C4 Dual Channel Platinum Revision 2 XTC Series DDR2 (OCZ2P800R22GK)

Gigabyte SUPERB 460w PSU

Intel Core 2 Duo E2180 "LGA775 Conroe" 2.00GHz (800FSB) - Retail

Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L Intel P35 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard

OcUK GeForce 9600 GT 512MB GDDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail

Sub Total : £259.92 ex. VAT
£305.41 inc VAT

For gaming, Video card wise there is only the OcUK ATI 3850 512MB below the 9600GT shown here, and thats only £6 cheaper so I wouldn't bother and stick with the 9600GT.

That then still leaves you with around £45 to play with minus shipping, and XP Home Edition costs £57inc from Overclockers.

 

[Slashiem]

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showpost.php?p=11840934&postcount=2

~Slash

 

[Arthalen]

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showpost.php?p=11840934&postcount=2

~Slash

Ahh yes, forgot about that, thats also not a bad spec although the 9600Gt is a better card than the 8800GS specced there.

 

[Slashiem]

Ahh yes, forgot about that, thats also not a bad spec although the 9600Gt is a better card than the 8800GS specced there.

Just looked up for a few reviews and really it is give or take between the 9600GT and the 8800GS.
Have a look for yourself.
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2008/02/21/g94_nvidia_geforce_9600_gt_graphics_card/7
Also read the other comparisons for other games.
And really the price difference is 20 quid, personally i would go for the 8800GS because 20 quid is 20 quid.

~Slash

 

[Craig321]

Can he go slightly over?