£350 pound system?

The_KiD

The_KiD

The_KiD

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I have been asked by a neighbour if I can find them a PC for their dad.

He is going to be using it for word processing, email and internet and possibly some photo's and stuff.

They have a max budget of £350 and I was wondering what you guys could come up with for that price.

Remember he is not going to an uber leet gamer or anything, so some nice stuff like speakers and TFT would be good (but the TFT aint essential).

Also I would prefer it not to be anything Celeron or equivalent.
 
that is tight but you could get everything including a tft for roughly ~£350, i just made a rough spec, including;

the pc itself +case and PSU
17" tft monitor
5.1 speakers
cordless mouse/keyboard combo
dvd rw

here is what i'd squeeze out of £350 (it actually cost £373.95 inclusive of VAT)

monitor:
OcUK Gamer Extreme 178GP 17" LCD Monitor Price: £91.99 (£108.09 Including VAT at 17.5%)

case + PSU:
Asus TA-210 Series Midi Tower (Black) - 360W PSU Price: £32.00 (£37.60 Including VAT at 17.5%)

CPU + HS + MOBO + MEMORY + HDD + Gcard + DVD RW:
AMD Athlon 64 3700+ San Diego (Socket 939) Price: £53.49 (£62.85 Including VAT at 17.5%)
Arctic Cooling Freezer 64 Pro CPU Cooler Price: £9.99 (£11.74 Including VAT at 17.5%)
Asrock 939Dual-SATA2 (S939) AGP & PCI-Express Motherboard Price: £37.99 (£44.64 Including VAT at 17.5%)
Corsair 512MB DDR Value Select PC3200 CAS2.5 Kit (2x256MB) Price: £35.99 (£42.29 Including VAT at 17.5%)
Samsung SpinPoint P HD160JJ 160GB SATA-II 8MB Cache Price: £33.95 (£39.89 Including VAT at 17.5%)
BFG 3DFuzion GeForce 7300 LE Turbo Cache 256MB DDR Price: £28.99 (£34.06 Including VAT at 17.5%)
Samsung SH-S182D 18x18 DVD±RW ReWriter (Black) Price: £16.95 (£19.92 Including VAT at 17.5%)

SOUNDCARD + SPEAKERS:
Creative Sound Blaster Audigy SE 7.1 Sound Card Price: £15.95 (£18.74 Including VAT at 17.5%)
Creative Inspire 5.1 P5800 Speakers Price: £34.95 (£41.07 Including VAT at 17.5%)

MOUSE + K/B:
Logitech Cordless Desktop EX-110 Price: £17.99 (£21.14 Including VAT at 17.5%)


total: £373.95 (inc VAT)
 
Yeah not bad, but you could go AM2 for future upgrades and get a 3800. Have to change the ram though.

Or failing that, stay 939 and get the cheapo DFI board from OCUK for about 35 quid instead.

Or third option, whack a conroe ready board in with a 50 quid pentium 4 in, then upgrade to Conroe later.

Just a few thoughts; shout me down when it turns out they're impractical/impossible for some reason.
 
that is if you ***DONT*** download coz that would be bad and ud get nicked aswell. they do home editions cheap now so u should be ok, could always save more unless this is a "prebuilt/custom build" comparisan
 
Nice one guys this is a great bit of work.

Unfortunately he does need an OS, but will get an XP home OEM. Also they can then choose if they want the TFT or not as I have some spare CRT monitors they can have if not.

Thanks dudes!
 
FunkyCowie said:
Linux?
Click to expand...


not really the best choice if the guy dosnt know a lot about computers, windows is more user friendly aint it but a lot more power hogging i think so linux should give it a more power shouldnt it?
 
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Linux is only complex if you want to do more than basic stuff and by the sound of it a linux distribution like Ubuntu might fit his needs without him needing to delve too deeply and be less resource hungry. Then they could have the LCD or CRT but with better CPU/RAM?
 
if he gets himself on one of the iPro courses then he can get a copy of windows XP pro for £5 (ms have a deal on with all the colleges running it!) any MS developer software (basicaly every MS product but not office basics) for £5 per licence
 
FunkyCowie said:
Linux is only complex if you want to do more than basic stuff and by the sound of it a linux distribution like Ubuntu might fit his needs without him needing to delve too deeply and be less resource hungry. Then they could have the LCD or CRT but with better CPU/RAM?
Click to expand...

Yes but I will have to support this user and my knowledge of linux is the same as that of the South African Howler Monkeys mating ritual.
 
The_KiD said:
{snip}Also I would prefer it not to be anything Celeron or equivalent.
Click to expand...
& why not? Build around it with good componets & you have a great system for intended use :)

Ok if not Celeron maybe Sempron 64 ;)
 
yeah but why buy a sempron when you cen get a faster chip, with more cache, and that is generally way better, for an extra 15 quid?



AMD Sempron 64 3400+ (Socket AM2) CPU Price: £54.95 (£64.57 Including VAT at 17.5%)
AMD Athlon 64 3800+ 2.4GHz (Socket AM2) £67.99 (£79.89 Including VAT at 17.5%)


purposefully building good parts around a weak one to compensate is never a good idea imo, especially when theres not much diff in price
 
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mikeymike said:
yeah but why buy a sempron when you cen get a faster chip, with more cache, and that is generally way better, for an extra 15 quid?



AMD Sempron 64 3400+ (Socket AM2) CPU Price: £54.95 (£64.57 Including VAT at 17.5%)
AMD Athlon 64 3800+ 2.4GHz (Socket AM2) £67.99 (£79.89 Including VAT at 17.5%)


purposefully building good parts around a weak one to compensate is never a good idea imo
Click to expand...

or the 3200 for around £50 saving £30 on the 3800+. Not a huge sacrifice and spend it on more ram which is probably more useful for what he wants it for. Or put it towards Windows.
 
mikeymike said:
{snip}purposefully building good parts around a weak one to compensate is never a good idea imo, especially when theres not much diff in price
Click to expand...
If the price is more or less the same then, obviously go for the 'better' chip (just seen the A64 3000+ is cheaper than the cheapest Sempron 64 both AM2 :confused: ) . But my point still stands, for OP's intended use that would do :)
 
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