£400-£500 Spec help please :)

claresiobhan

claresiobhan

claresiobhan

Associate
Joined
22 Sep 2009
Posts
10
Location
Harrogate
Hi :)
I'm looking to build my own pc for the first time, so I'm a little worried but my dad works in IT so he should give me a hand :)

I haven't had a desktop in a long while as I've been using a Dell Inspiron 6400 but basically, I hate it with a passion. My dad recommends just trying to add more memory or a better hard drive but I know laptops are hard to get good parts too and not to mention, the laptop sucks.

I would like a desktop with a good sized hard drive (say 500GB minimum as I've always had hand me down PC's with poor hard drive sizes) to store all my songs etc, a good amount of memory (and advice on whether to have a dual core or split into 4) and a good graphics card and processor (budget providing!)

I was originally going to buy the *insert poor competitor* with 1TB memory, but after checking some mesh reviews and reading some forums I found my way to this site and was pretty blown away with how much better for value getting your own parts is and really amazed at how helpful the forums are!


I'd mainly use my laptop for uni work, listening to music and watching movies, and also game ranging from girly stuff like Sims 3 to stuff like Call of Duty etc

I'd really appreciate any help or if anyone could recommend what hardware I can get for my money. I dont need to extra stuff like a mouse, keyboard speakers etc and I've got a sony bravia 19" HD screen, would that be any use as a monitor because if so I'd rather just use that then splash out on a new monitor.


Sorry for the longggg post, and thanks in advance!! xx~


:cool:
 
Last edited:
Thanks for the help siumatfung :D Would unlocking the CPU be hard? And is the graphics card enough for the kind of gaming I like?

Removed competitors name :cool:
 
Thanks :) Out of interest are Blu-ray players something that might come down in price any time soon? Can they be added at a later date as well? I do like the idea of having them because we have some blu-ray dvds from my brothers ps3 and it would be nice playing them on a HD monitor :D
 
For my uni course I don't need Photoshop but have that and Corel Painter on my laptop atm (seriously slows it down) as I do use the programmes in my spare time, however perhaps not to the extent that someone doing a digital course would. The main thing I'm after is playing the games I like on the best setting (never been able to do that before!) without all the lagging and freezing I usually get.

Also would using my TV as a monitor work? I've looked at the back on of TV and it has a monitor adaptor but I don't think it would be HD, hence buying a blu-ray player may not actually play through my TV :/
 
How does this look?

n1uur7.jpg


Would that all work together? Should I put this Graphics card instead?
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-140-XF

Thanks!
 
ThorpedoUK said:
Hi Claire

Check out my post below:

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18054974

I asked this very same question (£400 initially, then £500 and now £750) and got lots of builds recommended between those prices, so take a look :D
Click to expand...

Thanks for posting ThorpeoUK and helping me out, had a look through your post and sounds like with your new price range you'd be getting a really nice comp :) I wish i was more computer savy because after looking through the posts I always find myself getting a bit lost and can't really see the differences between similar builds of similar prices!
 
Nocky24 said:
Yeh definitely go AM3, a dual 550 will be fine and for your gaming and budget a 4850/4870 will do everything you want :)
Click to expand...

Thanks I'll definitely go for the AM3 then, is there much difference between the Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 4850 or the XFX Radeon HD 4850? Is there much difference between them because i know theres a difference in price.

And finally will all the parts I've chosen work together okay?

Thanks for your help! :)
 
Final spec

Thanks for the help Redache

Think this is the final spec I'm going to go for:

vyrzb6.jpg



How's that sound?


Also is there any real advantage of getting a solid state hardrive to run alongside my other one at this kind of spec level? Just someone mentioned it to me. Thanks ;)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom