4gb < £500 System Spec... Possible?

Dace · 30 Jan 2008 at 20:03

Hiya chaps.

My brother has asked me to build him a PC sometime over the next month and has a maximum budget of £500.

This is to include a LCD, and Ideally 4gb of RAM, oh, and lets throw in a Vista OEM licence and all peripherals to really challenge you

lol.

Now what I'm looking for is the 4gb of RAM, an integrated motherboard, a low-end price/performance ratio CPU (low end core duo or similar pref), the 4gb RAM kit, any size sata mobo (higher the better), and a 17"+ LCD screen.

I appreciate I've crippled you a bit with the LCD, but its probably still doable in budget (post your slightly over specs also, I'll prob fiddle a bit and cut it down slightly).

No overclocking requirement, no real graphics requirements, just stable, 4gb desktop system loving.

Thanks in advance chaps

jak731 · 30 Jan 2008 at 20:12

Your basket
Product Name Qty Price Line Total
OcUK Value Hanns-G HW173A 17" Widescreen LCD Monitor - Silver/Black £75.99
(£89.29) £75.99
(£89.29)
Logitech S-120 2.0 Speaker System - OEM £4.99
(£5.86) £4.99
(£5.86)
OcUK 4GB (2x2GB) PC2-6400C5 800MHz DDR2 Dual Channel Kit £41.99
(£49.34) £41.99
(£49.34)
Intel Core 2 Duo E2160 "LGA775 Conroe" 1.80GHz (800FSB) - Retail £40.99
(£48.16) £40.99
(£48.16)
Logitech S96 PS/2 Optical Wheel Mouse Black - OEM £4.49
(£5.28) £4.49
(£5.28)
Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 160GB SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM (ST3160815AS) £30.99
(£36.41) £30.99
(£36.41)
Samsung SH-S203D 20x DVD±RW SATA Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM £14.99
(£17.61) £14.99
(£17.61)
Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium 64-Bit Edition DVD - OEM - 1Pk (66I-00788) £59.99
(£70.49) £59.99
(£70.49)
Antec NSK 4480B Mini Tower Case (Black) - 380W Earth Watts PSU £39.99
(£46.99) £39.99
(£46.99)
PowerColor ATI Radeon X1950 Pro AC2 SILENT 256MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail £59.99
(£70.49) £59.99
(£70.49)
OcUK Value IP35 Pro Intel P35 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £54.99
(£64.61) £54.99
(£64.61)
Logitech Deluxe Keyboard (White) - OEM (967641) £5.49
(£6.45) £5.49
(£6.45)
Sub Total : £434.88
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £14.95
VAT is being charged at 17.5% VAT : £78.72
Total : £528.55

mouse and keyboard may not be *** best for gaming

semi-pro waster · 30 Jan 2008 at 20:37

Looks good from jak731 there, if you aren't gaming then you could knock the graphics card down to even a 2400pro or 8500GT quite easily and that should free up enough to upgrade the peripherals slightly.

Pulse · 30 Jan 2008 at 20:55

PowerColor ATI Radeon X1950 Pro AC2 SILENT 256MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail £59.99 (£70.49)

Gigabyte GA-P31-DS3L Intel P31 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £44.99 (£52.86)

Intel Core 2 Duo E2160 "LGA775 Conroe" 1.80GHz (800FSB) - Retail £40.99 (£48.16)

Logitech S96 PS/2 Optical Wheel Mouse Black - OEM £4.49 (£5.28)

Logitech Deluxe Keyboard (Black) - OEM £5.99 (£7.04)

OcUK Value Hanns-G HW173A 17" Widescreen LCD Monitor - Silver/Black £75.99 (£89.29)

Antec NSK 4480B Mini Tower Case (Black) - 380W Earth Watts PSU £39.99 (£46.99)

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

OcUK 4GB (2x2GB) PC2-6400C5 800MHz DDR2 Dual Channel Kit £41.99 (£49.34)

Samsung SpinPoint S 160GB SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM (HD161HJ) £28.99 (£34.06)

Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium 64-Bit Edition DVD - OEM - 1Pk (66I-00788) £59.99 (£70.49)

Sub Total : £417.39
Shipping : £12.95
VAT : £75.31
Total : £505.65

Ben M · 30 Jan 2008 at 20:56

What's the need for 4gb of RAM though? =s

Dace · 31 Jan 2008 at 05:31

Ben M said:
What's the need for 4gb of RAM though? =s

So he loves me forever.

Dace · 31 Jan 2008 at 05:52

Both specs look fairly decent.

I'm having a bit of a problem deciding which mainboard to choose, I have no idea which performs better. Also, I'm looking for an integrated mainboard because there is no real gaming requirement. Which of the 775 Chipsets offers best performance?

Anyway, my 'revised' build is looking like this, feel free to kick holes in it if anything isn't compatible.

Samsung SpinPoint S 160GB SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM (HD161HJ)£28.99
(£34.06) £28.99
(£34.06)

Intel Core 2 Duo E2160 "LGA775 Conroe" 1.80GHz (800FSB) - Retail£40.99
(£48.16) £40.99
(£48.16)

EVGA nForce 610 Micro-ATX (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard (NF72-K1)£37.99
(£44.64) £37.99
(£44.64)

OcUK Value Hanns-G HW173A 17" Widescreen LCD Monitor - Silver/Black£75.99
(£89.29) £75.99
(£89.29)

OcUK 4GB (2x2GB) PC2-6400C5 800MHz DDR2 Dual Channel Kit£41.99
(£49.34) £41.99
(£49.34)

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

Microsoft Black Value Pack 2.0 - OEM (S82-00029)£13.99
(£16.44) £13.99
(£16.44)

Logitech S-120 2.0 Speaker System - OEM£4.99
(£5.86) £4.99
(£5.86)

Antec NSK 4480B Mini Tower Case (Black) - 380W Earth Watts PSU£39.99
(£46.99) £39.99
(£46.99)

Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium 32-Bit Edition DVD - OEM - 1Pk (66I-00715)£59.99
(£70.49) £59.99
(£70.49) Sub Total : £358.90Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)
(This can be changed during checkout)Shipping : £12.95VAT is being charged at 17.5%VAT : £65.07 Total : £436.92

I've changed 64-bit Vista to 32-bit because he's got a chemistry doctorate and has to use some quirky specialised software. Is that integrated mainboard any good, or is it back to the drawing board?

Help greatly appreciated, cheers fellahs.

semi-pro waster · 31 Jan 2008 at 07:59

The motherboard is currently out of stock and the graphics will be fairly basic but perfectly adequate if all that is needed is for basic Windows tasks.

If you will want to overclock the CPU then an Asus P5K-VM or the Abit Fatal1ty mATX motherboard might be a bit better.

jonislost · 31 Jan 2008 at 10:02

Bear in mind your're gonna lose 750mb of that ram if using the 32bit version of the o/s

Buffman · 31 Jan 2008 at 10:42

I've bought the gigabyte DS3L for £50, I've got it in my house too and it looks quite good, need the rest of my components to test it out though.

semi-pro waster · 31 Jan 2008 at 12:54

jonislost said:
Bear in mind your're gonna lose 750mb of that ram if using the 32bit version of the o/s

Fair point although it should be quite as much as that since Windows looks at the total system Ram and with the graphics card being onboard you don't need to add the graphics card Ram anyway.

Begbie · 31 Jan 2008 at 13:50

Not better downgrading the Ram to say 2gb?

And getting a better GFX?

Is 4GB ram really needed?

Cupra · 31 Jan 2008 at 13:51

Begbie said:
Not better downgrading the Ram to say 2gb?

And getting a better GFX?

Is 4GB ram really needed?

for vista yeah it is

jonislost · 31 Jan 2008 at 16:30

Begbie said:
Not better downgrading the Ram to say 2gb?

And getting a better GFX?

Is 4GB ram really needed?

For the price of the ram its not really worth downgrading he'll only save about £20, also vista is quite hungry, i'd imagine 4gb will become the 'norm' over the coming months

Dace · 31 Jan 2008 at 16:50

jonislost said:
Bear in mind your're gonna lose 750mb of that ram if using the 32bit version of the o/s

I'll throw as much of it as possible at the onboard VGA to reduce wastage.

And the 4gb is so cheap I figured why not; the system should be very smooth running.