£500 Budget Full PC, Plz Spec

ThomP · 16 Oct 2006 at 11:42

Hay All,,

Friend of mine wants to buy himself a PC to play some of the classics, Age of Empires 1/2/3, Command & Conquer etc and halo 1. And a few other games from about 5yrs ago. The PC wont be used for anything but games.

He currently has no PC equiptment, so i need a spec for a full machine, Monitor, Keyboard, some sort of speakers, mouse & main unit. He's visited *A HIGHSTREET COMPETITOR*, however they recommened he spent £1200 to buy the 'best Gaming PC available on the market'.

Thanks lads, n good day!

SiriusB · 16 Oct 2006 at 11:56

500 quid and he wants everything? A tall order. I mean a monitor will probably kill around 100 quid of the budget, keyboard, mouse and speakers would probably take at least another 50 -100 quid. Not leaving much for a gaming machine...

EDIT: You will have to remove the reference to that PC shop - it is a competitor. Also tell your mate to tell them to sod off - you can get a Conroe rig with X1900XT for about 800...

SiriusB

ThomP · 16 Oct 2006 at 12:01

So you think i should push his budget to say 600/700?

SiriusB · 16 Oct 2006 at 12:04

I reckon 600 quid is more reasonable. I friend of mine wanted the works for just 500 quid not long ago and it was pain in the arse. Adding just 100 quid to the budget helped a lot - although unfortunately I don't what his final spec was.

SiriusB

SiriusB · 16 Oct 2006 at 12:13

Okay I have come up with a Core 2 Duo rig:

CP-126-IN Intel Core 2 DUO E6300 "LGA775 Allendale" 1.86GHz (1066FSB) - Retail (CP-126-IN)
£114.99 £114.99
MB-064-GI Gigabyte GA_945PL_S3 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard (MB-064-GI)
£57.99 £57.99
GX-026-BG BFG 3DFuzion GeForce 7600 GS 256MB DDR2 TV-Out/DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-026-BG)
£61.99 £61.99
CD-038-PO Pioneer DVR-111DBK 16x16 DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter - (Black) OEM (CD-038-PO)
£21.95 £21.95
CA-052-AN Antec NSK4400 Mini Tower Case - 380W SmartPower PSU (CA-052-AN)
£43.99 £43.99
MY-030-GL GeIL 1GB (2x512MB) PC5300 667MHz Value DDR2 Dual Channel Kit (GX21GB5300DC) (MY-030-GL)
£74.99 £74.99
KB-072-LG Logitech Cordless Desktop EX-110 - Retail (KB-072-LG)
£17.99 £17.99
SP-059-CL Creative Inspire T3030 2.1 Speakers - Retail (SP-059-CL)
£28.59 £28.59
MO-018-OK OcUK Value Hanns-G HC174D 17" LCD Monitor - Silver/Black (MO-018-OK)
£99.99 £99.99
HD-085-SE Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 200GB ST3200820AS SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-085-SE)
£45.95 £45.95
Subtotal £568.42
Shipping (City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)) £14.95
VAT £102.09
Total £685.46

It is unfortunately 85 quid over budget; However this does include the rather insane 15 quid delivery [what happened to £8??]. The price can be brought down with a cheaper case and cheaper speakers.

SiriusB

wizardmaxx · 16 Oct 2006 at 12:13

Upgrade to conroe later. No OS though

CA-005-AS Asus TA-212 Series Midi Tower (Silver) - 360W PSU (CA-005-AS)
£31.95 £31.95
MB-004-AK Asrock Conroe945G-DVI (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard (MB-004-AK)
£45.99 £45.99
CP-116-IN Intel Pentium 4 805 Dual Core "LGA775 Smithfield" 2.66GHz (533FSB) - Retail (CP-116-IN)
£61.99 £61.99
MY-030-GL GeIL 1GB (2x512MB) PC5300 667MHz Value DDR2 Dual Channel Kit (GX21GB5300DC) (MY-030-GL)
£74.99 £74.99
HD-023-SA Samsung SpinPoint P HD080HJ 80GB SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-023-SA)
£25.95 £25.95
CD-042-NE NEC AD5170 18x18 DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter (Silver) - OEM (CD-042-NE)
£18.95 £18.95
KB-072-LG Logitech Cordless Desktop EX-110 - Retail (KB-072-LG)
£17.99 £17.99
SP-038-LG Logitech S200 2.1 Black/Silver Stereo Speakers - OEM (SP-038-LG)
£11.95 £11.95
MO-005-BE Belinea 1925S1W 19" Widescreen LCD Monitor - Black/Silver (MO-005-BE)
£117.99 £117.99
GX-025-BG BFG 3DFuzion GeForce 7600 GT 256MB GDDR3 TV-Out/DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-025-BG)
£74.99 £74.99
Subtotal £482.74
VAT £84.48
Total £567.22

VeNT · 16 Oct 2006 at 15:09

tbh, if you want a good gaming PC your gonna want to spend some money, get good quality components and they will last you an age, my old system cost me about £1000 all in, and its lasted me AGES, small cheap upgrades have kept it up to date and only now with the core duo systems am I buying all new.

Lolcb · 16 Oct 2006 at 15:17

Agreed, you don't expect a gaming rig for just 500 quids really. When I meant gaming rig, they are rigs that are able to play games like oblivion at max settings. You might want to listen to the ppl above, increase your budget.