500£ System check for friend/gaming

psychas

psychas

psychas

Soldato
Joined
12 Jun 2007
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Location
Ireland
My friend asked me to build him pc he's studying software development but does not have a clue about hardware strange but nvm.. he had 7 year old pc that played half life 2 on low settings at 30 fps at 17" rez and it died few months ago now hes stuck on laptop and he wants to get in to gaming again.

He is Cs:s and cod4 crazy and he said he would like to play crysis at least once on medium settings.

500.jpg


i came up with something like this does this cpu really needs after market cooler ? or stock do fine ? and 9600gt is compatible with 1.1 pci-e and would it be possible to squeeze in the 8800gt? maybe different mob?

what would you change/recommend ? ideal price of the rig is 500£~550£

Thanks for help ;)

edit: he might want to overclock cpu
 
3486hxz.jpg


Just slightly over but with 8800GT & 4GB ram, better cooler for overclocking and a faster single platter hard drive :)

Has he got an OS, k/b & mouse?
 
psychas said:
500.jpg


i came up with something like this does this cpu really needs after market cooler ? or stock do fine ? and 9600gt is compatible with 1.1 pci-e and would it be possible to squeeze in the 8800gt? maybe different mob?
Click to expand...

Yes a 8800GT will fit into budget, go for the OCUK value one for extra £25 to bring total to £500.

If he's willing to spend the extra £50 then as advised get a Tuniq Tower and extra 2Gb RAM.

Otherwise all looks good.
 
Personally would go with something like this:-

Coolermaster CM-690 Dominator / Coolermaster Real Power 520w Modular Power Supply - Bundle
£110.43 inc VAT

Intel Core 2 Duo E8200 LGA775 'Wolfdale' 2.66GHz (1333FSB) - Retail
£117.49 inc VAT

Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L Intel P35 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard
£65.79 inc VAT

Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 250GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (ST3250410AS)
£45.81 inc VAT

BFG GeForce 8800 GT OC 512MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail
This Week Only Offer
£138.64 inc VAT

Tuniq Tower 120-LFB CPU Cooler (Socket 478/754/939/940/AM2/LGA775)
This Week Only Offer
£29.36 inc VAT

OCZ 2GB (2x1GB) PC2-6400C4 Dual Channel Platinum Revision 2 XTC Series DDR2 (OCZ2P800R22GK)
This Week Only Offer
£24.66 inc VAT

Shipping : £10.95

Total : £545.05

Heres my reasoning:-
1)Better case & PSU (with a 5 year warranty).
2)MB should support E8200 from the off without having to flash bios & MB should be a reasonable clocker.
3)Hard drive has 16MB cache, so better & also 5 year warranty.
4)Graphics card has lifetime warranty, for peace of mind.
5)TT is one of the best air coolers, of course if you aren't go to overclock, you might as well use the stock cooler.
6)2GB memory should be fine if you're using a 32bit OS, however, consider 4GB if you're using a 64bit OS. If you're not bothered about clocking, the £30'ish saved on the TT would pay for another 2GB.
 
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