£500

Shamrock

Shamrock

Shamrock

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I should be going to uni later this year and have about 500 quid to play with, but I'm not sure what to do.

Should I buy a cheap laptop with the money or upgrade my outdated rig?

I will be taking my pc to uni hopefully, so what benefits would a laptop have over it apart from portability?
 
Shamrock said:
what benefits would a laptop have over it apart from portability?
Click to expand...

apart from saving on desk space and maybe saving a little on power there aren't really any benefits. I'd just upgrade your main system if I were you.
 
Well, since I wouldn't actually be buying anything till september at the earliest the prices might have changed by then.

But, for the record:

P4 2.4m0 @ 3.2
Abit IC7-G
1gb pc3200 ram (512 geil ultra-x + 512 kingston hyperx)
Zalman AlCu7700 cooler
9800Pro @ XT
Audigy 2
Zalman 400w psu
WD80gb + IBM deathstar 60gb HDDs
Chieftec Dragon case (this ok for the new stuff?)

Don't need monitor, speakers, keyboard, mouse or hopefully case.
 
Yeah, by that time you should be able to get a fairly decent conroe chip, good motherboard, 2 GB of RAM, 250GB SATA HDD, x1900 XT, decent PSU, finally a decent cooler and overclock it :D
 
Sounds good.

Most laptops for 500 seem to be worse than my current spec.

I would want to salvage as much as possible from this rig though. Is the case still good for the new mobos?
 
Yeah I would say update your main rig because you'd get a lot more for your money than if you bought a Laptop. Although because your going to uni it would be handy to have to to take to classes etc? :)
 
I'd probably give it to my dad.

Larnica: Thats the sort of thing I was on about. Do people use laptops outside of their room enough to make it worthwhile?
 
In my six years at uni I never met anyone who made really good use of a Laptop they all just sat on there desks all day. The nearest thing most saw to portable action was sufing the Net in bed or a bit of wireless in the kitchen.

The deskspace thing was a big issue a few years back when a big CRT could fill a halls bedroom but a modern TFT takes up no room at all and can be used as a TV, video and stereo so you shouldn't have any problems.

The desktop will also be comfier for those all nighters finishing off course work where a laptop can give you a real pain in the neck\back!
 
We had one guy who would bring his laptop into a lecture. Every one considered him a flash git and he wasn't all that popular because of it. All the lecture sliders where put on a web site anyway.

I wouldn't want to do my partical project write up on a laptop. I think they are only good if your on a long trip. First year you will probably be surrounded by students with PCs and they will no doubt link up a network and play games together. You'll miss out on this with a laptop.

Laptops can also easily be stolen.
 
Upgrade it is then. :D

I know I won't be upgrading for a bit, but could someone spec me something for £500 with whats available at the moment? Pretty please.
 
Last edited:
MY-034-GL GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC5300 667MHz Value DDR2 Dual Channel Kit (GX22GB5300DC) (MY-034-GL)
£99.95 £99.95
GX-044-CO Connect3D ATI Radeon X1800 XT 256MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-044-CO)
£126.95 £126.95
MB-003-AK Asrock ConroeXFire-eSATA2 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard (MB-003-AK)
£53.95 £53.95
CA-000-SS Seasonic S12 430W Silent ATX2.0 Power Supply (CA-000-SS)
£39.95 £39.95
HS-021-AR Arctic Cooling Alpine 7 CPU Cooler (Socket 775) (HS-021-AR)
£6.25 £6.25
CP-135-IN Intel Core 2 DUO E6300 "LGA775 Allendale" 1.86GHz (1066FSB) - OEM (CP-135-IN)
£109.95 £109.95
Subtotal £437.00
VAT £76.48
Total £513.48


Not a great motherboard for overclocking, you might want to increase the budget here and get a gigabyte board

Price: £89.95 (£105.69 Including VAT at 17.5%)

or maybe by the time you order we can recommend something else

If you tell us the exact model number of that zalman psu we could see if it supports version 2 atx motherboards. Your case will be fine
 
So 400w will be enough then?

Budgets are meant to be broken so I will probably end up buying the better mobo.
 
Gigabyte GA_965P_DS3 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard (MB-061-GI)

Price: £89.95 (£105.69 Including VAT at 17.5%)

Thats the one then, if you want to break the budget some more maybe a

Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 250GB ST3250620AS SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD-079-SE)

Price: £52.55 (£61.75 Including VAT at 17.5%)


Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 320GB ST3320620AS SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD-078-SE)

Price: £62.95 (£73.97 Including VAT at 17.5%)

There large, quite and as fast as the 8mb buffer raptors.
 
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