£600 Spec Help Been Away For a while

Poppy

Poppy

Poppy

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Joined
22 May 2004
Posts
1,189
Hi guys, my current PC spec is

XP2800+
1GB Memory
ATI Radeon 9800XT
120GB IDE HDD

For the last few months shes been running abit poorly. The slightest movement to the case, ie just knocking the desk and you hear the HDD make a loud click, try to restart spinning and then windows locks up. I have to hard power off, if i just press reset the HDD wont spin up and so the BIOS wont detect it. Its likely its jsut the HDD that needs replacing but ive been thinking about an upgrade for a while so now is as good a time as any.

Ive been away from PCs for awhile so i really dont have a clue anymore, Intel or AMD, nVidia or ATI? etc
Ive got a £500 budget, id stretch to £600 MAX if the extra was going to make a significant difference. Im not sure what OS im going to be running, i have a Vista disk on my desk i bought on impulse a while ago but havent installed yet. I currently run XP. I like games, i also do a lot of extracting with winrar. Id like RAID capability if possible. I also want 2 drives that i can RAID. Size isnt important, ill add a bigger drive at a later date when funds permit. Im basically after best bang for buck PC, i dont have any problems with OC ing.

So to sumarise:
£500 - £600 MAX budget
Dont need case, monitor, keyboard, mouse, speakers. Just base unit.
Mobo needs RAID capability for RAID 0
Needs to be able to play games, i have a 22" monitor so run games at Max res of 1600x1200.
Need 2 HDD's, size isnt an issue as long as they're quite quick. I dont want raptors, i feel it would gimp the rest of my setup because of cost.

So go for it guys, thanks :D
 
from experience ATI are not that good for many games. IMO, i would go for a GeForce 8600

you should expect a lot of people to recormend you an intel duo core processor, but again IMO, AMD have been much better.

im in the same boat as you, i got £700 to spend on a new pc. inc monitor etc.

here is what im going for.

monitor LG L226WTQ 22" Widescreen LCD Monitor - Black/Silver http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MO-045-LG&groupid=17&catid=510&subcat= £193.86
cpu AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 5600+ (Socket AM2) - Retail http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CP-191-AM £96.34
graphics BFG GeForce 8500 GT 256MB DDR2 HDTV/DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-048-BG&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=912 £76.38
ram Corsair 2GB DDR2 XMS2-6400C5 TwinX (2x1GB) http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-092-CS £70.49
case Antec Nine Hundred Ultimate Gaming Case http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-065-AN £68.14
OS Microsoft Vista Home Premium X64 Edition DVD - OEM http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=SW-037-MS £64.61
mainboard MSI K9N Neo V3 nForce 560 (Socket AM2) PCI-Express DDR2 http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-071-MS £46.99
PSU Atrix 650w Blue Transparent PSU http://www.********.co.uk/s/product?product=606531 £37.29
cddrive Samsung SH-183LBEBN 18x18 DVD±RW Dual Layer http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CD-084-SA £19.96
hhd already owned 250GB Sata
TOTAL: £674.06
adverage £ per component: £84.26
 
EVGA GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (320-P2-E811-AR) £164.99
(£193.86)
Samsung SH-S203BEBN 20x20 DVD±RW Dual Layer Serial ATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £16.99
(£19.96)
Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 80GB ST380815AS SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM £25.99
(£30.54)
Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 160GB ST3160815AS SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM £31.99
(£37.59)
Crucial Ballistix 2GB (2x1GB) DDR2 PC2-5300C3 667MHz Dual Channel Kit (BL2KIT12864AA663) £54.99
(£64.61)
EVGA nForce 650i Ultra (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard (122-CK-NF66-T1) £44.99
(£52.86)
Intel Core 2 Duo E6750 "LGA775 Conroe" 2.66GHz (1333FSB) - Retail £109.99
(£129.24)

Sub Total : £449.93
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £8.95
VAT is being charged at 17.5% VAT : £80.30
Total : £539.18

Add in the Antec Sonata III Case with its included PSU and you've got yourself a very nice box.
 
600poundspec1.PNG


I would guess you will use your current XP license? if not you may have to cut something down. If you are going to buy a new OS get vista as it will get better over time. I have herd bad things about the 20X samsung they break a lot I have the one I specced you well two actually and they burn dual layer discs fine.
 
Cheers for everybodies help so far. Will i be able to OC the E4300 upto the default clock speed of the E6750 (2.66GHz) ? How well do the E6750's OC?

Im siding with 1337z0r's setup so far although it is at the very top of my budget.

Thanks everyone
 
Which version of Vista do you have 32bit or 64bit?

Also the OCZ Memory might hold your overclock back.

Intel Core 2 Duo E2140 "LGA775 Conroe" 1.60GHz (800FSB) - Retail
Tuniq Tower 120 CPU Cooler (Socket 478/754/939/940/AM2/LGA775)
Gigabyte GA_P35_DS3R (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard
Crucial Ballistix 2GB (2x1GB) DDR2 PC2-5300C3 667MHz Dual Channel Kit
Western Digital Caviar SE16 250GB 2500KS SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM X2
EVGA GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail
Samsung SH-183LBEBN 18x18 DVD±RW Dual Layer Serial ATA Lightscribe
Corsair HX 520W ATX2.2 Modular SLI Compliant PSU

Total : £616.71

Over budget but only slightly, to keep in budget you could just drop the CPU cooler.

You will be able to hit 3GHZ with that chip, plus you get a good CPU cooler with it. A ver reliable and stable motherboard. Only 2GB of Memory but it certainly wont hold your overclock back. The Crucial stuff will hit 800MHZ easily even 1000MHZ.
 
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The E4300 should over clock nicley, Although you may have to save about £30 more to buy after market cooler. As the Intel HSF will not really do a good job for cooling it when overclocked. My E6300 hit 3.3Ghz at one point I could have made it stable but the tempreature was pretty high and I only use a Artic cooler 7. The E6400 should go past 2.66Ghz easy.

The samsung hard drives in raid will be blistering fast. I used to have my XP install on one and it crapped over one of my 80Gb samsung's and it was still the same speeds as 2 80Gb samsungs in raid0.

I would really consider my spec as thats what I would go for you wont need to upgrade for a while either :).
 
stickroad said:
Which version of Vista do you have 32bit or 64bit?

Also the OCZ Memory might hold your overclock back.
Click to expand...


It could do you might be better getting 2Gb of PC6400 as its as cheap as chips these days. You could then use the extra £30 you save by getting 2Gb and get a better cooler for the CPU.
 
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