£600 Spec

davewhite04 · 2 Mar 2006 at 21:47

Hello all,

I'm building a PC for a friend and want to keep the budget to around the £600 mark. I haven't kept upto date with the best components hence my request for advice.

I want at least an ASUS SLI mainboard with a 6600 G/Card and 1GB RAM. A 120GB HDD is as high as I need. Would prefer a case that is good and can handle two Akaska 120mm fans. Also a LCD screen is required, 17" is fine or bigger.

The machine will be used for school work and internet browsing and would like some decent games to be able to run on there(Sim 2 for example).

Cheers for any suggestions

PS I would prefer to buy from Overclockers.co.uk

davewhite04 · 2 Mar 2006 at 22:25

Good specs thanks. I do however need to add a DVD ROM and Floppy to these aswell as a good keyboard and mouse. Speakers also.

If this is the best options then I'll add the rest myself. The Antec case looks smart, what about the Sonato II from Antec(I'll pay the little bit extra)?

Edited: Noticed the DVD drive was included above

davewhite04 · 2 Mar 2006 at 22:52

That looks sound.

Thank you for the feedback I'll seriosly consider this as it seems the best pound for pound setup. I like the look of the Antec Sonato II, any experience of this case?

davewhite04 · 2 Mar 2006 at 23:23

Hmm I think I'll add the GT as Raikiri recommended and the cheapest 17" LCD available, should be a pretty decent system, and I thin I can add another 6600GT at a leter date for the Sli advantage.

Nice.

Thank you both

davewhite04 · 2 Mar 2006 at 23:38

Is that case and PSU much cop? Bah I see delivery has went up a fiver

davewhite04 · 2 Mar 2006 at 23:44

I could push the budget up slightly, so is the Antec Sonato II worth the extra cash in your opinion?

davewhite04 · 2 Mar 2006 at 23:56

Thanks, I was wondering if 450W is good enough for this setup? If it is then I think I'll go with the Antec, as they're a great company judging by past experience.

davewhite04 · 3 Mar 2006 at 12:34

This is what I decided on, thanks for the feedback people

Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition inc. SP2 - OEM £50.95
MS Microsoft Works 8.5 - OEM (SW-019-MS) £9.95
Creative SBS380 2.1 Speakers - Retail (SP-064-CL) £18.95
Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 10 NCQ 120GB 6L120M0 SATA 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-072-MD) £42.95
OcUK Value Floppy Drive - Black (HD-001-OK) £5.95
Akasa Serial ATA 45cm DAYGLO Orange Data Cable (CB-000-AK) £2.95
Antec Sonata II Piano - 450W Smart Power PSU (CA-040-AN) £65.95
Creative Modem Blaster V.92 PCI - OEM (MD-003-CL) £7.95
Akasa AK-183-L2B Ultra Quiet 120mm Fan - 3 pin (FG-024-AK) £5.95
Hyundai ImageQuest B70A 17" LCD Monitor (MO-026-HY) £139.95
Asus A8R-MVP Crossfire (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard £69.95
OcUK Value 1GB (2x512MB) PC3200 184pin DDR Memory Dual Channel Kit
£39.95
AMD Athlon 64 3200+ Venice 90nm (Socket 939) - Retail (CP-118-AM) £95.95
PowerColor ATI Radeon X800 GTO 128MB DDR TV-Out/DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-053-PC) £69.95
Logitech Internet Pro Keyboard (Black) - OEM (KB-011-LG) £8.95
Logitech B58 Optical Wheel Mouse (Black) - £6.95
NEC ND4570 16x16 DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - 24.95

Total Inc VAT/Delivery £817.65

I had to add software and added bits and pieces, overall I think it's a good rig, hopefully will get the go ahead before this week only deals end.

Big thanks to BigDom for pointing out this crossfire technology to me, it's something I had never heard of.

davewhite04 · 3 Mar 2006 at 15:06

Explicit:

Your recommendations have got me thinking... Will the 450W PSU be stable with the additional Ghz you've added via the GPU(and the amount of RAM) and CPU? Plus is it not worth investing in the crossfire technology?

Geeza:

That looks like a good spec, I'll add the other bits and pieces and see what the cost is then though.

Cheers

davewhite04 · 3 Mar 2006 at 15:16

It's not gonna be used for mega gaming sessions, it just really needs to be capable of running current games reasonably well. It'll be mainly used for school work and some Internet browsing.

I do want it to last at least three years and have the capability to upgrade.

davewhite04 · 3 Mar 2006 at 17:48

Great, thanks for the feedback

davewhite04 · 3 Mar 2006 at 20:25

Ordered, I'll let you know how it performs!

Thanks again

davewhite04 · 9 Mar 2006 at 23:34

Very nice case, excellent performance, the graphics card is very good, the only downfall is the fact that the monitor has two very obvious dead pixels, but it ain't a big problem. I will however not be buying a Hyundi monitor again as the ones I have bought have always had dead pixels whereas Samsung are always sound.

Thanks for the advice

davewhite04 · 10 Mar 2006 at 00:12

BigDom said:
hehe I've got two hyundai's... no dead pixels.

Lucky bugger

PS The monitors are well made though, dead pixels and all.