Am i expecting to much for £600 £650 quid?

custard80

custard80

custard80

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I bought last week a dell 9150 from the outlet shop. It is as follows.
2.8ghz pentium 4 d 820,
2gb ddr2 533 ram
320 hd (2 160 Raid Striped)
16 dvd/rw
keyboard etc.
256mb x600 hypermemory g card.

All for £520 delivered.

I bought FEAR and due to the graphics card it looks like the first halflife as it has no graphical finery!!

So i've been looking around the site and thinking either a better graphics card or just to build from scratch. As a better graphics card is gonna cost upwards of £100. Other dells come with an nvidia 6800 but they do not say what version.

I'm totally confused with Amd and intel cpu ratings eg is a 3700+ better than a 3.0ghz p4?

At the moment the dell is being returned on tuesday so i need to decide if i can do better before then.

Any help appreciated.
I want to do my usual cad, photoshop, dvd burning and play some stellar games. I have a pioneer 106 burner in my current lowley duron 800mhz!

Cheers.
 
custard80 said:
I'm totally confused with Amd and intel cpu ratings eg is a 3700+ better than a 3.0ghz p4?
Click to expand...

In terms of gaming, yes.

I would never buy a dell. There's no satisfaction in buying ready made computer with added labour costs. I prefer to hand-pick only the finest parts and build my own dream machine, tailored to my requirements down to the smallest of details (from the noise of case fans to the power of the cpu).

Sorry, I'm getting carried away here.

So yeah, for gaming, an AMD rig is what you should have bought/made. Don't be fooled by clock speeds. :)
 
A friend just had a £600 gaming rig built, and it can run DoD:S at 1024 with everything on high with hdr and some AA/AF. £600 can get you a lot if you use it well [not buy a Dell]
 
If you want to build yourself then ... this system is far, far better than the Dell above (& also better than the prebuilt OcUK system below for less money)
Arctic Cooling T1 Silentium Silent Midi Tower Case - 450W Seasonic Silent PSU (CA-000-AR) £58.69
Western Digital Caviar Special Edition 160GB 1600JS SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-047-WD) £58.69
OcUK Value 1GB (2x512MB) PC3200 184pin DDR Memory Dual Channel Kit (MY-004-OK) £52.82
Pioneer DVR-110D 16 x 16 DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter - (Beige) OEM (CD-032-PO) £26.97
AMD Athlon 64 3500+ Venice 90nm (Socket 939) - Retail (ADA3500BPBOX) (CP-119-AM) £144.47
MSI RD480 Neo2 Crossfire (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-066-MS) £76.32
PowerColor ATI Radeon X800 GTO16 256MB GDDR3 TV-Out/DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-055-PC) £123.32
Total £541.28 including VAT


If youre after a prebuilt system then perhaps this from OcUK (it is better than the Dell) ...

"Titan" AMD Athlon 64 3200+ System (FS-001-OK)
- AMD Athlon 64 3200+ Venice CPU
- AMD approved cooler
- Asus A8N-E nForce4 Ultra PCI-Express Motherboard
- GeIL 1GB (2x512MB) DDR Value PC3200 CAS2.5 Dual Channel Kit
- 160GB Western Digital 8mb cache SATA-2 Hard Drive
- XFX GeForce 6600 GT Extreme Gamer Edition 128MB DDR3 PCI-Express Graphics Card
- Sony Black 52x/52x/32x/16x CD-RW/DVD Combo Drive
- Onboard 6 Channel Audio
- Black Floppy Drive
- Antec SLK3700BQE Black Quiet Midi Tower Case
- Antec 350W SmartPower ATX Power Supply

Note - All Titan systems are built and installed on demand, during busy periods this may cause a delay of between 24 and 48 hours in despatching your order. The Titan can be supplied assembled with or without your choice of installed operating system but is supplied without keyboard, mouse, speakers or monitor (all of which are available elsewhere in this on-line store). The prices listed below are in addition to the system price. £551.08 Including VAT

If required can get these...

Logitech Internet Pro Keyboard (Black) - OEM (KB-011-LG) £10.52 Including VAT
Logitech Ultra-X Optical Mouse - OEM (KB-055-LG) £11.69 Including VAT
Logitech S100 10W RMS Speakers Black - OEM (SP-023-LG) £6.99 Including VAT
 
My pc costs no where near £600 but it can run everygame on high details, but I'am on socket A with a 6800gt so the mobo/cpu is old but it does the job just as well as the A64 processors in benchmarks/games.

Xpro 460w - whats that? £45?
Barton 2500@3200 - whats that £55?
Abit nf7sv2 - £40?
Leadtek 6800gt - got it for £125 last week
1 gig geil ram £60?
250gb sata - £80?
Coolermaster wave maste black with window - got it for £60 off
Nec 3540 or sumit - £25?

Thats £490 - lol more than I thought because I only upgrade the main components when thinking of price.

If i put my monitor in there tho - 2005fpw my system would cost a lot more.

Anyways what I'm trying to say is you dont have to spend much to have a good gaming pc.
 
Last edited:
Thanks for the replies so far. Seems i'm doing the right thing in sending back the Dell. It's the first time iv'e bought a pre-built system as iv'e always built them before. Shouldn't be so lazy!

If i raised the budget to £700 what could i get?

I'm trying to build a machine that will cope with things today and in the future. This could be my last pc for a couple of years as we have a big expediture coming in the form of a baby.

I have keyboard, mouse, speakers, monitor , printer and scanner. So its just the base unit.
Would like to use my 120 gb ide drive in it somewhere but only for additional storage for recording t.v. from my usb DTV stick. Could this be piggy backed of the dvd cable? or could i mount it externally via a caddy? I would like to go sata drives for the main disks.

Looking to buy this week.

Thanks.
 
REFERENCE DESCRIPTION QUANTITY PRICE COST
CP-121-AM AMD Athlon 64 3700+ San Diego 90nm (Socket 939) - Retail (ADA3700BNBOX) (CP-121-AM) 1
£134.95 £134.95
HD-047-WD Western Digital Caviar Special Edition 160GB 1600JS SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-047-WD) 1
£49.95 £49.95
CD-024-NE NEC ND4550 16x16 DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM (CD-024-NE) 1
£25.50 £25.50
CA-040-AN Antec Sonata II Piano Black Quiet Case - 450W Smart Power PSU (CA-040-AN) 1
£67.95 £67.95
MB-013-DF DFI LanParty UT NF4 SLI-D (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-013-DF) 1
£99.95 £99.95
MY-006-OK OcUK Value 2GB (2x1GB) PC3200 184pin DDR Memory Dual Channel Kit (MY-006-OK) 1
£89.95 £89.95
GX-034-OK OcUK GeForce 6800 GS 256MB GDDR3 TV-Out/DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-034-OK) 1
£114.95 £114.95
Subtotal £583.20
Shipping (City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)) £9.95
VAT £103.81
Total £696.96
 
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Looking at what you have and what you could go too...

I would possible start with
AMD Athlon 64 3700+ San Diego 90nm (Socket 939) - OEM (CP-150-AM)
and a Arctic Cooling Freezer 64 Pro CPU Cooler (Socket 754/939/940) (FG-000-AR)

Add a decent Mobo something like a
Asus A8N-E nForce4 Ultra (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-088-S)
(I have choosen not to go SLI because you said you would not be updating - but you may prefer to do so???)

Some Cheap Ram - Keeping costs down
OcUK Value 1GB (2x512MB) PC3200 184pin DDR Memory Dual Channel Kit (MY-004-OK)You can upgrade later - but 1gig should be sufficient and it is cheap to upgrade anyway. if you have the money get a 2gig set.

Hard Drives
I would get 2xHitachi Deskstar 7K80 NCQ 80GB SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM (0A30356) (HD-000-HI) and run them in RAID 0 for better performance - however you may wish to buy just a 160GB HD at about £15-£20 Less.

Then A Decent GFX Card
Gainward BLISS GeForce 7800 GT "Goes Like Hell" 512MB GDDR3 VIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GWGFFX7647) (GX-026-GW)
This looks good and has 512mb Memory. Looks good for OC'ing. You could downgrade this to a standard 256mb version and add an extra 1gig Ram???

Obviously a Sound Card
Creative Sound Blaster Audigy SE 7.1 Sound Card - OEM (SC-040-CL)

And then a cheaper Case and PSU...
Asus TA-212 Series Midi Tower (Silver) - 360W PSU (CA-005-AS)
Ok its not perfect but you are trying to save here. Its a start, looks decent, and the PSU will be fine in the now - however this PSU will not be sufficent for SLI.

You can then use your Pioneer 106 Drive along with your IDE HD for backup and stuff etc

That all comes to £690 inc VAT and then you have Postage on top. Think That looks alright, especially for gaming. Plenty of options still aswell.
 
ryansm, your system looks basically fine although the colour is really hard to read. A couple of points to note though maybe, onboard sound is pretty good now so a soundcard isn't strictly necessary if you are trying to save money, I wouldn't bother with Raid0 as it is more hassle and doesn't benefit everyone. With the money saved I'd buy a better case, something with an ATX 2.0 compliant PSU would be good :)
 
custard80 said:
If i raised the budget to £700 what could i get?
Click to expand...

AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 3800+ (Socket 939) - Retail (ADA3800BVBOX) (CP-134-AM)
217.32
Asus A8N-E nForce4 Ultra (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-088-AS)
72.79
GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC3200 Value Dual Channel Kit CAS3 (GE2GB3200BDC) (MY-046-GL)
129.19
PowerColor ATI Radeon X850 XT 256MB GDDR3 TV-Out/DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-037-PC)
152.69
Hitachi Deskstar T7K250 NCQ 160GB SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM (0A31637) (HD-001-HI)
58.69
Arctic Cooling T1 Silentium Silent Midi Tower Case - 450W Seasonic Silent PSU (CA-000-AR)
58.69
Delivery 9.95

Total inc VAT £699.32

That's dual core, 2gb ram, decent graphics, 160gb hard drive, silent case with a good seasonic psu.
 
Good spec explicit - he's got the main hardware sorted and once that GFX becomes a bit slow the system only need a gfx upgrade as rest is fine.
 
I see no windows xp software in any of the specs posted..Am guessing if "custard80" has sent back the dell system..Then he needs a copy of windows xp.Unless he already has a copy of windows xp from his old system..

custard80 can you please reply on if you already have windows XP or not.
 
Last edited:
I do have a copy of xp pro.
Thanks for the specs.
Quick question should i get an sli motherboard for future proofing?
Is the ati x800 thats on deal of the week any good? if it can cope with fear, doom 3 and quake 4 then that will probably do me, but i am tempted by the 7800's but they are a lot of money. So many choices!! Is the 6800 any good.

The x600 in this dell is poor. Just played fear again and it stuggles so badly with no fancy effects turned on.

I bought this for general use but as usual have got dragged back to pc games again. The difference from my humble cube and xbox is stark and i cannot bring myself to fork out £45 a game for an xbox 360 when i could play the best on a decent pc.

I'm presuming that given all the new technologies such as sata that have come in since my last build, that it's still as simple to put one together.

cheers again.
 
Well the x800 on the this week only offer - not quite sure what it is - a x800xtpe but low clocks? so im guessing you could overclock it.
As for running F.E.A.R, a 2X 7800gtx sli stuggles on F.E.A.R with everything completly maxed out, the game has been coded really really badly but the x800 should run it at decent specs, would have to conpensate on softshadows and the like.
 
starshocks spec looks pretty decent, 6800GS is ok for graphics and should do what you need.

if you go for the x800 maybe have a look at a crossfire mobo.
 
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