Attempting to make a PC for around £300

TROD

TROD

TROD

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Joined
16 Sep 2006
Posts
18
Location
Rotherham, UK
Hey guys, a mate of mine (must be a member on here) asked me to take a look on here before making and rash decisions to buy stuff. Basically, i know heaps about software, but very VERY little about hardware.

Im moving into a student house in about 10 days, and soon enough i need a PC for me there. Im in my final year at uni and trying to do a degree without a PC would be quite... funny.

Basically, i dont need ANY software, unless we can get Windows XP pretty cheap. No anti-virus or owt like that. Also, i have a 5yr old 17" monitor that still works relatively well.

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ANYWAY, this is one that my bro quickly put together from Aria, obviously id look for the cheapest deals before purchasing anything, possibly from here at OC, but we just put it together on No competitor talk please! just so it was easy to show people.

Need someone to have a look through and see if there are any gleaming errors that are silly, or stuff you think; "hmm, maybe you'd be better off with this" etc. Just have a look if you can be arsed:

80GB Western Digital Hard Drive 8MB - No competitor talk please!

Intel Pentium 4 519 [3.0,OEM,775] - No competitor talk please!

Corsair 512MB XMS2-5400 DDR2 SDRAM - No competitor talk please!

Powercolor Radeon 9550 256MB DDR1 - No competitor talk please!

NEC ND-5170B 18x DVDRW DL Black - No competitor talk please!

Shuttle SS31T Socket 775 Barebone - No competitor talk please!

that comes to £312, obviously without a monitor and software.

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any recomendations? some people told me that quality of RAM is better than quantitiy, hence why ive gone for "good" RAM, rather than loads of crappy stuff. Is that right?

By the way, the kind of programs id be running on here, would be stuff like Photoshop, InDesign, Quark Xpress and Firefox pretty much at the same time, so while it wont REALLY be used to play games, it needs to run programs really smoothly.

thanks so much for any help
Tom.
 
Welcome to the forums, you should edit out the competitor quickly as you aren't allowed to post links. I'll have a quick look in a second and see what I can specify from OcUK that is suitable.
 
Something like this + 1gb Patriot DD2(when it returns to stock) or similar would be suitable I think. It has onboard graphics and I'd definitely suggest 1gb Ram as it makes everything so much smoother, the CPU should also overclock nicely.

MB-004-AK Asrock Conroe945G-DVI (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard (MB-004-AK)
£45.99 £45.99
CA-059-AN Antec NSK1300 ATX Cube Case - 300W PSU (CA-059-AN)
£49.99 £49.99
CP-116-IN Intel Pentium 4 805 Dual Core "LGA775 Smithfield" 2.66GHz (533FSB) - Retail (CP-116-IN)
£61.99 £61.99
HD-023-SA Samsung SpinPoint P HD080HJ 80GB SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-023-SA)
£25.95 £25.95
CD-045-LG LG GSA-H10NBAL 16x16 DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM (CD-045-LG)
£15.99 £15.99
Subtotal £199.91
Shipping (City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)) £9.95
VAT £36.73
Total £246.59
 
sorry about that guys, didnt have a clue you couldnt talk about other competitors.

My bad.

EDIT - oh and thanks for that semi-pro, sounds like a very good system. Im guessing everyone else would agree on the 1gig RAM thing?
 
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a friend of mine suggested (to what semi-pro waster said) that he'd get the mobo semi-pro said, as it is conroe ready. But he would get a 400watt CPU instead (so i could possibly add a gfx card at a later date) and would do with a 80gig Western Digital HDD instead. And, a conroe CPU instead of a P4.

Anyone got any thoughts on those alterations?

EDIT - for the PSU, he suggested the Antec SLK3800BUK Black Quiet Midi Tower Case - 400W SmartPower PSU.
 
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TROD said:
a friend of mine suggested (to what semi-pro waster said) that he'd get the mobo semi-pro said, as it is conroe ready. But he would get a 400watt CPU instead (so i could possibly add a gfx card at a later date) and would do with a 80gig Western Digital HDD instead. And, a conroe CPU instead of a P4.

Anyone got any thoughts on those alterations?

EDIT - for the PSU, he suggested the Antec SLK3800BUK Black Quiet Midi Tower Case - 400W SmartPower PSU.
Click to expand...

If you can afford the Conroe then no harm in getting it but I was trying to stick to the budget. :) 400w PSU would probably be better but the Antec's 300w PSU is fairly efficient and it is a nice SFF(Small Form Factor if you needed the translation) case. Hard drives are often a matter of personal preference, the Samsung is probably quieter and certainly cheaper but not a huge deal in it.
 
am i right in thinking a Conroe CPU would cost me around £100 more than the one you posted semi-pro?
 
TROD said:
am i right in thinking a Conroe CPU would cost me around £100 more than the one you posted semi-pro?
Click to expand...

Nope.

805 = £72
E6300 = £126

So thats £54 for a Conroe CPU but a heck of a lot more power.
 
ok ok, so using semi-pro's estimations, changing that CPU to a Intel Core 2 DUO E6300 "LGA775 Allendale" 1.86GHz (1066FSB) - OEM (CP-135-IN)

would take the total to AROUND £300 inc. VAT.

BUT, thats without RAM right?
 
TROD said:
sorry about that guys, didnt have a clue you couldnt talk about other competitors.

My bad.

EDIT - oh and thanks for that semi-pro, sounds like a very good system. Im guessing everyone else would agree on the 1gig RAM thing?
Click to expand...


competitors can;t be mentioned as it states in the faq. only places that you can mention and get away with is like No competitor talk please! since they are such a rip off that they don;t classify as a competitor.

no they can't!
 
TROD said:
ok ok, so using semi-pro's estimations, changing that CPU to a Intel Core 2 DUO E6300 "LGA775 Allendale" 1.86GHz (1066FSB) - OEM (CP-135-IN)

would take the total to AROUND £300 inc. VAT.

BUT, thats without RAM right?
Click to expand...

Yes that would be without Ram and also if you are getting an OEM CPU then you will need to purchase a separate CPU cooler, I'd recommend the Arctic Freezer 7 which comes in at ~£20.

Cyber-Mav I'm not 100% sure you are right on that either, I think it is anyone who sells PC parts regardless of the prices.
 
OK Tom, it's me :D

If you can go for the Conroe it'd be the better choice in the long run but it's ultimately down to the budget you've got. You could also probably go for an Athlon 64 on the cheap too at the mo so I wouldn't discount that option yet.

Semi pro's spec is a good one and the Conroe would probably take it to about £350. And yes, it would play FM2007 :p
 
aslong at it plays FM07 i'm a happy man, no time for all this FPS' crap nowadays anyway, give me Quake 2 anyday. :D
 
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