Budget rebuild

[paddya]

Looking at rebuilding my mates ageing XP2400 with a newer system, but keeping on a budget.

So far, I've seen the following but would like recommendations on which board, whether to go AM2 or Intel and ideas for a reasonable gfx for £50 either new or used. And also if possible, what kind of power it would require. I think he will be going for a cheapy case complete with PSU. Just used a calculator I found on the net and it said for that processor, 1 hdd, 1 dvdrw and 7600gt, recommends 329w which doesn't seem a lot, therefore wandering if 400 or 450 be enough

Asus M2V (Socket AM2) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £43
Abit AN-M2 Micro ATX (Socket AM2) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £51
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4200+ 2.20GHz (Socket AM2) - Retail £49

Thanks guys

 

[Kanifee]

ok ive done this in 2 lots the first is well under budget and a good all rounder and the second is a kick arse machine for the money but £20 over budget allthough its well well worth the extra £20

firstly

secondly

in the second one ive thrown in a beefy psu to handle the 2900 but the first machine should cope fine on spec and has a sound card also to give it a better angle for its money.
the second one is great value for what it is and should give moderate oc's on the cpu and the pro should hit xt speeds no bother atall so your friend will really do well for his gaming plus it has 2gb of ram so should be stable for a good while.

edit***

just a quick review on my second spec with the 2900, replace the antec case with a lian li pc7 aluminum case and youe laughing its £5 on the budget but the case is in a completaly differant league as you dont need the psu in the antec.

 

[paddya]

Thanks for that. Unfortuantely that is still more than he's looking at. Was planning on about £100 for mobo and CPU, £50 for case with PSU and £50 for gfx. He already has 1gb of ram which he's happy to use along with existing IDE HDD and also the onboard sound.

Shame it's on such a budget, but then family life with wife and 3 kids, it kind of happens lol

 

[Teaf]

He already has 1gb of ram which he's happy to use along with existing IDE HDD and also the onboard sound.

As long as it's DDR2 then that's okay, otherwise he'll probably need to get some new RAM otherwise it'll be holding him back on a new motherboard, and therefore a new CPU. Spec below for you on a mega budget, but note that due to his budget I've had to pick a graphics card that is really only for media and not good enough for playing games (well, good for Chess and Solitate and Vista Aero but not good for BioShock and so forth).

 

[paddya]

Ok, been a spate of silence from my mate, but he's just given me the go ahead to spend £400 on a system in the early new year. I know obviously a lot of things can change by then, but ideas as to what I could get now would be ideal.

Just looking for base, with ram, case, psu, hdd, cpu and gfx. Also looking at MM for any bits to get a higher spec for the money.

Thanks