Building a VERY basic PC.

lazyvulture

lazyvulture

lazyvulture

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Well our now very aged computer needs replacing (loaded with spyware, and HP **** from the day it was bought). I am trying to convince my parents to let me build it (Shouldn't need to much persuading (I built my own already (with my own money))).

So this is what I have come up with so far. Basically, it will only be used for Internet exploring and viewing images and the like. It needs to be half decent, but very affordable.

Intel Core 2 E2160 @ 1.8GHz £43.46
Gigabyte GA-N650SLI-DS4L £62.26
OCZ 2GB (2x1GB) 800MHz £28.19
Maxtor Diamondmax 250GB £38.76
Samsung SH-S203D £17.61
Lian-Li PC-7 PLUS II £58.74
OcUK Huntkey 450W PSU £37.59
XP Home Edition 56.39

And I will be using a spare 7600GS I have about somewhere.

That all adds to around: £343

Now, I was wondering you kind people have any suggestions on the build, or could help me confirm that the motherboard is PC-6400.
 
an E2160 is pretty much the same as an E2140 in terms of results after an overclock, so you may as well save yourself a few pennies by getting an E2140. You can spend the saving on a cooler perhaps? ;)
 
Why not drop the hard drive to a 160GB, as a 'family' machine shouldn't need all that space?

Also, 1GB should be more then enough on a Windows XP machine?

Otherwise, looks good. :)
 
That motherboard should fine with that RAM, was going to suggest PC-5300 RAM but it is priced about the same as the OCZ sticks.

You might want to think about getting a different HDD brand, Maxtor are a bit naff compared to the rest. Vista Home Premium perhaps?
 
Your basket
Product Name Qty Price Line Total
Western Digital Caviar Special Edition 160GB SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM (WD1600AAJS) £28.99
(£34.06) £28.99
(£34.06)
Pioneer DVR-215DBK 20x DVD±RW SATA Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM £16.99
(£19.96) £16.99
(£19.96)
Intel Core 2 Duo E2200 "LGA775 Conroe" 2.20GHz (800FSB) - Retail £45.99
(£54.04) £45.99
(£54.04)
OCZ 2GB (2x1GB) PC2-6400C4 Dual Channel Platinum Revision 2 XTC Series DDR2 (OCZ2P800R22GK) £23.99
(£28.19) £23.99
(£28.19)
Asus Vintage V3-P5945GC Barebones System - Intel Core 2 Duo (LGA775) £55.99
(£65.79) £55.99
(£65.79)
Sub Total : £171.95
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 : £31.66
Total : £212.56

i think may do for what the needs are described as

may lack OCing abilities though
 
jak731 said:
Your basket
Product Name Qty Price Line Total
Western Digital Caviar Special Edition 160GB SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM (WD1600AAJS) £28.99
(£34.06) £28.99
(£34.06)
Pioneer DVR-215DBK 20x DVD±RW SATA Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM £16.99
(£19.96) £16.99
(£19.96)
Intel Core 2 Duo E2200 "LGA775 Conroe" 2.20GHz (800FSB) - Retail £45.99
(£54.04) £45.99
(£54.04)
OCZ 2GB (2x1GB) PC2-6400C4 Dual Channel Platinum Revision 2 XTC Series DDR2 (OCZ2P800R22GK) £23.99
(£28.19) £23.99
(£28.19)
Asus Vintage V3-P5945GC Barebones System - Intel Core 2 Duo (LGA775) £55.99
(£65.79) £55.99
(£65.79)
Sub Total : £171.95
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 : £31.66
Total : £212.56

i think may do for what the needs are described as

may lack OCing abilities though
Click to expand...

Wow. You just smoked my build.

No worries about OCing, it won't be used for much - won't need OCed.

Cheers for the replies.
 
Last edited:
Ben M said:
an E2160 is pretty much the same as an E2140 in terms of results after an overclock, so you may as well save yourself a few pennies by getting an E2140. You can spend the saving on a cooler perhaps? ;)
Click to expand...


No 2140 listed on the OC.co.uk site.

Will 300W do that system?
 
Last edited:
im not 100% sure that the cpu is compatable with that barebones system, it says its conroe compatable but find out first i suggest
you also need to add an OS to my build
 
jak731 said:
im not 100% sure that the cpu is compatable with that barebones system, it says its conroe compatable but find out first i suggest
you also need to add an OS to my build
Click to expand...

capturemh0.jpg


'bout that?

I tell you what. That system is 4x as good as the one upstairs - which I used to game on. It cost us like £1500 back in the day...
 
You can save a lot more than that by going for a Antec case with psu. Nothing wrong with them and very good reliable psu's too. I have used them quite a few times in builds for people. I would'nt touch a Maxtor Hdd either as i have had three fail on me and they are'nt the most reliable anyway. Hows this:-

Your basket
Product Name Qty Price Line Total

Samsung SH-S203D 20x DVD±RW SATA Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM £14.99 (£17.61)

Gigabyte GA-P31-DS3L Intel P31 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £44.99 (£52.86)

OCZ 2GB (2x1GB) PC2-6400C4 Dual Channel Platinum Revision 2 XTC Series DDR2 (OCZ2P800R22GK) £23.99 (£28.19)

Intel Core 2 Duo E2160 "LGA775 Conroe" 1.80GHz (800FSB) - Retail £36.99
(£43.46)

Hitachi Deskstar T7K500 320GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (0A33435) £38.99
(£45.81)

Antec NSK 4480 Mini Tower Case (Silver) - 380W Earth Watts PSU £39.99
(£46.99)

Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition inc. SP2 - OEM - 1Pk (N09-01991) £47.99
(£56.39)
Sub Total : £247.93
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £10.95
VAT is being charged at 17.5% VAT : £45.30
Total : £304.18

There's no point in going for only 1Gb of ram when ram is so cheap. The difference between 1 and 2Gb is noticeable anyway. I would have chose a E2140 but noticed they don't sell it anymore. The psu is more than capable of running that rig with a 7600GS. If you don't like the case you could always choose the Sonata with it's 500w psu. You could always choose a smaller Hdd but that is a good one on this week only, 320Gb with 16Mb cache for £45. The mobo is better than the 650Sli one too and would easily get that E2160 to 3Ghz if needed. Might be wise to get a decent cooler though if you take that route. Something like the Coolermaster Hyper TX2 at £9.39 will suffice. Just about the same performance as a AC Freezer 7 Pro for a far cheaper price.

You could go even cheaper if you went down the AMD AM2 route as the cheapest cpu is only £25.

***Edit*** Bugger too late. Took too long comparing AMD and Intel. Normally would'nt bother with AMD but it would'nt matter for a "home" pc.
 
Last edited:
pastymuncher said:
***Edit*** Bugger too late. Took too long comparing AMD and Intel. Normally would'nt bother with AMD but it would'nt matter for a "home" pc.
Click to expand...

Cheers for the insight anyway.

But I think you were going down the wrong line anyway. I do NOT need to overclock at all - the most this will be used for is FireFox / iTunes and a little photoshop.
 
Nothing wrong with maxtor hard drives now. They are owned by seagate and seem to be the same hard drive as a seagate just with the maxtor name on it - very similiar serial number and they say either "7200.10" or "7200.11" on the back - I just got that 250GB maxtor drive and it provides 79MB/s average on HD tune - not bad imo.
 
Hate to say this but put vista on, less chance of getting spywared, also Lian-Li case for a "VERY basic pc" ?????
 
i've built two machines with that V3 asus thing, both with e21x0 cpus in them, they don't overcock well (the machines) but they weren't made for that

bios update makes them fully compatible with the chips, at first it would give an error (but would still load windows etc) before the bios update (about cpu)
 
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