First PC Build, tight budget

krayzeekris

krayzeekris

krayzeekris

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This is my first PC build, and as the title says, I'm on a tight budget. My 9 year old custom built Alienware finally packed up, and as I no longer have that sort of money, I'm doing the opposite - getting as much as I can for as little as I can! As you can see, I've been gaming on a 9 year old PC so this new one doesn't need to be cutting edge, and seeing as the last 5-6 years have produced some great games that I've still to play, I'm happy that they'll keep me busy before I have to think about upgrading or building again. At which I hope to have more disposable income available...

OK so I've been reading the many threads on here, and reviews of some components and came up with this:

ASRock G41C-GS (ATX, Intel X4500 accelerator, DDR2/DDR3, up to 8GB RAM)
Kingston 2GB (1x2GB) DDR2 PC2-6400C5 800MHz 5-5-5-15
Intel Pentium Dual-Core E6700 "LGA775 Core 2" 3.20GHz (1066FSB)
XFX ATI Radeon HD 5570 1024MB DDR2 PCI-Express
Samsung SpinPoint F1 750GB SATA-II 32MB Cache

I have a new OCZ 500W PSU that I was hoping would fix my Alienware problem (it didn't!), so I'm hoping this will be enough. Unfortunately this lot came to around £215 so I had to make some compromises and came up with this:

ASRock G41C-GS (ATX, Intel X4500 accelerator, DDR2/DDR3, up to 8GB RAM)
Kingston 2GB (1x2GB) DDR2 PC2-6400C5 800MHz 5-5-5-15
Intel Celeron Dual Core E3500 "LGA775" 2.70GHz (800FSB)
MSI ATI Radeon HD 5450 1024MB GDDR3 PCI-Express
Samsung SpinPoint F1 750GB SATA-II 32MB Cache

And this is for £175. I need to know if the 500W PSU is enough, if these are compatible and if this is good enough to play games over the last 5-6 years, not necessarily at the highest settings, but not on the lowest either! I already have a 22" LCD monitor at 1920x1080 screen res which I'd like to continue with, and it uses the 15-pin connector only. As the Alienware case is a beast, I'm keeping and using that too :D And I'll be very glad to improve on the 2 USB ports! This will be mainly used for gaming, or maintaining my website, but seeing as I did that easily for years on the Alienware that won't be a problem for this one.

Now obviously I've taken a hit performance-wise by lowering the cost, but it's a tight budget, and I'm wondering if anyone can shave any more off the total, or improve the performance somehow? Or both...

And lastly, but very importantly, I need to somehow get my files off my old 60GB HDD, so I'm hoping to fit both this one, and the new HDD I'll buy, into my rig and copy them across. The old HDD is a Seagate Barracuda ATA IV 60GB Model ST360021A - will I be able to fit them both and use them both in the new PC? If so great, I'll start reading up on the master-slave process, if not, how else can I get the files off as I my Alienware will not boot?

Thanks very much for reading

Chris
 
What is the specs of your old Alienware? We might be able to salvage a few parts to help keep costs down, and try get the new PC have have similiar performance to it. The OCZ should be fine to power a single GPU setup. I'm also assuming you don't want to spend over £200? Will you be reusing your old OS?

Also, googling the ST360021A shows it's an IDE drive, so as long as the motherboard has an IDE port, you can retrieve your old file.
 
If you can stretch another £15 get this, it will eat your current set up, use current HDD for now til you can afford a new one

XFX ATI Radeon HD 5830 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card
AMD Athlon II X2 Dual Core 250 3.00GHz (Socket AM3) - Retail
Kingston HyperX Genesis Grey 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1600C9D3X2K2/4GX)
ASRock N68C-S UCC GeForce 7025 (Socket AM3/AM2+) DDR2/DDR3 microATX Motherboard

You really want to try n get 4 gig of RAM, and you need a better gfx card than that one really, £15? is that too much to find? :D
 
I wouldnt count on any parts from the old system seeing as it doesnt boot up.

If you have £200. I would suggest a new mobo with integrated GPU, a CPU, DDR3 RAM and a new sata HDD. AMD is probably the way forward on your budget.

You need a mobo that has an IDE connector. This is getting more and more tricky, I seriously doubt you'll get a current mobo with two. If your old HDD is IDE there is a good chance the DVD drive is too. Install the OS, then once setup power down the system and move the IDE cable to the HDD so you can recover your files.

As your playing old games the IGP may cope ok, if not you can save and drop a card in later.

*edit if you are going to continue gaming, you want a quad core really. A budget mATX mobo will be £40ish the phenom 955BE is £90, 4GB RAM £30ish and same again for a 500GB HDD. That should be just under your £200 budget. You have a reasonable core system then and can worry about picking up a GPU later if the IGP cant handle your gaming habits.
 
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I like the sound of that thanks, using the integrated graphics to save on buying a graphics card and I can purchase one later.

The Alienware specs are an Intel Maryville D850EMV2 board, P4 2.8GHz CPU, Radeon 9700 Pro 128MB card, so nothing remotely salvageable! It might have been the 420W PSU that went but I've no way of testing this as I'd need an old PSU from around the same time to test it. I bought a new 500W PSU but that didn't work, the power ratings, or voltage on the railings, are different these days - when I switched the PSU on using the 13AMP plug that came with it (the 420W used just a 5AMP), a spark flew out the switch, just the one mind - has this fried the PSU or was this the short circuit protection kicking in? It's the OCZ StealthXStream II 500W with over-voltage/over-current/short circuit protection so I'm hoping it'll still be ok to use.

Yes I think both the DVD drive and the CD-RW drives are IDE - all 3 (incl HDD) are connected via the same thin wide grey ribbon so that's put my mind at ease. Just need to locate my currently missing XP CD. It wasn't with my other driver CDs sadly, I'm usually good with things like that, but yes, I'll hopefully be reusing the OS - I've been told it will need to be reinstalled, even if I use the current HDD. What connectors do current HDDs use if not IDE?

I have an ATX case, will an mATX board fit ok from the point of being able to have the sound card, network card and GPU end plates in line with the back of the case? It's a large case, loads of room, but my current board is huge so I can't see the various fixings behind it until I remove it.

I would imagine I could stretch the budget a bit further, especially if it's just another £15, I will just keep the cost between us ;)

I see what you're saying about quad core, but the prices were too high, although I only looked at an Intel setup and I see you've both advised AMD setups.

*EDIT: XP disc definitely missing, I've not seen it since we moved several years ago sadly. I have the Vista CD from my wife's laptop, tho I don't think I'll be able to use that, so am I going to have to buy an XP disc from somewhere?

If I save money by using IGP and not purchasing a GPU just yet, I can use these savings to get slightly better components, or put it towards buying an OS I suppose (£40ish for XP) - are the IGPs any good for gaming? As someone who hasn't even played Morrowind yet, I'd still like to be able to play the likes of HL2: Episode Two, Oblivion, Mass Effect, Dead Space, Far Cry, Crysis, STALKER. Hopefully this will give some sort of idea about the capability required.
 
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mATX is smaller than ATX so will fit fine. Obviously a mATX case wouldnt take a fullsized ATX mobo. We suggested AMD as it works out cheaper and you still get plenty of bang for buck.

The new mobo will come with sata cables for current HDDs and DVD drives. From the sounds of things it maybe best to buy a new sata DVD drive too (£15ish). If you do risk reusing the IDE DVD drive DO NOT put the old HDD and DVD drive on the same IDE cable, it will effect the performance of the HDD. Do as i suggested in my last post.

Don't bother buying xp. Either download a OEM version of XP or an 8 in 1 version then use the license key on the sticker stuck to your case (I'm not suggesting piracy before anyone kicks off!). Windows 7 64 bit would be a better OS if you intend to buy a new one. OC do a bundle deal so you get a HDD & OS which is something to consider.

IGPs arent really for gaming. Although older games should run ok COD MW for example runs perfectly well on mine, starcraft 2 runs on low settings.

You said you need to recover your files. I'm not knocking 95thrifles spec but you would be much better off taking the GPU off the spec and using the cash to get a sata HDD (so you can recover your files) and get a quad core CPU.

Save some more money and get a GPU later. The 5830 is ok but we have seen the 5850 go for as little as £100 on the "weekly offers". Prices do fluctuate and you will most likely get a much better card for your money if you wait and save.

I think that's covered most of your questions. Anything i've missed or if I haven;t made myself clear....post back.
 
So a motherboard like this one - ASRock N68C-S UCC GeForce 7025 (Socket AM3/AM2+) DDR2/DDR3 microATX Motherboard [90-MXGES0-A0UAYZ] ?

What's the 7025 like for gaming? As you can see it can take both DDR2 and 3, and has the AM2+ and AM3 sockets but will I be able to fit a quad core on that? This is £35 and has the IDE connector I need, plus I'll probably only get 1x 2GB of DDR2 RAM to begin with like the Kingston PC6400 - I understand the CAS Timings but what about the 1.5/1.9v and VDIMM or SODIMM - which will fit in the above board? The spec just says it can take DIMM RAM at various speeds.

I've read good things about the 5850, seems to be very popular!

I've managed to locate my licence key sticker, but how would I go about an OEM or 8 in 1 download?

My only other concerns are that this will be able to play games like HL2: Episode Two, Oblivion, Mass Effect, Dead Space, Far Cry, Crysis, STALKER using the onboard GeForce 7025 and does my new 500W PSU sound like it will still work, following the incident with the spark?

Can you say (whisper?!!) where these £15 SATA HDDs are? The Samsung SpinPoint F1 750GB SATA-II 32MB Cache at £30 looks very good though

So that's £90 plus whatever CPU I can fit, hopefully a quad core, and hoping I don't have to buy another PSU.
 
Well despite reading a lot of bad things about the GeForce 7025, I'm not exactly spoilt for choice regarding budget motherboards with IGP and an IDE connector (unless anyone knows otherwise?) so it looks like I'll be getting the ASRock - which is fine, too much choice often leads to a headache ;)

Although it supports AM3, the board is based on an AM2 chipset so whilst the CPU frequency won't be affected, the system bus speed reverts to the AM2 speed - sounds interesting, but I don't know what this means or what the limitations are for my gaming? !!

Obviously any quad core I get will be an AM3 chipset like the aforementioned Phenom however the 955BE is 125W and this board only supports 95W apparently, so the best I can get is the Phenom II 850 3.3GHz at £78 with a much larger L2 cache (which, I know, doesn't really matter!) but no L3 cache - again, is this going to hurt my gaming or is it really only necessary for current and future gaming?

I know this definitely isn't futureproof, or even that upgradeable save the graphics card (I'll be saving for the 5850 for a major boost) but I lasted 9 years with a P4 2.8GHz, Radeon 9700 Pro 128MB right? :P

ASRock N68C-S UCC GeForce 7025 (Socket AM3/AM2+) DDR2/DDR3 microATX Motherboard [90-MXGES0-A0UAYZ]
AMD Phenom II X4 Quad Core 850 "95W Edition" 3.30GHz (Socket AM3)
Kingston HyperX Blu 2GB (1x2GB) DDR3 PC3-10666C9 1333MHz Single Channel Kit (KHX1333C9D3B1/2G)
Samsung SpinPoint F1 750GB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (HD753LJ)

Total: £163 - a fantastic effort!

Two more questions (with sub questions!): 1) The Corsair RAM is the same price, has a slightly better CAS 9-9-9-20 as opposed to Kingston's 9-9-9-24, does this matter that much, why are the two different RAMs using different voltages and which will work better with the ASRock board? - it doesn't specify the voltage required for the RAM

2) Any further comments or amendments/tweaks to the spec above? I'd really appreciate thoughts on the above 2 posts and with what happened with my new PSU. I'm excited and eager to get buying and building now :)
 
I would get

Mobo: Gigabyte GA-M68MT-S2 (No IDE but who cares you dont know if your old Drives work yet). Has a decent IGP (best get 4GB of RAM so you can dedicated some to the IGP)

CPU: Phenom 955BE (up multiplier by 1 you get a 965BE spec saving you £15 from buying it).

RAM: 4GB is really advisable now. Dual channel i.e having two RAM modules improves performance. Kingston is ok, corsair is just as good. RAM timings arent a massive issue. 1.5V RAM is for some mobos (intel mostly if I recall) that require it.

HDD: Spinpoint F3s are popular but it's down to cost and size / whatever is best on the weekly offers at the time, you really need to decide.

DVD: Any OEM LG drive or Samsung whatever they are sata and £15ish

That will tally a lil higher (£190 maybe?) than your effort but is a better base to build from. We can't say for sure your old parts work so it's best to buy new now than be limited by the mobo later.

On that note the PSU. You will have to test it to know if it's ok. You can short two pins on its 20/24 power connector with a paperclip to allow it to run. Google it as I can't remember off hand which two it is. There are guides and photos out there! You basically turn it on and off "at the wall" if it runs up ok, you could try adding the DVD drive to the molex connectors and see if it powers up and ejects etc. If it does all that there is a good chance it might be ok.

In regards to the OS. I would advise to get Windows 7 (64bit) as I mentioned you can get it bundled with a HDD from OC.

If you can't borrow a disk to reuse XP then you will have to google a lil bit. I'm not getting into a discussion on torrents and being accused of suggesting piracy. Only that It makes zero sense buying XP again it is infact only restraining your rig.

Hope that covers most your questions
 
I think you should go for this board: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-245-GI&groupid=701&catid=1903&subcat=1481

Slightly more expensive, but you will have a lot less problems with it. It also has support for the more recent Phenom II line, so a possible cheap CPU upgrade in future if you feel you need it. Also googling around for gaming it's better then the 7025, although looking at your game list you'll probably have to play them on med/low settings anyway until you have enough for a discrete card.

Something like this would perhaps be more future proof:

AMD Phenom II X4 Quad Core 955 Black Edition "125W Edition" 3.20GHz (Socket AM3)
Gigabyte GA-MA78LMT-US2H 760G(Socket AM3) DDR3 Motherboard [GA-MA78LMT-US2H]
Kingston HyperX Blu 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-10666C9 1333MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1333C9D3B1K2/4G)
Samsung SpinPoint F1 750GB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (HD753LJ)

All for £216.36

Another option is to go for a board with a better IGP, such as this: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-177-MS

But unlike the Gigabyte board this board only supports up to 95w CPUs, so if you want this board I suggest the Athlon II X4 640 (The 850 is not in the CPU support list). However this CPU still is a very good chip to use for budget gaming.

Another option to save costs is to go for a Phenom II X2 555, and attempt to unlock it to a quad core. But there's always a chance that it won't fully unlock, I have however seen quite a few of these turning into quad cores or tri cores.
 
XP S2 Disc.

honosuseri said:
I would get

Mobo: Gigabyte GA-M68MT-S2 (No IDE but who cares you dont know if your old Drives work yet). Has a decent IGP (best get 4GB of RAM so you can dedicated some to the IGP)

CPU: Phenom 955BE (up multiplier by 1 you get a 965BE spec saving you £15 from buying it).

RAM: 4GB is really advisable now. Dual channel i.e having two RAM modules improves performance. Kingston is ok, corsair is just as good. RAM timings arent a massive issue. 1.5V RAM is for some mobos (intel mostly if I recall) that require it.

HDD: Spinpoint F3s are popular but it's down to cost and size / whatever is best on the weekly offers at the time, you really need to decide.

DVD: Any OEM LG drive or Samsung whatever they are sata and £15ish

That will tally a lil higher (£190 maybe?) than your effort but is a better base to build from. We can't say for sure your old parts work so it's best to buy new now than be limited by the mobo later.

On that note the PSU. You will have to test it to know if it's ok. You can short two pins on its 20/24 power connector with a paperclip to allow it to run. Google it as I can't remember off hand which two it is. There are guides and photos out there! You basically turn it on and off "at the wall" if it runs up ok, you could try adding the DVD drive to the molex connectors and see if it powers up and ejects etc. If it does all that there is a good chance it might be ok.

In regards to the OS. I would advise to get Windows 7 (64bit) as I mentioned you can get it bundled with a HDD from OC.

If you can't borrow a disk to reuse XP then you will have to google a lil bit. I'm not getting into a discussion on torrents and being accused of suggesting piracy. Only that It makes zero sense buying XP again it is infact only restraining your rig.

Hope that covers most your questions
Click to expand...

Hi. I have a disc for Windows XP SP2 if you want it. If your interested just let me know and i'll send it to you. FOC.
 
Orcvader said:
I think you should go for this board: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-245-GI&groupid=701&catid=1903&subcat=1481Another option to save costs is to go for a Phenom II X2 555, and attempt to unlock it to a quad core. But there's always a chance that it won't fully unlock, I have however seen quite a few of these turning into quad cores or tri cores.
Click to expand...

I have one of those "golden" 555BEs in my HTPC rig, although it's not the great buy it used to be! The 555 is £20ish cheaper than the 955BE. Only problem is if you are lucky and unlock all 4 cores you need to spend that money out for a heatsink to cool it. The gamble isnt worth the pay off IMHO anymore.

I would suggest the OP sorts his OS and PSU issues first so he knows what he needs. Try and save some extra cash up. If he atleast has the "extra" £100ish saved so he can buy a GPU also, this will increase the mobo options we can spec......this makes a lot of sense!
 
honosuseri said:
No IDE but who cares you dont know if your old Drives work yet
Click to expand...

I care! A lot!! I understand the want for an IDE connector limits my choices with motherboards but how else will I be able to recover the files? (not bothered about the CD/DVD drives, they're cheap to replace, it's the HDD I need access to) I've got around 20 years worth of databases and website files that I can't just give up on. I have managed to get hold of an old 350W PSU that I can try running on the old board, Radeon 9700 PRO (ATI states a minimum of 300W, so it's just whether enough power comes out to power it due to the age differences in board and PSU) and DVD drives to see if it will run them, and then add the HDD in to try and copy the files, either to a USB drive or burn them to a CD. Failing that I'll have to take the HDD to a shop and ask them to help.

If I manage to do this then I can get the better board. Having said that, the first Gigabyte board recommended by Orcvader also has the IDE connector

Philipp, thank you very much for the offer of the CD but I have XP Home Edition, received before even SP1 was out, and I've read you need the exact version for it to accept the product key.

honosuseri, thank you very very much for all your help so far, I'll be looking into the OS/HDD bundles after work, and after I've tinkered with the old PSUs and drives
 
I do apologise, You ask so many questions I get side lined and forget.

I meant to mention buying an external caddy. You fit the IDE HDD into it and voila you have a usb external HDD. The mobo i suggested was cheaper so it probably works out about the same, personally I thought having the old drive (if it still works) portable would be more useful.
 
honosuseri said:
You ask so many questions I get side lined and forget.
Click to expand...

That is true yes, sorry about that, I''ve got one chance to get this right and know I'm being anal about all the details! I'm also concerned about not being able to get the data off the old HDD, but I don't see why it would have failed, I've looked after it with good housekeeping and never filled it up. The external caddy is an excellent idea, and will enable me to attach it to the laptop and easily copy over the files, just need to find an IDE one with USB 2.0 which OC doesn't seem to do, I guess they're rare these days anyway.

I'm going to see if I can get the old Alienware going with an old 350W PSU, but with only the old board, GPU and CD drive attached, thereby not risking the HDD. If I don't need an IDE connector, it opens up more and better possibilities with boards, and I'm more and more inclined to ditch any IGP for a reasonable GPU. I'd be able to get away with 2-3GB RAM and XP for the time being too.

Chris
 
No need to apologise.

Bottomline you need £300-350 to get a budget gaming spec rig. I suggested the IGP as a stop gap. This gave you a working pc in budget and was man enough to handle gaming when you added a GPU later. If you want to game you have to pay for the option in essence. Either buy an xbox 360 or put the rough cost of one towards a dedicated GPU (eg 5850) for the PC.

You must know someone (friend or family) with a pc you could test your old IDE drive. If it's good the caddy is the way forward. Then you aren't restrained by that IDE connector when you choose your mobo.

It would help to buy the GPU with the other parts to remove the IGP constraint aswell. It would be nice to try and swing you an AM3+ mobo for bulldozer support and Xfire (multiple GPUs) giving you some upgrade options. Although the AM3 mobo I suggested was "good enough" and it's cheap.

Bare minimum you want a athlon tri-core for gaming. Personally i'd pay the difference for the phenom quad with it's L3 cache. I suggested the basic overclock trick to get the 965BE CPU from a 955BE so you get even more power for your money!

You also need 4GB RAM, that's £30ish just buying 2GB is going to be £20ish. Get a matched pair now, you do need it for performance and works out cheaper in the end.

I managed to find an external HDD enclosure for £16.99 from a well known etailer (I cant provide links by forum rules). Test what parts you can save towards that £300 budget. When you have the cash, watch the weekly offer on the 5850. It has been as cheap as £100 recently which is excellent bang for buck. We can then spec around it and see what mobos and HDDs are on offer too.
 
First up, great advice on the caddy, it arrived today, my HDD is good and I've been backing up my files. Big, big relief and thank you very very much for the recommendation. I've just been enjoying a good look through the Overclockers shop and seeing as I've managed to increase my budget, have come up with the following as a possible build:

Asus M4A78LT-M 760G (Socket AM3) DDR3 Motherboard [90-MIBBJ0-G0EAY0WZ] £48 - the older 700 chipset, but dual channel RAM, VGA for my monitor, plenty of CPUs supported including 125W, IDE connector for my DVD drive meaning I can buy a DVD-RW at a later date. Only bad point is it's SATA 3GB/s not 6GB/s, but any 6GB/s boards pushed the price up, money that could be better spent elsewhere. The cheapest AM3+ boards is only £5 more but doesn't seem to have VGA output for my 22" monitor and the next AM3+ board is an extra £30.

I looked at the newer 800 chipset boards but the cheapest one MSI 880GM-E41 AMD 880G (Socket AM3) DDR3 Motherboard at £49 doesn't seem as good as the Asus above and any other 800 boards are more expensive, possibly unnecessarily so if I want to spend my money on other better components.

CPUs there's a lot on offer here, so I plumped for the AMD Phenom II X4 Quad Core 955 Black Edition "125W Edition" 3.20GHz (Socket AM3) £90

RAM Corsair XMS3 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMX4GX3M2A1600C9) [CMX4GX3M2A1600C9] £31 (£9 off :) )

Windows 7 Home + Western Digital Caviar Blue 500GB SATA 6GB/s 16MB Cache HDD (1TB upgrade available) = £101

Separately, Win7 Home £80 plus Samsung SpinPoint F3 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (HD103SJ) £41 = £121

On the strength of this, I may take the 1TB upgrade as long as it's the F3, but there's no further details on that including price

Presumably I can use my old 10/100 network card for my ethernet cable for broadband use, I don't think a seperate sound card is necessary and am happy with my 2.1 speakers

All that's left is the graphics card and I've heard great things about the Radeon HD 5850, which is currently £128.

So it looks like my new budget is £400 haha, but then our earlier discussion didn't include the new OS and am I right in thinking this new rig will futureproof me somewhat, meaning upgrades rather than a complete rebuild like I'm about to undertake.

In short:
Asus M4A78LT-M 760G (Socket AM3) DDR3 Motherboard [90-MIBBJ0-G0EAY0WZ]
AMD Phenom II X4 Quad Core 955 Black Edition "125W Edition" 3.20GHz (Socket AM3)
RAM Corsair XMS3 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMX4GX3M2A1600C9) [CMX4GX3M2A1600C9]
Windows 7 Home + Western Digital Caviar Blue 500GB SATA 6GB/s 16MB Cache HDD
Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 5850 Extreme 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card

Is my 500W PSU still good enough for this? !! I'll get a paper clip and power it up tomorrow to check it still works and can open the CD drive etc, but if I need a 600W or 700W due to a hungry 5850, I'll have to sell it on.

Any tweaks, comments, suggestions, ways of lowering the total cost are very welcome.

Thanks again guys

Chris
 
Thats great news about your HDD and being able to recover your data.

Look at the AM3+ Asus M5A78L-M/USB3 (£55). It will take AM3 and bulldozer cpus when they are released. It has an IGP with DVI,HDMI and RGB (vga monitor) outputs as well as optical audio output. Plus it has an ethernet port on the mobo so you wont need the pci card. I don't think it has the IDE port though, essentially it is the same as the mobo you spec'd but will take more CPUs.

I would hold off buying the 5850. Firstly the price changes weekly on it, it seems. I've seen it on offer for £100-110. Secondly if you have doubts about the psu it would help to have that cash you would have spent on the GPU incase the PSU is knackered. (Just cos it appears to be on and power a dvd drive doesnt 100% guarantee it will boot the system)

If your old psu is ok and once you get the system built you can add the gpu later. If you can catch it on offer even with the delivery charge you shouldn't be any worse off. Your 500W is fine to run the system by the way.
 
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honosuseri said:
Look at the AM3+ Asus M5A78L-M/USB3 (£55). It has optical audio output.
Click to expand...

Is this the standard audio port? The 'male' part from the speaker into the 'female' part on the mobo, for want of a better analogy.

If the psu IS knackered, the only way I'll find out is once I connect everything and switch it on, in which case don't I run the risk of breaking some of the brand new components? Glad it's enough power though

Presumably the Radeon HD3000 IGP is reasonable that it'll keep me going for the time being on my older games. Thanks very much for your help, I'm waiting to hear back from OC about the 1TB upgrade and I'm finally good to go :) Should still have my PC Gamer 'How To Build a PC' guide knocking around somewhere :P
 
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