Gaming base unit £450-£550

Meurig

Meurig

Meurig

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Joined
24 Aug 2004
Posts
49
Chaps,
Now the kids are a little older i want to get back into PC gaming. I am about 3 years out of the loop with components so i am completly flumoxed by the current gen of graphic cards etc.

I have between £450 and £550 to spend but i would rather keep the costs as low as possible.

This budget is purely for a box as i have a good quality KB/Mouse and monitor and i intend to re-use my optical drives so no dvd drives/writers are required. I would like a new case and PSU as well though.

I currently run:
Athlon 64 3000+
2 gig generic ram
80 gig HDD
GF 7600gt (PCI-E)

The only other thing to know is i would like to g/card to be able to push out the native res of my monitor of 1680*1050 in modern games with a decent frame rate.

I would also like an operating system as i am not sure if i would be OK transferring my current xp licence over to the new machine.

Finally, i am not averse to building my rig as i have always done this in the past, however http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showp...hlon 64 X2 6000 3.00GHz Dual Core DDR2 System is what i was initially looking at.

Any guidance would be appreciated.

Cheers
Meurig
 
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Intel Core 2 Duo E7200 LGA775 'Wolfdale' 2.53GHz (1066FSB) - Retail £71.99
(£84.59) £71.99
(£84.59)
Thermaltake VB1000SWS Soprano SuperMidi Tower - Silver £42.99
(£50.51)
GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC2-8500C5 1066MHz Black Dragon DDR2 Dual Channel Kit (GB22GB8500C5DC) £29.99
(£35.24)
Corsair TX 750W ATX2.2 SLI Compliant PSU Corsair TX 750W ATX2.2 SLI Compliant PSU £69.99
(£82.24) £69.99
(£82.24)
Abit IP35 Pro (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard Abit IP35 Pro (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £84.99
(£99.86) £84.99
(£99.86)
Powercolor ATI Radeon HD 4850 512MB GDDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI/HDMI (PCI-Express) Retail £95.99
(£112.79)
Hitachi Deskstar T7K500 320GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (0A33435) £28.99
(£34.06)
Sub Total : £424.93
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £14.95
VAT is being charged at 17.5% VAT : £76.98
Total : £516.86

add another 4850 later when you decide if you want crossfire
 
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no os or case ( i never spec cases there personal imo) but this is a lot of pc for the money
 
Woah, do you chaps never sleep ;)

Thanks for this guys. Even if i dont get exactly what you guys suggested all thorugh the box it definately gives me a good idea, for example it appears that the Radeon 4850 is the way to go and not a Geforce.

In terms of OS's do you suggest sticking with XP or finally taking a punt on Vista?

Thx.
 
I've just built a Q6600/4850 based rig, and having tried vista before, I've stuck with XP until now. However, I felt my new machine should be able to run it better, and that it does, I've had no problems with it.

(Where-as I found my old 3500+/x800xtpe/2gb ram just wasn't quite enough)
 
Vista 64

As you would have 4gb and a 64bit CPU - Vista 64 (Home Premium) OEM is the way to go. Although if you are heavily into overclocking the 32bit version is meant to put less stress on the CPU (personally I have never really had any problems but I only mildly OC my Athlon 64 x2 4800 from 2500 stock to 2850)
 
Ok, i had to make a few ammendments to allow for the costof a csae and an operating system but how does the following look, based on Cupras spec?

Is there anything i have forgotten or anything i should change? I have gone a little over budget so i would like not to add any further cost to this.


Product Name Qty Price Line Total
Antec Three Hundred Ultimate Gaming Case Antec Three Hundred Ultimate Gaming Case £29.99
(£35.24) £29.99
(£35.24)
Microsoft Windows Vista Home Basic SP1 32-Bit - OEM (66G-02082) Microsoft Windows Vista Home Basic SP1 32-Bit - OEM (66G-02082) £47.99
(£56.39) £47.99
(£56.39)
Samsung SpinPoint F1 500GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD502IJ) Samsung SpinPoint F1 500GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD502IJ) £39.99
(£46.99) £39.99
(£46.99)
Intel Core 2 Quad Pro Q6600 "Energy Efficient SLACR 95W Edition" 2.40GHz (1066FSB) - Retail Intel Core 2 Quad Pro Q6600 "Energy Efficient SLACR 95W Edition" 2.40GHz (1066FSB) - Retail £101.99
(£119.84) £101.99
(£119.84)
Asus P5Q Intel P45 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard Asus P5Q Intel P45 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £69.99
(£82.24) £69.99
(£82.24)
Corsair TX 650W ATX2.2 SLi Compliant PSU Corsair TX 650W ATX2.2 SLi Compliant PSU £54.99
(£64.61) £54.99
(£64.61)
GeIL 4GB (2x2GB) PC2-6400C5 800MHz Black Dragon DDR2 Dual Channel Kit (GB24GB6400C5DC) GeIL 4GB (2x2GB) PC2-6400C5 800MHz Black Dragon DDR2 Dual Channel Kit (GB24GB6400C5DC) £40.99
(£48.16) £40.99
(£48.16)
Powercolor ATI Radeon HD 4850 512MB GDDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI/HDMI (PCI-Express) - Retail Powercolor ATI Radeon HD 4850 512MB GDDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI/HDMI (PCI-Express) - Retail £95.99
(£112.79) £95.99
(£112.79)
Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound (3.5g) Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound (3.5g) £3.99
(£4.69) £3.99
(£4.69)
Sub Total : £485.91
Shipping cost based on delivery to Credit/debit card billing address, CF244SH with:
City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £12.95
VAT is being charged at 17.50% VAT : £87.30
Total : £586.16
 
Change Vista to the 64-bit version, if you use 32-bit you will not be able to utilise all of your ram. Vista 64bit is also way faster than 32bit when it has access to 4GB of ram. And DONT get Home Basic, get Home Premium otherwise you loose out on a lot on Vista's features.

I would change the drive to the 320GB samsung or the 640GB samsung as they are way faster than the 500GB drive. Only samsung drives I would buy are the 320GB 640GB and 1TB as they are they are the fastest drives in the samsung range. The only drive which will give you more performance is a raptor but they are very expensive and very noisy for what they are.

You wont need thermal paste if your using the stock cooler on your CPU, the cooler its self comes with pre applied thermal paste. I would only bother with arctic silver if you plan on changing the cooler to an aftermarket one like the Tuniq and if you plan on overclocking the cpu.
 
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Cheers m8, i will make those ammendments. 1 thing, am i going to have many problems with drivers and gaming using 64-bit vista?
 
Meurig said:
Cheers m8, i will make those ammendments. 1 thing, am i going to have many problems with drivers and gaming using 64-bit vista?
Click to expand...

Nope, im using Vista Ultimate 64 and have yet to encounter any driver or gaming issues :) Just keep it up to date and all will be good.
 
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