Have I made a mistake with my speck?

Vegetarian · 21 Nov 2006 at 22:44

Had £350 to get someone a PC - they want to use it to watch and record TV, watch dvd, run office and other progs (no games), internet etc...

This is set up I bought - However shop gave me wrong PSU so going back tomorrow - should I pump extra money and get a Core2duo set up??

Gigabyte GA-M61VME-S2 Skt AM2, On Board VGA, PCI-E, DDR2, SATA2 RAID, LAN, HD Audio, USB2, mATX

AMD 3800 x2

1gig Geil DDR2

Seagate 160 gig HD

NEC DVD bunner

Silver case

400watt PSU

Freeview digi tv card

MS mouse and keyboard

£345 total

Raikiri · 21 Nov 2006 at 22:48

Nah, looks fine for the intended use.

Jotun · 21 Nov 2006 at 22:48

I've got the same CPU and it's more than good enough for my needs, although not too long afterwards I read a lot of posts saying Intel is far more powerful, so I'd say yes. If I had left it a few weeks, going off everything I read I probabaly would have gone for an Intel.

semi-pro waster · 21 Nov 2006 at 22:51

Well this is what a Conroe based system would cost pretty much. For the uses it is probably hardly worth it to spend almost £100 more, AM2 still offers an upgrade path and although we don't know exactly how well AMD will respond to Conroe I'd probably stick with it as it hardly seems like an overly demanding set of tasks.

Samsung SpinPoint P HD160JJ 160GB SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM £36.49
(£42.88) £36.49
(£42.88)
Asrock Conroe945G-DVI (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £45.99
(£54.04) £45.99
(£54.04)
Intel Core 2 DUO E6300 "LGA775 Allendale" 1.86GHz (1066FSB) - Retail £109.99
(£129.24) £109.99
(£129.24)
Corsair 1GB DDR2 Value Select PC5300 Dual Channel Kit (2x512MB) (VS1GBKIT667D2) ( £72.99
(£85.76) £72.99
(£85.76)
NEC AD5170 18x18 DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM £18.99
(£22.31) £18.99
(£22.31)
Antec NSK4400 Mini Tower Case - 380W SmartPower PSU £42.99
(£50.51) £42.99
(£50.51)
Logitech Cordless Desktop EX-110 - Retail £17.99
(£21.14) £17.99
(£21.14)
Compro VideoMate DVB-T200 Digital TV Internal PCI - Retail £24.99
(£29.36) £24.99
(£29.36)
Sub Total : £370.42
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 : £66.74
Total : £448.11

Vegetarian · 21 Nov 2006 at 23:09

Ok worked out it would cost an extra £14 to go Conroe.... the motherboard would be Asrock 775i65G i865G motherboard skt775 on board VGA 800FSB AGP 8x SATA LAN 6 ch. audio ATX

Would that be worst than the motherboard I have? intel graphics over nForce one? can it overclock?

semi-pro waster · 21 Nov 2006 at 23:18

Well the specifications are here, it appears that if you don't use a separate (AGP!) graphics card that you are going to be somewhat limited in overclocking potential(although admittedly any mATX motherboard is normally not all that good for overclocking) and you can only use DDR Ram so I don't think I would recommend it over the Conroe 945G or similar because it supports both PCI-E and DDR2.

The graphics capabilities difference is probably pretty small, certainly for the uses that you have said the PC will have.