is this amd based build anygood?

toblarone45 · 7 Mar 2009 at 15:03

Hey guys

Right after a mates PSU caught fire he asked me to see what he could get for between £450-500 (i quote "the lower the better mate gotta buy beer aswell you know"

) - he browses the net, listen to music, few light games and spends 24/7 on msn so nothing too demanding. Currently he has i believe a 17 or 19 inch wide-screen monitor (don't know res/model off hand).

Anyhow i popped here to see what he could get. Tbh AMD seem to be better price/performance at the lower end but tbh i'm clueless (intel and nvidia fanboy here

but slowly heading towards ATI) so i made this -

i know he'll add a second 500GB HD - currently has all files on there but i'm clueless when it comes to AMD based builds - is this any good?

95thrifles · 7 Mar 2009 at 15:06

get 64 bit vista and 4 gig of RAM you'll notice the difference

toblarone45 · 7 Mar 2009 at 15:10

95thrifles said:
get 64 bit vista and 4 gig of RAM you'll notice the difference

thxs for the quick response and i considered that but tbh is there much point? for light use does 4gb and 64bit make that much difference

mjones1 · 7 Mar 2009 at 15:11

Why don't you get windows 64bit just if you want to upgrade your ram.
I think you should go tht bit extra and get a ati 4850 as it's great value for money.

naknakkus · 7 Mar 2009 at 16:03

Looks good to me.

decto · 7 Mar 2009 at 16:11

Give him a few options... looking at it cold it's a build that's could much better value for minimum extra spend.

If he's not overclocking then I'd stick with the standard X2 boxed cooler or consider a phenom Tri - core as these are good value. Boxed coolers are fairly good and will do the job in a build such as this. Just check the mobo support Phenom II

The HDD really needs to be bigger, the performance of a 160GB drive will be poor. an extra £15 for a decent 500GB model is well worth it. He'll soon fill it with music and games.

Memory, got to be 4GB and go with Vista 64 as he'll be expecting you to support and assist with upgrades for the life of the machine.

The 4830 is a decent card... there are better cards but you're adding to cost so you'll have to see what he values most.

Spooter · 7 Mar 2009 at 16:47

Looks a good build to me.

Only thing? Does he already have a XP License? Windows 7 has been bought forward now so I would hold of for that, it could be sale as early as july. Either that or install using a friends copy of vista and trial it for 120days. Thats not illegal either.