New "Budget" PC

CLAWS

CLAWS

CLAWS

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Joined
13 Jun 2005
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1,416
Location
West Midlands
Hi Folks,

I am helping my brother in law build a new PC. He's only 14 and this will be his first PC build for use by everyone. The kind of stuff the PC will be used for is as follows -

Games (FPS and RTS gaming)
Picture and Video storage (no video editing, but more picture editing)
MS Office work
Internet

Budget - £400

What we have already -

2 * Nvidia 7800GT GFX cards (from my PC since I upgraded with an 8800GTS)

2 HDD - 1 Seagate 80GB 7200RPM, 1 250GB Hitachi Deskstar (from my PC, I have upgraded to 2 * WD Blue 250GB 8mb cache)

4 GB Memory - 4* 1GB Crucial 5300 DDR2

What I have looked into -

AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 6000 (AM2)
£46.99
Antec TruePower 550W
£60.27
Asus M3N72-T n-force 780a Sli Motherboard
£71.51
Antec 902 Nine Hundred Two Ultimate Gaming Case
£90.92
Windows XP Home
£70.99

Have I missed anything out? Is there anything to improve on bare in mind the budget we have?

Any help very much appreciated :)
 
I did think about that. I was just trying to keep things simple for him because he's in Birmingham and I'm in London. I figured XP would be a good place for him to start learning from.
 
Just be aware that it is not guaranteed that you can unlock the other cores.And that mobo is a ddr3 mobo.
 
Its very likely that we will not be unlocking the cores at all. Remember this is his first PC build so I dont want to get to heavy with the techy stuff. This is his intro and then it will be up to him to do the reading and build up further later down the line.

Unfortunately changing the case is a no no because he really wants a side panel for all the flashy lights business he wants to add later on. It definitely looks like we'll be upgrading to Win 7 after comparing prices against XP.

Otherwise does everything look ok with the spec I created i.e. will there be any incompatibility or anything like that? That should be all I need right?
 
Since he's a student, then he'll be able to get windows 7 for about £57, either from the Microsoft site or from another site, not sure If I'm allowed to post the other website here. Have a look on the Offers site for students and then follow the links to one of their partners.

Edit. Windows 7 Pro is £36
 
Setup should be fine for what you've said for it to do; I've got that CPU (although mine is the Black Edition) and it's still alive and kicking well (had it since it came out almost) and has caused no issues :)
As others have said definately get w7, it's a steal when you compare the prices to XP.
There are other (cheaper and better-looking) alternatives to the Antec 902 that may be worth looking at to save some vital few £s ;)
Other than that it's looking good :D
 
Cheers for all the feedback guys. I've swapped the Antec 902 for the Lancool Dragonlord + The Window sidepanel which shaved a couple of pounds.

I'm looking into getting win7 cheaper via microsoft since hes still at school.

Cheers once again :)
 
I told you to go for the lancool k58 + the side window.
But iv thought about it. And its up to you to see if its worth the extra £20.

The antec 902 has the inside of the case painted black so with the window it looks a lot nicer than the lancools grey finish inside the case.

Also in the antec 902, the fans are lit up with blue led lights. And if your brother in law wants his case lit up with lights the antec 902 is already half lit.

Maybe try these instead.

Lancool Dragon-Lord PC-K62

or

Coolermaster CM-690 Dominator Nvidia Case
 
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