New Cube PC and display for £800?

damoven

damoven

damoven

Associate
Joined
12 Apr 2006
Posts
11
Hi guys...

I want to upgrade my ancient PC (Ath XP 2100+, 1gb ram, ATI Radeon 9800) with a cube system, and a flat screen monitor. I've got a budget of around £600-£700 for the PC alone, and about £150 for the screen.

Main use of the PC will be gaming - hoping to be able to play EVE Online, CoD 2 in DX9 mode rather than DX7, and Oblivion.... so it has to be as up to date as poss I guess. Also will use to play music and movies, so needs decent storage. Will be looking for wireless internet connectivity too...

Another consideration is upgradability. I know cubes are harder to upgrade but a rig that gives me some possibilties would be good :) I know I am asking a lot here, but spec away please guys :)

OK - the wonders of a forum search! Is this still a good spec for what I need? Can it be improved? I'm thinking I need to go with 2gb RAM minimum, so might have to juggle the other components to get the price around 700, leaving me a little bit of money towards a flatscreen?

------------------------------------------------------------------

CA-008-AS OcUK Value Aspire X-Qpack Cube Case - Silver (CA-008-AS)
£59.95 £59.95
MB-041-GI Gigabyte K8NMF-9 nForce4 Micro ATX (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-041-GI)
£41.95 £41.95
CP-152-AM AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 3800+ (Socket 939) - OEM (CP-152-AM)
£164.95 £164.95
FG-000-AR Arctic Cooling Freezer 64 Pro CPU Cooler (Socket 754/939/940) (FG-000-AR)
£14.50 £14.50
GX-044-CO Connect3D ATI Radeon X1800 XT 256MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-044-CO)
£199.95 £199.95
MY-005-GL GeIL 1GB (2x512MB) PC3200 Value Dual Channel Kit CAS2.5 (GE1GB3200BHDC) (MY-005-GL)
£54.95 £54.95
HD-055-WD Western Digital Caviar Special Edition 120GB 1200JS SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-055-WD)
£43.95 £43.95
CD-030-NE NEC ND4570 16x16 DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM (CD-030-NE)
£24.95 £24.95
Subtotal £605.15
VAT £105.91
Total £711.06

----------------------------------------------------------------------

TIA

Damo
 
Last edited:
Welcome to the forums, that still looks like a fairly decent specification although the prices will now have changed on a few of the items so there may be less juggling needed than you would first think. The graphics card and Ram can both be bought cheaper now, your overclocking options are likely to be a little more limited on a microATX motherboard but should still have some potential :)
 
ok cool.

The other thing is, I want this rig to run as silent as possible.

Any suggestions on how to improve the noise levels? Im sure i read a review that said the case fan on the case I've selected is really loud because of the large power supply?
 
damoven said:
Any suggestions on how to improve the noise levels? Im sure i read a review that said the case fan on the case I've selected is really loud because of the large power supply?
Click to expand...

I don't know about the case fan here as compared with the PSU fan, if it is simply a case fan then it is as simple as replacing the fan to get a quieter model however the power the PSU can supply would have no direct impact on the noise. If as I suspect it says the PSU fan is noisy then it is more of an issue, you can replace the PSU which will cost a fair bit or you could I suppose try changing the fan(entirely not recommended unless you know exactly what you are doing).

Maybe take a look at the Antec Aria case which is about the same price, has a slightly smaller PSU and is apparantly quite quiet.
 
thanks for the info...

So is there a better mini-atx case to consider? I am guessing replacing both fans is going to add quite a bit of cost to this little project?

There don't seem to be many decent mini-cases around
 
Replacing the fans only cost me about £12, for the psu i used an akasa amber, and the 120mm is a Glacialtech. Unfortunately the choice of half decent matx cases is rather limited.
 
Make sure that your CPU cooler fits the case aswell. I had to do my first ever hardware modification to get a zalman flower to fit in an Antec Aria cube. Runs cool and quiet though, have to check to light to see if its on or power saving :D
 
If your going quietness, then you could replace the x1800's stock cooler with the Zalman VF900, the x1800's are quiet, but it may run hotter, and a bit louder in a cube case. :)

Welcome to the forums btw. :p
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom