New Spec

Richiwatson · 19 Aug 2007 at 11:12

My computer recently blew up (no idea what happened but mobo and PSU are fried. I have kind of fallen out of the loop with hardware and am unsure as to what is the best value for money at the moment. Ive got around £700 to spend and want a machine that will be able to play current gen games pretty well.

I have a case and monitor etc that can be recycled from my old machine but everything else in there is either fried or outdated.

Your help is appreciated

Rich (staring at his old and broken PC)

truebluecfc · 19 Aug 2007 at 11:20

What res is your monitor btw? and do you need a OS?

semi-pro waster · 19 Aug 2007 at 11:43

Welcome to the forums, I've made the assumption that you will also need an OS, if so then something like this ought to do and gives decent potential for overclocking.

Akasa AK-ZEN-01-BK Zen Black Case - No PSU £25.99
(£30.54) £25.99
(£30.54)
OcUK GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail £149.99
(£176.24) £149.99
(£176.24)
OcUK 2GB (2x1GB) DDR2 PC2-8500C5 1066MHz Dual Channel Kit £59.99
(£70.49) £59.99
(£70.49)
Western Digital Caviar SE16 500GB 5000AAKS SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM £58.99
(£69.31) £58.99
(£69.31)
Gigabyte GA_P35C_DS3R (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 & DDR3 Motherboard £69.99
(£82.24) £69.99
(£82.24)
Corsair HX 520W ATX2.2 Modular SLI Compliant PSU (CMPSU-520HXUK) £57.99
(£68.14) £57.99
(£68.14)
Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium 64-Bit Edition DVD - OEM - 1Pk (66I-00788) £54.99
(£64.61) £54.99
(£64.61)
Intel Core 2 Duo E2160 "LGA775 Conroe" 1.80GHz (800FSB) - Retail £51.99
(£61.09) £51.99
(£61.09)
Pioneer DVR-212D 18x18 DVD±RW Serial ATA Dual Layer ReWriter - (Black) OEM £17.99
(£21.14) £17.99
(£21.14)
Tuniq Tower 120 CPU Cooler (Socket 478/754/939/940/AM2/LGA775) £26.99
(£31.71) £26.99
(£31.71)
Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound (3.5g) £5.99
(£7.04) £5.99
(£7.04)
Sub Total : £580.89
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 is being charged at 17.5% VAT : £103.57
Total : £695.41

Richiwatson · 19 Aug 2007 at 11:46

Sorry was a bit unclear

Dont need hard drives an OS or speakers and my monitor is a dell 2007wfp running at 1680x1050

truebluecfc · 19 Aug 2007 at 12:11

Dont suppose your OS is 64bit?

Richiwatson · 19 Aug 2007 at 12:16

I have a 64bit version of XP and a copy of vista

truebluecfc · 19 Aug 2007 at 12:36

Intel Core 2 Duo E2160 "LGA775 Conroe" 1.80GHz (800FSB) - Retail
£51.99
£61.09 inc VAT

Asus P5K Intel P35 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard
£67.99
£79.89 inc VAT

OcUK 4GB (2x2GB) PC2-5300C5 667MHz DDR2 Dual Channel Vista Approved Kit
£99.99
£117.49 inc VAT

Leadtek GeForce 8800 GTS 640MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail
£194.99
£229.11 inc VAT

Pioneer DVR-112DBK 18x18 DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter - (Black) OEM
£16.99
£19.96 inc VAT

Thermalright Ultra-120 Extreme Heatsink (Socket AM2/LGA775)
£37.99
£44.64 inc VAT

Scythe S-FLEX 1600RPM Ultra Quiet 120mm Fan - 3/4 Pin
£10.99
£12.91 inc VAT

Antec P182 Super Midi Tower Case - No PSU (Gun Metal Black)
£72.99
£85.76 inc VAT

Corsair HX 520W ATX2.2 Modular SLI Compliant PSU (CMPSU-520HXUK)
£57.99
£68.14 inc VAT

£594.92
£699.03 inc VAT

The E2160 should fairly comfortably overclock to 3GHz which will also make your RAM run at stock speeds ( 1:1 ).

Asus P35 Motherboard, great overclocker and as always from Asus a nice clean layout.

Memory - 4GB, Everything should feel extra smooth and responsive and you wouldnt have to worry about not having enough RAM for a while.

8800 GTS 640MB perfect for your resolution and should also overclock a fair amount, mines at 650/2000.

CPU Cooler, probably the best setup on Air you can get, the Thermalright with a Scythe fan will have no problems cooling your E2160.

The case to me looks amazing, lots of space and has lots of sound dampening features.

PSU, obviuosly the Corsair highly rated and recommended.

EDIT: Forgot the optical drive so add on an extra £19.96.

Richiwatson · 19 Aug 2007 at 13:28

Just wondering about going for a Q6600 over the E2160. Is there any advantage?

truebluecfc · 19 Aug 2007 at 13:34

Richiwatson said:
Just wondering about going for a Q6600 over the E2160. Is there any advantage?

Well to me its only worth buying the E2160 or the Q6600 so if you can afford a Q6600 then go for it otherwise E2160 oc'd to ~3GHz is plenty fast enough.

Obviuosly the Q6600 has 4 cores so anything that utilizes more than 2 cores effectivly will be faster, things such as Video encoding and all that stuff the Q6600 will be much faster although in most day to day apps you wont see if any difference in performance from a E2160 at 3GHz.