PC Upgrade for a friend, couple questions.

Anominity · 13 Dec 2007 at 12:13

A friend of mine at work has requested that i build him a machine in January, as his is getting quite dated. He hasn't per se given me a price range, but I would like to keep it under £600.

His main use for it will be Flight Simulator X, and possibly new games if given the chance.

I believe it is also going to be somewhat of a family PC (So no outlandish cases

)

Intel Core 2 Duo E2180 "LGA775 Conroe" 2.00GHz (800FSB) - Retail £47.99
(£56.39)

Asus DRW-2014L1T 20x DVD±RW SATA Dual Layer Lightscribe ReWriter (Black/Silver) - Retail £19.99
(£23.49)

Western Digital Caviar SE16 500GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (WD5000AAKS) £55.99
(£65.79)

OcUK GeForce 8800 GT 512MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail £144.99
(£170.36)

Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3P (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £77.99
(£91.64)

GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC2-6400C4 800MHz Ultra Low Latency DDR2 Dual Channel Kit (GX22GB6400UDC) £31.99
(£37.59)

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

Antec Solo Quiet Mini Tower Case - No PSU £49.99
(£58.74)

Sub Total : £486.92
Shipping : £10.95
VAT : £87.13
Total : £585.00

Suggestions are welcome if any of that is poor. Is that case suitable? Am I missing anything?

He has his own Monitor/Mouse/Keyboard.

Aero · 13 Dec 2007 at 12:30

Possibly change for this motherboard

Abit IP35 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard

And have one of these
Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro CPU Cooler (Socket LGA775)

You could overclock the cpu to about 3ghz then for him a much better pc for the money, also do you need an OS with that build?
You may have to change the case but to be honest I'd be tempted to anyway.

Aero

semi-pro waster · 13 Dec 2007 at 12:32

The specification looks basically fine, I'd go along with Aero's suggestions and perhaps also offer the Akasa Zen case as a way to save money, it is very good for a budget case and not outlandish either.

Anominity · 13 Dec 2007 at 12:46

He doesn't need an OS thankfully, and cheers for the case and motherboard suggestions, will take a look at those, I am not that clued up on Intel boards, I was always an AMD fan (Up until I got my Q6600 anyway

).

Edit: After taking a look, yeah that case is much better thank you.

Aero · 13 Dec 2007 at 12:54

Neither am I to be honest AMD fanboy here however that cpu is a good overclocker with the right board and will enable you to hopefully achieve a decent clock and increase the performance for your friend.

Aero

Anominity · 13 Dec 2007 at 12:59

So with the board you suggested and the Arctic Cooling Pro 7 (Which so happens to be the same cooler i have) It could reach 3Ghz no worries?

Aero · 13 Dec 2007 at 13:05

Have a look around but yes it seems to quite happily go up to 3Ghz (by all means someone correct me if I'm wrong) just having a quick glance I found this:

Click me

Anominity · 13 Dec 2007 at 13:13

Ah excellent, very relative to this exact build, thank you very much.

Aero · 13 Dec 2007 at 13:16

Nps

Aero

fobose · 13 Dec 2007 at 13:22

Be prepared to be his 24/7 tech support though!!

Jonny L · 13 Dec 2007 at 14:28

As fobose says it may be a bit tricky overclocking his system as if it goes down, your the one to blame, how about using one of the Asus vintage barebones machines, that way you could build him a high powered system for the same price.

For instance:

Asus DRW-1814BLT 18x DVD±RW SATA Dual Layer Lightscribe ReWriter (Black) - Retail £16.99
(£19.96) £16.99
(£19.96)
Asus Vintage V3-P5G33 Barebones System - Intel Core 2 Duo/Quad (LGA775) £89.99
(£105.74) £89.99
(£105.74)
Intel Core 2 Quad Pro Q6600 "Energy Efficient SLACR 95W Edition" 2.40GHz (1066FSB) - Retail £129.99
(£152.74) £129.99
(£152.74)
OCZ 4GB (2x2GB) PC2-6400C5 Dual Channel Vista Gold Series DDR2 (OCZ2G8004GK) £61.99
(£72.84) £61.99
(£72.84)
Hitachi Deskstar T7K500 320GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (0A33435) £43.99
(£51.69) £43.99
(£51.69)
Gainward BLISS GeForce 8800 GT 512MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (4718462008927) £159.99
(£187.99) £159.99
(£187.99)
Sub Total : £502.94

Total : £602.65

This system would last him for ages, I'm not 100% sure the 300w psu in the barebones would handle all of the above, so if needs be maybe drop the processor to an E6750.

MumboJumbo · 13 Dec 2007 at 14:43

It doesn't state which powersupply. The powersupply wattage is made up of 12v total and 5/3v total.

Things like the hiper have a really high wattage on the 3+5v compared to the 12v to try make the, look better then they are. Seasonic have 180w on their 3+5v for the 700w psu. Hiper have 260w on theirs for a 580w psu. I think it was 260... or 230 i cant remember now.

Anyway for the 300w. If it had like 100w on its 3+5v then thats omluy 200w on its 12v. I wouldn't put a 8800GT on that.

Anominity · 13 Dec 2007 at 15:22

8igdave said:
It doesn't state which powersupply. The powersupply wattage is made up of 12v total and 5/3v total.

Things like the hiper have a really high wattage on the 3+5v compared to the 12v to try make the, look better then they are. Seasonic have 180w on their 3+5v for the 700w psu. Hiper have 260w on theirs for a 580w psu. I think it was 260... or 230 i cant remember now.

Anyway for the 300w. If it had like 100w on its 3+5v then thats omluy 200w on its 12v. I wouldn't put a 8800GT on that.

Um, so in lamens terms, barebones bad for big graphics card?

hehe, Everything else seems to have gone straight over my head

MumboJumbo · 13 Dec 2007 at 15:30

Seasonic are probalby the best psu makers you can get really and this is what they have just to show you what im talking about:

You see the watage is split between the differnt voltages. On a 300w you may only get 100w ad 200w on the voltages. I doubt it would be able to power that rig if that was the case.

Also you have to think about the amps. In simpleton terms, id say no.

A corsair 450w would run it if you can fit it in the budget.