Please spec me a pc for about £800-900

Alexrose1uk

Alexrose1uk

Alexrose1uk

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I have no more money than this as I only make around £600 a month part time. In a month and a half I will have the money, and intend to make a completely new system, and of course, less money is better. I mostly play games, but also listen to a lot of music etc. I already have a Samsung SM959NF and Creative 5.1 speaker set, so have no need of those, although i think after a year and a bit, my MX510 mouse, and my keyboard are wearing out a bit.

Show me your best. :)
 
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Amazing what you can get for £800+ these days. I'm specced an X2 processor for future proofing and the X1800XT is an excellent card. Keyboard I use myself and mouse was a logical choice :)

MB-129-AS Asus A8R-MVP Crossfire (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-129-AS)
£69.95 £69.95
GX-048-PC PowerColor ATI Radeon X1800 XT 512MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-048-PC)
£249.95 £249.95
MY-005-GL GeIL 1GB (2x512MB) PC3200 Value Dual Channel Kit CAS2.5 (GE1GB3200BHDC) (MY-005-GL)
£54.95 £54.95
CD-024-NE NEC ND4550 16x16 DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM (CD-024-NE)
£25.50 £25.50
HD-024-SA Samsung SpinPoint P HD160JJ 160GB SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-024-SA)
£49.95 £49.95
CA-048-AN Antec SLK3800BUK Black Quiet Midi Tower Case - 400W SmartPower PSU (CA-048-AN)
£54.20 £54.20
CP-134-AM AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 3800+ (Socket 939) - Retail (ADA3800BVBOX) (CP-134-AM)
£179.95 £179.95
KB-015-SK Saitek PZ30AU Eclipse Illuminated Keyboard (KB-015-SK)
£22.95 £22.95
KB-024-LG Logitech MX510 Performance Optical Mouse & Steelpad S&S Bundle - Retail (KB-024-LG)
£24.95 £24.95
Subtotal £732.35
Shipping (City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)) £10.95
VAT £130.08
Total £873.38
 
Gah, nice spec. Tempting me like hell to spend a little more and get 2GB of RAM.
Do you know what that mobo is like for overclocking, or how are those cpus are in general by any chance? I was thinking of perhaps getting one of them before, then I heard a 3700+ would be a fair bit better for games.

Ideally I'd like to try a dab hand at overclocking, hence originally thinking ZX RAM, an Epox board, and a SD3700+, but the dual core, even with lesser cache and a little less potential in games (a few fps?) and that gfx card are sure looking tempting. Ideally do want to get 2GB of ram though, and the ZX stuff looked best for timings...

Any more suggestions?
 
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X2 3800's have a great rep for overclocking ( 2.6gig isn't uncommon - from a 2gig base), my setup on stock cooling is running happily at 2.2gig. At least one review rates the mobo as very good for overclocking but I'm still re-learning settings etc. to actually know whether it is good. It does have a decent range of settings though and as I say 10% overclock ( using the same RAM as in the spec - but 2GB of it) was a doddle ( just needed to tell it to use a voltage rather than let it default for the RAM - CPU is at stock volts).
 
It looks like a good specification overall although I'd definitely go with the 2gb. Also the 3800 X2 is a lot cheaper than it used to be so it may well make sense especially if it overclocks as well as BigDom is saying.

However if you want an alternate opinion and if your primary use is gaming/only single use at a time(no multi-tasking) then you may be better off with either a 3700 San Diego or an Opteron 144 or 146(assuming you can find one) and overclocking them, the Opterons are likely to overclock better. You could also change the NEC 4550 to the 4551 which is a little newer. Other than that it is still basically fine, most of the parts are personal preference as to whether you should change them or not.
 
Hmmm, hearing lots of bad things about the mobo...does anyone have a suggestion for a replacement board... and 2.4Ghz a core...well, that'd be 3700+ speeds anyway, on each core.... so not bad, even without the cache :D

Primary use is Gaming, but as one of those is WoW, minimising/windowing and using the net, and using things like WMP in the background are not uncommon in the slightest.
 
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I play WOW, EQ2 ( on fairly high settings ), Secondlife, often two at a time, nearly allways windowed and often with other crap running too. - sounds like the 3800+ is a good choice.

I've read some bad things about the Asus but thereagain many boards have had issues which people turn against them. Abit AN8's are popular but have issues etc. etc. As was pointed out to me, difficult to find a Mobo which doesn't have an issue somewhere. For me the Asus was literally plug and play ( didn't even re-install windows).
 
Hmmm, I'll keep that in mind, just apparently a lot of issues and complaints about these boards in particular, theres even a thread on the mobo forum right now about em... 2 weeks average life :/
 
Too expensive for me though. I was trying to budget a system. Was given a good spec, and would have to spend more for 2GB, and HZ pushes the budget a bit too much for my liking.
 
I have heard the ZX Gskill is good - based on reccomendation from others I bought 1gig for my 'Red Alert' Project.
 
Currently looking at this:

Epox EP-9NPA+ Ultra nForce4 Ultra (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-027-EP)
£69.95
GX-048-PC PowerColor ATI Radeon X1800 XT 512MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-048-PC)
£249.95
G.Skill 2GB DDR ZX PC3200 (2x1GB) CAS2 Dual Channel Kit (F1-3200PHU2-2GBZX) (MY-007-GS)
£134.95
NEC ND4551 16x16 DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM (CD-026-NE)
£28.70
Hitachi Deskstar T7K250 NCQ 250GB SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM (0A31636) (HD-002-HI)
£64.95
CA-048-AN Antec SLK3800BUK Black Quiet Midi Tower Case - 400W SmartPower PSU (CA-048-AN)
£54.20
CP-134-AM AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 3800+ (Socket 939) - Retail (ADA3800BVBOX) (CP-134-AM)
£179.95
KB-015-SK Saitek PZ30AU Eclipse Illuminated Keyboard (KB-015-SK)
£22.95
KB-024-LG Logitech MX510 Performance Optical Mouse & Steelpad S&S Bundle - Retail (KB-024-LG)
£24.95

(Prices ex VAT)

My main query is is that PSU suitable?
 
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Yes the PSU will be fine based on the parts you have listed, it is ATX 2.0 compliant and Antec are a good brand. If you add an extra 5 hard drives or something like that then I'm obviously not so sure :)
 
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