Some advise for the rest of the spec please

Black Dragon · 3 Apr 2007 at 12:53

Some advice for the rest of the spec please

The other day i spotted bought a 20" Dell that does 1600x1200 going dirt cheap so i thought i'd get the rest of the PC together to go with it. I've bought the following and need some help with the rest...

bought -
dell 20"
8800GTS 320MB
Core2Duo 6300

Now the problem is i've got about £300 ish left to build the rest of the tower, i was going to go DS3 for mobo but realised that i'm, totally out of touch with whats good now and what isn't. The next problem is i need an O/S for this tower too, i'm not too fussy whether it's vista or xp though. Also memory wise, it could be 1GB if need be and i can stick another stick in next month.
Any help and advise would be appreciated.

Black Dragon · 3 Apr 2007 at 13:07

I came up with the following, does it look ok? or is there better value for money to be had? One worry with it that the PSU may not be enough :/

Gigabyte GA_965P_DS3P (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £74.99
(£88.11) £74.99
(£88.11)
Antec NSK6500 Super Midi Tower Case - 430W PSU £51.99
(£61.09) £51.99
(£61.09)
Western Digital Caviar Special Edition 80GB 800JB ATA-100 8MB Cache - OEM £25.99
(£30.54) £25.99
(£30.54)
GeIL 1GB (2x512MB) PC6400C5 800MHz Value DDR2 Dual Channel Kit (GX21GB6400DC) £49.99
(£58.74) £49.99
(£58.74)
Liteon DVD-8900 16x DVD±RW/RAM (Black) - OEM £13.99
(£16.44) £13.99
(£16.44)
Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium 64-Bit Edition DVD - OEM - 1Pk (66I-00788) £63.99
(£75.19) £63.99
(£75.19)
Sub Total : £280.94
Shipping : £9.95
Vat : £50.91
Total : £341.80

steve258 · 3 Apr 2007 at 13:31

1Gb is not an option with 8800GTS I think. Can you salvage any old parts or use your current copy of windows?

Black Dragon · 21 Apr 2007 at 15:38

Been offline for a while hence not replying to the thread sorry.

Nope, sold off the parts of an old system already to finance this one and unfortunately the only copy of windows i have lying around is XP home which has already been used on another system. Why wouldn't 1GB be an option for the 8800GTS? Maybe i'm being naive here but i dont see what difference it makes especially as it's just a stop gap. If it weren't for other commitments i have with my money this month and next i'd have opted for at least 2GB but that will have to wait a while, surely it will still run well on 1GB?

steve258 · 21 Apr 2007 at 16:33

Sorry must have missed the part where you said you intended to add another gig of mem later.

Nothing wrong with 1Gb just that you may experience stuttering when gaming with highest details at 1600*1200.

I wouldn't go with ATA-100 HDD because a SATA2 80Gb costs the same if not lower.

I would change that mobo to a DS3 or a S3 even for only £70; both are the same apart from the all solid capacitors on the DS3. You can spend the saved cash on a decent air cooler or a bigger HDD - an extra £7 will get you a nice WD 250Gb SATA2 16mb from the B-grade section.

Only difference between the DS3P and DS3 is the added crossfire support and the use of ICH8R southbridge that supports raid, as well as the future 1333FSB CPU support. Crossfire is out of the question since you are going for a 8800GTS.