Spec check?

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Joined
4 Jan 2011
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55
Location
Surrey, UK
This one's for a friend, and he's not much of a gamer - I think C&C3 was the last game he bought. He told me to make it as cheap as possible, I'm trying to do that without compromising its ability to keep up. He's currently running a Pentium 4 with a gig of RAM, and is fed up with it being slow - unfortunately it's one of those Vaio all-in-one jobs, which aren't particularly upgradeable.

So, mainly for light internet use, Office, and watching films. Some gaming, though not often or intensively. Screen size is only negotiable upwards. Where I think this (below) falls down is the preferred 'absolute silence', which has never been that much of a priority for me, so recommendations there would be much appreciated.

mediapc.jpg
 
Hi and welcome to the forums. Looking at your overall budget I personally would rather spend a bit more on the base unit. Something along the line of the following would be a good start and good bang for buck.

Your basket
Product Name Qty Price Line Total
Gigabyte GeForce GTX 460 OC 768MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £119.99
(£99.99) £119.99
(£99.99)
Gigabyte GA-880GMA-UD2H AMD 880G (Socket AM3) DDR3 microATX Motherboard £81.70
(£68.08) £81.70
(£68.08)
AMD Athlon II X4 Quad Core 630 2.80GHz (Socket AM3) - Retail £76.79
(£63.99) £76.79
(£63.99)
Coolermaster Elite 430 Windowed Case - Black (with 500w Elite Power PSU) £64.33
(£53.61) £64.33
(£53.61)
GeIL 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz VALUE PLUS Dual Channel (GVP34GB1600C9DC) £41.99
(£34.99) £41.99
(£34.99)
Samsung SpinPoint F3 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (HD105SI) £39.98
(£33.32) £39.98
(£33.32)
Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro Rev 2 CPU Cooler (Socket 939 / AM2 / AM3 / 775 / 1155/ 1156 / 1366) £19.39
(£16.16) £19.39
(£16.16)
Sub Total : £370.14
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £10.50
VAT is being charged at 20.00% VAT : £76.13
Total : £456.77

On board sound is pretty good and only really worth investing in a dedicated sound card if you have quality speakers or a high end gaming headset so I personally would stick with onboard sound if sticking with budget 5.1 speakers as they do the job fine.

Other peripherals like monitor and expensive webcam are up to you but would go for a 24inch monitor such as this
 
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Thanks! Even keeping the monitor (he wanted a 27-30 inch screen, it'll never fit on his desk but I sha'n't quibble) that saves quite a bit.

As is now, then:

mediapc.jpg


Any further thoughts?

Except that I've left out the processor...
 
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