Spec for £500

[jdoshe]

Hey guys,

Basically my sister is off to uni and is in need of a decent desktop to take with her. She has a budget of about £500, which could be stretched to £600 if really necessary, but ideally want to keep it low.
She's not into gaming or anything that is really going to need any powerful bit and pieces. Shes only going to use it for uni work, browsing the net, watching dvds and listening to music.

Was wondering if someone could give spec me up a good rig to do all this. She doesnt need speakers or software (though it would be nice if you could give me a spec with basic software and without.) She does need a flat panel monitor though

All help is much appreciated.
Jay

 

[Andy298]

Hey guys,

Basically my sister is off to uni and is in need of a decent desktop to take with her. She has a budget of about £500, which could be stretched to £600 if really necessary, but ideally want to keep it low.
She's not into gaming or anything that is really going to need any powerful bit and pieces. Shes only going to use it for uni work, browsing the net, watching dvds and listening to music.

Was wondering if someone could give spec me up a good rig to do all this. She doesnt need speakers or software (though it would be nice if you could give me a spec with basic software and without.) She does need a flat panel monitor though

All help is much appreciated.
Jay

If it's just for Uni work and Web Browsing, you could probably do it for about 300 - 350 quid.
I've just built myself another PC to use for my MCSE course. Nothing special just a 1.8 Sempron, 512GB RAM, 80GB SATA HD, Antec NSK1300 and 15 inch widescreen TFT. Motherboard has on board sound and graphics though, but it's not being used for gaming so I don't care

Total cost with shipping - £312.00

 

[semi-pro waster]

For the uses you have described I'd probably be looking at something like this, it has more than enough power for any sort of basic task but it does have onboard graphics since gaming is not an issue. I've included Windows XP Home but no office suite as StarOffice is available as a free download and is not that far off being the equal of MS Office, at least for home use.

MO-017-OK OcUK Value Hanns-G HW191D 19" Widescreen LCD Monitor - Silver (MO-017-OK)
£107.95 £107.95
OS-001-MS Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition inc. SP2 - OEM - 1Pk (N09-01528) (OS-001-MS)
£51.95 £51.95
CA-059-AN Antec NSK1300 ATX Cube Case - 300W PSU (CA-059-AN)
£47.95 £47.95
MB-119-AS Asus A8N-VM CSM Micro ATX (Socket 939) PCI Express Motherboard (MB-119-AS)
£46.95 £46.95
MY-004-OK OcUK Value 1GB (2x512MB) PC3200 184pin DDR Memory Dual Channel Kit (MY-004-OK)
£55.95 £55.95
CP-118-AM AMD Athlon 64 3200+ Venice (Socket 939) - Retail (ADA3200BPBOX) (CP-118-AM)
£49.95 £49.95
HD-024-SA Samsung SpinPoint P HD160JJ 160GB SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-024-SA)
£34.95 £34.95
CD-035-NE NEC ND3550 16x16 DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM (CD-035-NE)
£19.95 £19.95
Subtotal £415.60
VAT £72.73
Total £488.33

 

[jdoshe]

f it's just for Uni work and Web Browsing, you could probably do it for about 300 - 350 quid.

Andy could you tell me the spec that you put together so i have a good idea what exactly i would need to get.

Thanks

 

[semi-pro waster]

Andy could you tell me the spec that you put together so i have a good idea what exactly i would need to get.

Thanks

He already has pretty much A 15" tft(get the 17" though as it costs about the same normally), an Antec 1300 therefore a socket 754(unless they made socket A 1.8 Semprons but I wouldn't buy one new now) microATX motherboard to go with the Sempron 1.8, 512mb DDR Ram(probably single stick as no dual channel support), 80gb SATA hard drive and some form of optical drive. The only points to note are to make sure the motherboard has onboard graphics and that it supports Semprons as not all socket 754 motherboards did although normally that could be sorted by a bios flash.