Spec for £900 Please

Aidoscuz · 21 Aug 2006 at 21:17

Hi all

My friend's looking at getting a new computer soon, so he asked if I could spec one up for him. He has a budget of around £900. He's building completely from scratch, so he'll need everything: PC, Monitor, Keyboard, Speakers, Windows, etc. I've been in America for the past month so I'm not really up to date on the best memory and motherboards and stuff for Conroe at the moment. Would that be the best route to go or would a cheaper AMD fit into the budget better? It'll mainly be a gaming system by the way, he won't really be doing any encoding or editing.

Thanks in advance

SiriusB · 21 Aug 2006 at 22:42

This is the first time I have specced up a Conroe rig so you might want to wait for other people's efforts before settling for the one below

Tried to keep it cheap as possible since I had to fit k/b, mouse, monitor, speakers and Windows into the budget.

CP-126-IN Intel Core 2 DUO E6300 "LGA775 Allendale" 1.86GHz (1066FSB) - Retail (CP-126-IN)
£115.95 £115.95
MB-064-GI Gigabyte GA_945PL_S3 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard (MB-064-GI)
£55.95 £55.95
MY-030-GL GeIL 1GB (2x512MB) PC5300 667MHz Value DDR2 Dual Channel Kit (GX21GB5300DC) (MY-030-GL)
£49.95 £49.95
GX-044-CO Connect3D ATI Radeon X1800 XT 256MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-044-CO)
£126.95 £126.95
HD-079-SE Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 250GB ST3250620AS SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD-079-SE)
£48.95 £48.95
CD-038-PO Pioneer DVR-111DBK 16x16 DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter - (Black) OEM (CD-038-PO)
£21.95 £21.95
CA-054-LL Lian-Li PC-7 PLUS Black Aluminium Midi-Tower Case (No PSU) (CA-054-LL)
£48.95 £48.95
CA-005-SK FSP Sparkle AX500-A Blue Storm 500W ATX2.0 PSU (CA-005-SK)
£49.95 £49.95
KB-072-LG Logitech Cordless Desktop EX-110 - Retail (KB-072-LG)
£17.95 £17.95
MO-019-OK OcUK Value Hanns-G HC194D 19" LCD Monitor - Silver/Black (MO-019-OK)
£102.49 £102.49
OS-001-MS Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition inc. SP2 - OEM - 1Pk (N09-01528) (OS-001-MS)
£51.95 £51.95
SP-000-JU JBL Creature II 2.1 Speakers White - Retail (SP-000-JU)
£54.95 £54.95
Subtotal £745.94
Shipping (City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)) £14.95
VAT £133.16
Total £894.05

helpimcrap · 21 Aug 2006 at 22:56

if he could stretch the memory to 2gb it would be a lot better. other than that a great spec.

wellibob · 22 Aug 2006 at 08:19

always go for at least 2 gig of memory if you can. Other than that duo 2 is the way to go it seems this month

Aidoscuz · 22 Aug 2006 at 16:51

Thanks for the spec SiriusB, looks good. I'll try to convince my friend to go for 2GB of RAM, although I'll have to factor Irish VAT and shipping into the price so it'll be a bit over budget. I'll see if I can persuade him to spend a bit more

Also, that motherboard seems a bit limited in terms of overclocking since it can only go to 300MHz FSB. Are all the sub £70 boards like this?

SiriusB · 22 Aug 2006 at 16:59

To be honest I am not sure. If your mate wants to do some hefty overclocking then I recommend a Gigabyte DS3 and 2GB of RAM. However it would put him probably 100 quid or so over budget.

He shouldn't expect the earth when a big chunk of his budget is going on Windows, keyboard and mouse, speakers and a monitor!

SiriusB

Aidoscuz · 22 Aug 2006 at 19:41

I've been messing around with an AMD system and I've come up with this. I put in cheaper speakers and squeezed in 2GB of RAM, so if it was overclocked would this perform better than the Conroe system?

CP-175-AM AMD Athlon 64 4000+ San Diego (Socket 939) - OEM (CP-175-AM) 1
£72.49 £72.49
MB-101-AS Asus A8N-SLi SE nForce4 SLi (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-101-AS) 1
£54.95 £54.95
MY-046-GL GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC3200 Value Dual Channel Kit CAS3 (GE2GB3200BDC) (MY-046-GL) 1
£113.95 £113.95
GX-044-CO Connect3D ATI Radeon X1800 XT 256MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-044-CO) 1
£126.95 £126.95
FG-000-AR Arctic Cooling Freezer 64 Pro CPU Cooler (Socket 754/939/940) (FG-000-AR) 1
£13.95 £13.95
HD-079-SE Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 250GB ST3250620AS SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD-079-SE) 1
£48.95 £48.95
CD-039-PO Pioneer DVR-111DSV 16x16 DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter - (Silver) OEM (CD-039-PO) 1
£21.95 £21.95
CA-038-LL Lian-Li PC-7 PLUS Silver Aluminium Midi-Tower Case (No PSU) (CA-038-LL) 1
£47.95 £47.95
KB-072-LG Logitech Cordless Desktop EX-110 - Retail (KB-072-LG) 1
£17.95 £17.95
OS-001-MS Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition inc. SP2 - OEM - 1Pk (N09-01528) (OS-001-MS) 1
£51.95 £51.95
MO-019-OK OcUK Value Hanns-G HC194D 19" LCD Monitor - Silver/Black (MO-019-OK) 1
£102.49 £102.49
CA-005-SK FSP Sparkle AX500-A Blue Storm 500W ATX2.0 PSU (CA-005-SK) 1
£49.95 £49.95
SP-064-CL Creative SBS380 2.1 Speakers - Retail (SP-064-CL) 1
£18.95 £18.95
Subtotal £742.43
Shipping (City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)) £24.95
VAT £134.30
Total £901.68

Also, I noticed that the Gigabyte mobo doesn't support 667MHz RAM, only 533MHz. Would the GeIL stuff work but just at the lower speed? The Asrock ConroeXFire seems to support the faster RAM for the same price so would that be a better option?

SiriusB · 22 Aug 2006 at 21:18

Nope.

If it was an FX-62 you MIGHT get close. Conroe for the win basically.

If you can't increase the budget you could just go for the 1GB of RAM, then when more money is available sell on the 1GB and buy 2GB kit.

Would just be easier to add more to the budget or give up on speakers and/or monitor if you already have some.

SiriusB