Spec me £600ish

steeze

steeze

steeze

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24 Jul 2007
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Hi, this is my first time at building a computer so any help i can get will be appreciated.

I'm looking for a computer which is high medium range, because it will be primarily a gaming rig but does not need to be top specs.

My price range is about £600 but can go slightly over although i am in need of the whole nine yards, including OS, monitor and peripherals.

I would like 2 gig of ram and the radeon X1950 graphics card, and preferrably a core 2 duo. I would be open to overclocking it a bit, but i'd probably prefer not to.

That's all i can think of atm, if you need any mroe info i'll respond asap.

Any tips about building it from scratch would be welcome.

Thanks.

PS I don't want an ugly case. :p
 
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I have tried to fit a nice gaming PC into it, you may as well keep the 4GB of ram in the spec as the cheapest set of 2Gb is £10 cheaper so £10 more for a extra 2GB is a steal. The only thing I have missed out is a keyboard and mouse I am sure you can use your current ones and save up a bit more.

Overall it will run really nice, the samsung drive is nice and fast to loading up vista and games should be pretty quick. You got 4GB of ram so you wont really need to upgrade the ram for a while. The CPU will last you may have to overclock it if you decide to go down the DX10 route later. The case is not the nicest but it can be changed later and the PSU will most likely have to be upgraded if you decide to go the DX10 route. I would get vista now than later although I don't like it that much and you may not either, you will still have the chance to play DX10 game's if you upgrade your graphics card later on.

Over all if you do not want to upgrade for a while and plan to build another PC in a few years it will do fine.

fullsystem600.PNG
 
That looks pretty good from 1337z0r, you could save a bit on the graphics card though, the OcUK X1950pro will perform the same but costs around £75. This saving should allow you to buy an aftermarket cooler such as the Tuniq Tower which should be quieter and allow further overclocking if you wished to. :)
 
Product Name Qty Price Line Total
OcUK Value AH191DPB 19" Widescreen LCD Monitor - Black/Silver £83.99
(£98.69) £83.99
(£98.69)
OcUK ATI Radeon X1950 Pro 256MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail £64.99
(£76.36) £64.99
(£76.36)
Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium 32-Bit Edition DVD - OEM - 1Pk (66I-00715) £54.99
(£64.61) £54.99
(£64.61)
Samsung SH-182MRSMN 18x18 DVD±RW Dual Layer Lightscribe ReWriter (Beige,Black,Silver) - Retail £17.99
(£21.14) £17.99
(£21.14)
OCZ StealthXStream 600w Silent SLI Ready ATX2 Power Supply £49.99
(£58.74) £49.99
(£58.74)
CoolerMaster Praetorian 731 (RC731SSN1) Aluminum Case (No PSU) - Silver £29.99
(£35.24) £29.99
(£35.24)
DFI Infinity P965-S Dark (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £49.99
(£58.74) £49.99
(£58.74)
Intel Core 2 Duo E4400 "LGA775 Allendale" 2.00GHz (800FSB) - Retail £67.99
(£79.89) £67.99
(£79.89)
GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC6400C5 800MHz Value DDR2 Dual Channel Kit (GX22GB6400DC) £49.99
(£58.74) £49.99
(£58.74)
Samsung SpinPoint P SP2504C 250GB SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM £33.99
(£39.94) £33.99
(£39.94)
Sub Total : £503.90
Shipping : £12.95
VAT : £90.45
Total : £607.30

Its pretty similar to the one above. However, the mobo is apparently a much better overclocker, and is not made by Nvidia-I have always been a little wary of pairing an ATI card with an Nvidia mobo. The case and PSU will also last you longer, as the PSU is sufficient to handle DX10 cards. The RAM is also faster, which is better for OCing, and, although there is not 4GB of it, it does mean that you can run Windows 32bit which is compatible with more programmes.
 
Nullvoid said:
You might be depressed in the long-run by skimping on the quality of the monitor that you buy.
Click to expand...

Some of the OcUK Value monitors have been quite good. The one I have is made by digimate and has been great.
 
That's good to know, but you can admit its a valid concern yes? The monitor is what you'll be looking at most after all.

Also the thread-starter asked for "the whole nine yards, including OS, monitor and peripherals." which none of you seem to have included.
 
Well here's my attempt:

Case & Power Supply - Antec NSK6500 with 430w PSU
Motherboard - Abit IP9
CPU - Intel c2d e2160
RAM - 4gb OCUK PC2-5300 (2 x 2gb)
Hard-drive - Samsung Spinpoint T 160gb
Operating System - Vista Home Premium 64-bit
Optical Drive - Samsung 20x dvd burner
Graphics Card - OCUK x1950pro 256mb
Monitor - Benq FP91G+
Keyboard & Mouse - Microsoft Black Value Pack 2.0

Grand Total = £610.82
 
Just need a decent cooler to go with that. Something like an arctic freezer 7 should do and that e2160 should hit 3GHz easily.

Which would make the price £628.43
 
johnno93 said:
Just need a decent cooler to go with that. Something like an arctic freezer 7 should do and that e2160 should hit 3GHz easily.

Which would make the price £628.43
Click to expand...

You don't at all. My E2140 at 1.5v at 3.3GHz sits at 28ºc idle and 48-51ºc load on the STOCK COOLER.
 
paradigm said:
You don't at all. My E2140 at 1.5v at 3.3GHz sits at 28ºc idle and 48-51ºc load on the STOCK COOLER.
Click to expand...

Are those temps taken trough TAT? They seem very low for that speed, my friend got a 2160 at 3GHz on a freezer 7 and thats at 65C in TAT on full load. Especially since the coolers in the 21xx are not as good as the rest of the C2D (aluminium core in 21xx, copper in the rest).
 
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johnno93 said:
Are those temps taken trough TAT? They seem very low for that speed, my friend got a 2160 at 3GHz on a freezer 7 and thats at 65C in TAT on full load. Especially since the coolers in the 21xx are not as good as the rest of the C2D (aluminium core in 21xx, copper in the rest).
Click to expand...
I must have got lucky then, my cooler has a copper core :confused:

Fan is set to 100% too, I don't bother with different speeds for different temps.
 
Thanks for all your help, i've practically finished my build now. Just undecided about the CPU. Which one is more value for money: The Core2Duo E4XXX series with the stock cooler, or the E21XX series but with the arctic cooler 7? Bearing in mind that I have no experience overclocking.
 
We (the forum members) can always talk you through overclocking, both the E2140 i've got now, and the E2160 i've recently sold on, hit 3.2GHz without issue at all. I only kept the E2140 because it clocked even higher (3.4GHz).

Awesome value for money CPUs :)
 
Thanks paradigm, should I get the artic cooler (or any other cooler) with that just in case the stock cooler is not enough?
 
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