Spec me £650 to £700

[Scottie2004]

Hi I'm looking for a new pc for between £650 to £700,

I'm looking for a new rig including monitor, speakers and keyboard combo. I'm mainly going to be using it for programming and games. One thing to mention is that I'm looking to purchase a decent graphics card in the next month outwith the pc purchase but would like a stopgap card for the moment which will play BF2 and Quake 4 decently. Another point to mention is that I get any version of Windows free through my works MS partnership so I don't need an OS included.

One question, am I better with a 17" with better quality or a larger 19" with average quality? Is there much difference between the price ranges with regards to the actual image quality?

As always, any help is greatly appreciated in advance.
Thanks.

PS. Is there any reason I should hold off at the moment? Price drops anticipated for anything?

 

[Monstermunch]

It's gonna be impossible to buy a decent new rig with your requirements and budget to be honest. This is what i've come up with:

MO-017-OK OcUK Value HW191D 19" Widescreen LCD Monitor - Silver (MO-017-OK)
£129.95 £129.95
KB-072-LG Logitech Cordless Desktop EX-110 - Retail (KB-072-LG)
£19.95 £19.95
SP-025-AL Altec Lansing VS2221 2.1 Speaker System - Retail (SP-025-AL)
£26.95 £26.95
MB-101-AS Asus A8N-SLi SE nForce4 SLi (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-101-AS)
£56.95 £56.95
MY-006-MK Mushkin 2GB DDR EM3200 Enhanced Performance Dual Channel Kit (2x1GB) CAS3 (991461) (MY-006-MK)
£110.95 £110.95
CD-033-NE NEC ND4571 16x16 DVD±RW Dual Layer LabelFlash ReWriter (Black) - OEM (CD-033-NE)
£22.95 £22.95
HD-002-HI Hitachi Deskstar T7K250 NCQ 250GB SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM (0A31636) (HD-002-HI)
£46.95 £46.95
CA-040-AN Antec Sonata II Piano Black Quiet Case - 450W Smart Power PSU (CA-040-AN)
£56.95 £56.95
CP-152-AM AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 3800+ (Socket 939) - OEM (CP-152-AM)
£161.95 £161.95
FG-000-AR Arctic Cooling Freezer 64 Pro CPU Cooler (Socket 754/939/940) (FG-000-AR)
£14.95 £14.95
GX-044-CO Connect3D ATI Radeon X1800 XT 256MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-044-CO)
£139.95 £139.95
Subtotal £788.45
VAT £137.98
Total £926.43


£230 over budget as you can see. Obviously you could design a spec to come in under budget but you won't be able to get current products like Dual core etc. I would suggest maybe saving up a little more first and get something like the rig above, for only £200ish more you will be extending the life of your PC dramatically.


All you could hope to get with your current budget and spec would be something like this:

MO-017-OK OcUK Value HW191D 19" Widescreen LCD Monitor - Silver (MO-017-OK)
£129.95 £129.95
KB-072-LG Logitech Cordless Desktop EX-110 - Retail (KB-072-LG)
£19.95 £19.95
SP-025-AL Altec Lansing VS2221 2.1 Speaker System - Retail (SP-025-AL)
£26.95 £26.95
MB-101-AS Asus A8N-SLi SE nForce4 SLi (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-101-AS)
£56.95 £56.95
CD-033-NE NEC ND4571 16x16 DVD±RW Dual Layer LabelFlash ReWriter (Black) - OEM (CD-033-NE)
£22.95 £22.95
CA-040-AN Antec Sonata II Piano Black Quiet Case - 450W Smart Power PSU (CA-040-AN)
£56.95 £56.95
MY-004-OK OcUK Value 1GB (2x512MB) PC3200 184pin DDR Memory Dual Channel Kit (MY-004-OK)
£45.95 £45.95
CP-117-AM AMD Athlon 64 3000+ Venice 90nm (Socket 939) - Retail (ADA3000BPBOX) (CP-117-AM)
£61.95 £61.95
GX-044-CO Connect3D ATI Radeon X1800 XT 256MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-044-CO)
£139.95 £139.95
HD-002-HI Hitachi Deskstar T7K250 NCQ 250GB SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM (0A31636) (HD-002-HI)
£46.95 £46.95
Subtotal £608.50
VAT £106.49
Total £714.99

 

[Scottie2004]

Something like the second spec is quite acceptable, like I said however, the graphics card isn't a priority just now. I was thinking more along the lines of the 7600 GS for approx £80 until next month or two when I will have £200 for the graphics card alone.

 

[StarShock]

MO-015-OK OcUK Gamer 198YP 19" LCD Monitor - Black/Silver (MO-015-OK)
£144.95 £144.95
MB-145-AS Asus M2NPV-VM Micro ATX (Socket AM2) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard (MB-144-AS)
£59.95 £59.95
MY-034-GL GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC5300 667MHz Value DDR2 Dual Channel Kit (GX22GB5300DC) (MY-034-GL)
£109.95 £109.95
GX-026-BG BFG 3DFuzion GeForce 7600 GS 256MB DDR2 TV-Out/DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-026-BG)
£61.95 £61.95
HD-024-SA Samsung SpinPoint P HD160JJ 160GB SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-024-SA)
£38.95 £38.95
CD-030-NE NEC ND4570 16x16 DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM (CD-030-NE)
£21.95 £21.95
CA-051-AN Antec SLK2650BQE Black Quiet Mini Tower Case - 350W SmartPower PSU (CA-051-AN)
£32.95 £32.95
CP-164-AM AMD Athlon 64 3500+ 2.2GHz (Socket AM2) - Retail (CP-164-AM)
£74.95 £74.95
Subtotal £545.60
Shipping (City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)) £12.95
VAT £97.75
Total £656.30


Not a dual core system, and using some "this week only" stuff to keep in buget but this should do what you need, and being AM2 its got a lot of upgrading potential.

if you can wait a couple of months, the Intel Conroe chips might be worth going for, and even if you'd rather stick with AMD their prices should drop

 

[Scottie2004]

Ok I've decided to buy the graphics card at the same time. Can someone review the following spec and see if its decent, worried that I'm spending more for AM2 but will it keep my upgrade path more open?

CPU AMD Athlon 64 3500+ 2.2GHz (Socket AM2) £88.07
Motherboard Asus M2NPV-VM DDR2 PCI-e £70.44
Memory GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC5300 667MHz Value DDR2 £109.95
Graphics Card Connect3D ATI Radeon X1800 XT 256MB £164.44
Hard Drive Samsung SpinPoint P SP2504C 250GB £52.29
DVD Drive NEC ND4570 16x16 DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter £21.95
Keyboard and Mouse Logitech UltraX™ Media Desktop £35.19
Speakers JBL Creature II 2.1 Speakers £55.17
Case and PSU Antec Sonata II Piano Black Quiet Case £66.92
Monitor Acer AL1916WS 19" Widescreen £186.82

Total £796.07

Also, is there a better dual core route for the £800?