Spec me £800

Scottie2004 · 12 Apr 2006 at 15:02

Hi,

I'm looking to buy a full gaming pc inc monitor for ~£800 but I have a few components that must be included in the price as the appearance of the system is also important to me. Can anyone come up with something powerful enough to handle Quake 4 / Battlefield 2 decently within this budget? Also, will take your advice on whether to go NVidia / ATI or Single / Dual Core etc. Overclocking is not my main priority althought it would be nice, simply looking to get the best bang for buck within the price limitations. Also, the quieter the better but I think I've taken care of that with the case I've selected. Also, if anyone can suggest components similiar to those I've listed which they believe are better then please feel free to advise me.

Components to include;

Antec Sonata II Piano Black Quiet Case - 450W - £77.49
Logitech Cordless Optical Desktop Rechargeable Black/Silver - £35.19
JBL Creature II 2.1 Speakers - (Black) - £53.99
Samsung SM-913N 19" - £193.82

Leaving a remaining budget of ~£450 for the other components. A challenge but I'm sure someone will be able to pull something decent out of the bag?

Thanks in advance.

Scottie2004 · 12 Apr 2006 at 16:18

Ok, so far I have managed to compile this together for around budget. Is this the best system I can afford or am I making any bad decisions as far as you can see?

Antec Sonata II Piano Black Quiet Case - 450W - £77.49
Logitech Cordless Optical Desktop Rechargeable Black/Silver - £35.19
JBL Creature II 2.1 Speakers - (Black) - £53.99
Samsung SM-913N 19" - £193.82
XFX GeForce 7600 GT 256MB £140.94
OcUK Value 1GB (2x512MB) £52.82
Sony CRX320EE CDRW/DVD Combi Drive (Black) £21.09
Asus A8N-VM CSM Micro ATX (Socket 939) £58.69
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 3800+ £199.69
Zalman CNPS7000B £16.39

Total: £833.72 inc VAT.

Any alternatives?

semi-pro waster · 12 Apr 2006 at 16:25

No obviously bad decisions in there, not going for dual core would give you a faster system in normal use and cost a bit less but you ought to be able to overclock the X2 3800 quite nicely.

The speakers seem to be a pretty hefty price given the specifications don't look overly impressive but they do look rather funky.

helpimcrap · 12 Apr 2006 at 16:27

meh - i give up.

Scottie2004 · 12 Apr 2006 at 16:28

semi-pro waster said:
No obviously bad decisions in there, not going for dual core would give you a faster system in normal use and cost a bit less but you ought to be able to overclock the X2 3800 quite nicely.

The speakers seem to be a pretty hefty price given the specifications don't look overly impressive but they do look rather funky.

I've seen the speakers in John Lewis, I don't listen to audio at very large volumes due to living in a flat and they look excellent on the desktop.

How big a difference would there be between the single core and dual core, I used a dual core laptop recently and found the experience far more enjoyable when I was coding / compiling and running other video encoding processes. Also, the price for the X2 3800+ and Single 3800+ seemed almost identical, is it more expensive in some other way tha I am not realising?

Scottie2004 · 12 Apr 2006 at 16:30

Should I be able to play most games with decent settings at 1280 on this spec?

helpimcrap · 12 Apr 2006 at 16:35

just about...

ideally 2gb of ram and an X1800XT would be better... another £100 would boost it no end and would have no problems playing games.

BF2 is notorious for playing better with 2gb ram.

semi-pro waster · 12 Apr 2006 at 16:36

helpimcrap said:
meh - i give up.

Give up on what?

Dual core is unsurprisingly a lot better when you are going to be running multiple applications at once so if you tend to do that then I'd go for dual core every time and overclock as well. The A64 3800 is a bit of an odd CPU as far as I am concerned, it has less cache than the 3700 San Diego which is cheaper and quite often overclocks at least as well.

Depends how you define decent but you should be able to game reasonably with that system.

I'd agree with helpimcrap's advice above, spend a little extra and see a big benefit.

helpimcrap · 12 Apr 2006 at 16:38

semi-pro waster said:
Give up on what?

tried few specs trying to fit an X1800XT in and 2gb... no chance lol.

not without severely limiting other areas.

Scottie2004 · 12 Apr 2006 at 17:05

So graphics card and chip wise etc does this seem to be the best bang for buck at this budget?

Scottie2004 · 13 Apr 2006 at 09:19

Scottie2004 · 14 Apr 2006 at 11:55

Bump, Still looking for confirmation that this spec is the best bang for buck.

semi-pro waster · 14 Apr 2006 at 11:59

Scottie2004 said:
Bump, Still looking for confirmation that this spec is the best bang for buck.

Given your budget I can't see any improvements you could make so yes it is the best mix of components for the price

Scottie2004 · 14 Apr 2006 at 20:23

Cheers,

just one question though. Would I see a massive benefit from paying £30 more to get the X1800 GTO? Read an article on firing squad and seemed to outperform the 7600 GT on all counts.

Explicit · 14 Apr 2006 at 20:39

You're spending way too much of your budget on "cosmetics". At the end of the day, if you want a gaming rig the components inside the case is what matters. Leaving £450 out of £800 for components of a gaming rig is not a wise choice IMO.

Monstermunch · 14 Apr 2006 at 20:44

Explicit said:
You're spending way too much of your budget on "cosmetics". At the end of the day, if you want a gaming rig the components inside the case is what matters. Leaving £450 out of £800 for components of a gaming rig is not a wise choice IMO.

I second that, buy a Hyundai Q995 CRT monitor or something and some good normal 2.1 speakers. Then you should have at least £650 left for the rig.

rebelco · 15 Apr 2006 at 00:18

Sorry if i missed something, but wheres the hard disk?

Also I wouldnt get a micro ATX case either?
£39.14 Thermaltake Mambo VC2350BNSB Black - With 350W PSU
£144.45 Samsung Samtron ST94V 19" TFT
£56.49 Asus A8N-E SKT 939 NFORCE 4 AUDIO LAN PCI-Express ATX
£46.36 Maxtor 6V200E0 200GB SATA300 7200rpm 8MB Cache - OEM
£21.99 Samsung SH-S162A 16x DVD±RW/RAM Internal IDE (Black)
£80.88 Creative I-Trigue 5600 75W RMS 5.1 Speakers - Retail Boxed
£172.37 AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+
£47.00 Corsair 1024MB, DDR400
£75.33 Sapphire Radeon X1600 PRO 256mb

Total Inc Vat £803.75

However I would possibly consider a single core san diego, as games at the moment dont take advantage much of duelcores yet.
AMD Athlon SanDiego 3700 for £146.12

Thus allowing you to either get 2gig of ram, or try the crucial Ballistics pc4000, coupled with the san diego can provide some seriously good overclocking results.

However I would also then reccomend a better psu, and heatsink for the psu.

Scottie2004 · 16 Apr 2006 at 11:42

rebelco said:
Sorry if i missed something, but wheres the hard disk?

Also I wouldnt get a micro ATX case either?
£39.14 Thermaltake Mambo VC2350BNSB Black - With 350W PSU
£144.45 Samsung Samtron ST94V 19" TFT
£56.49 Asus A8N-E SKT 939 NFORCE 4 AUDIO LAN PCI-Express ATX
£46.36 Maxtor 6V200E0 200GB SATA300 7200rpm 8MB Cache - OEM
£21.99 Samsung SH-S162A 16x DVD±RW/RAM Internal IDE (Black)
£80.88 Creative I-Trigue 5600 75W RMS 5.1 Speakers - Retail Boxed
£172.37 AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+
£47.00 Corsair 1024MB, DDR400
£75.33 Sapphire Radeon X1600 PRO 256mb

Total Inc Vat £803.75

However I would possibly consider a single core san diego, as games at the moment dont take advantage much of duelcores yet.
AMD Athlon SanDiego 3700 for £146.12

Thus allowing you to either get 2gig of ram, or try the crucial Ballistics pc4000, coupled with the san diego can provide some seriously good overclocking results.

However I would also then reccomend a better psu, and heatsink for the psu.

Ah bugger, forgot about the HD. I have an 80 Gig IDE drive here that I could use. As far as the cosmetics, I've made the mistake in the past of buying cheap non essential components such as the monitor and case and always regretted it. They are always the parts that are hardest to justify replacing in the future and tend to hang around for years. This way I get a decent looking machine with pretty good performance. Plus, I've got cash to spare each month so I can keep topping up the internal components in the months to come.