Spec Me A £500 - New Build From Scratch

Leevis

Leevis

Leevis

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Joined
13 Feb 2008
Posts
62
Guys
I currently have a rather out of date pc (built about 4 years ago and starting to fall to bits). I am pretty sure that anything will be better than my current build.

What do i want?
The best it can be for £500. I do not need a monitor, need everything else including keyboard/mouse.
I want to have:
Vista, quite what flavour i do not know.
500Gb HD
At least 2Gb RAM
TV Card
Graphics card with DV In
Nice looking case

Its not going to be overclocked as i will just be using it for browsing and playing movies, editing video/photos, MP3, TV etc. No gaming required

Thanks

Lee
 
Leevis said:
TV Card
Graphics card with DV In
Click to expand...
Just to be sure, you want two digital video inputs, or do you want one to be analog? What plug do you intend to use to attach the digital video to the graphics card?

Without looking, I'm not sure how many graphics cards come with video-in these days.
 
overclockersukyourbaskeaa3.gif

This would do nicely for you. I could spend more, if you like, on more RAM and a faster processor. Does this case suit your taste?
 
That looks quite good, not too sure about the case. I would rather something that looked a bit better. Maybe as you say more ram and faster processor and also the TV Card. Is that processor 64bit? and is that better? Been soooo long since i have built one.
 
The processor is 64-bit and it is better to some extent. It's unlikely you'd notice the difference.

As far as the case, what do you class as looking better? Does the Lian-Li PC-7 suit you?

What kind of TV card you do need; analog, digital?
 
I built a computer for my uncle a few days ago and used the same case but in black, and it looked really nice. Very smart and comes with a good solid PSU.

Only thing i would change would be to try and get 4gb of RAM and a slighly faster CPU for editing purposes.

Should be able to manage that within £500. :)
 
Yeah tat PC-7 one looks pretty cool. The TV would be a digital one that would pick up freeview (although do they come with an aerial or would i have to buy one of those too as there is no aeriel close to my pc ... silly question really)
 
Ok

Heres where i am at the moment on this. I cant work out how to get the image from my basket into here.

Lian-Li PC-7 Plus II Aluminium Midi Tower Case - Black (£49.99)
OCZ 4GB (2x2GB) PC2-6400C4 800MHz Reaper HPC Enhanced Bandwidth Edition Dual Channel DDR2 (OCZ2RPR800C44GK) (£59.99)
Samsung SH-S203D 20x DVD RW SATA Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) OEM (£14.99)
Logitech Cordless Desktop EX 110 - OEM (£16.99)
Samsung SpinPoint T 500GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD501LJ) (£51.99)
Intel Core 2 Dual E6550 "LGA775 Conroe" 2.33 GHZ (1333FSB) - Retail (£94.99)
Gigabyte GA-73PV-S2H GeForce 7100 Mirco-ATX (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard (£43.99)
Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium 64 Bit Edition DVD 1 Pk (66I-00788) (£59.99)

Total £392.92
VAT £70.50
Delivery £9.95

Grand Total £473.37

This dont look too shabby. One thing i still need to get though is the TV Tuner (if they are any good as I do not have an aerial) and also is that Keyboard any good? One last thing, need some speaker that are half decent.

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

Lee
 
I might be missing something here, but why have you gone for a Micro-ATX motherboard in a full ATX size case?

PK!
 
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What about this one for a case ?

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CB-004-OK&groupid=701&catid=7&subcat=

I have kinda given up on the idea of the TV card HOWEVER something different ..... this Vista Home Preium has Windows Media Center built in right? How does all that work? The way that I thought was that you could get a remote control whatsit and play files/movies/music via that? If this is the case, how does all that hang together? I assume i would need the remote and some sort of a sender?

Lee
 
Hows this one look

X-Qpack II Micro ATX Gaming Case with 500W ATX2.0 PSU (Black) £64.99
OCZ 4GB (2x2GB) PC2-6400C4 800MHz Reaper HPC Enhanced Bandwidth Edition Dual Channel DDR2 (OCZ2RPR800C44GK) (£59.99)
Samsung SH-S203D 20x DVD RW SATA Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) OEM (£14.99)
Logitech Cordless Desktop EX 110 - OEM (£16.99)
Samsung SpinPoint T 500GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD501LJ) (£51.99)
Intel Core 2 Dual E6550 "LGA775 Conroe" 2.33 GHZ (1333FSB) - Retail (£94.99)
Gigabyte GA-73PV-S2H GeForce 7100 Mirco-ATX (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard (£43.99)
Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium 64 Bit Edition DVD 1 Pk (66I-00788) (£59.99)

Sub Total £407.92
Shipping £9.95
VAT £73.13

Total £491.00

Add onto this the cost for the Media Centre Remote/Sender (about £20) and some half decent speakers (any suggestions?) and I should be good to go

Lee
 
Two more things, I will be adding another hard disk to this, another SATA one that I already have, would this be OK with the number of connectors??

Secondly, this motherboard only seems to have 2 USB at the back, is this standard for micro atx? If I wanted to increase the number would i need to get a PCI card and is this possible on that board?
 
That case will do OK for you.

Vista's Media Center is simply a program that is included that makes for easier fullscreen file system navigation and media playing without using a mouse. You can use it with a remote, or with a mouse and keyboard if you like.

The mobo has 3 SATA ports, from the looks of it. You'd be OK adding one more device.

It has three internal headers for more USB ports, especially ones on the front of a case and in PCI slots.
 
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Been doing some reading on these 64bit processors and i am a little confused.

I currently have loads of applications etc on my current pc which work. It appears that there is a VERY high chance that these will not work when i upgrade to the 64 bit processor/OS.

Is that correct?

I am using Office XP which is age old, will that work? I really dont want to have to spend another £80 odd to get the latest and greatest versions of this.
 
Gawd, i am going to mither myself into an early grave here.

What i am trying to put into words is.

32bit Vista - will all my current apps work? likely (ish) i think
64bit Vista - will all my current apps work? very unlikely

Is it worth getting the 64bit?

Help
 
Most of your current apps should work without any hassle on 32 and 4-bit Vista. If you're particularly worried about some important programs, search Google for the name of the program and 64-bit Vista.

If you're going to get 4 GiB of RAM, then you need 64-bit.
 
Have you installed your chipset drivers and graphics drivers and rebooted?

If so, go to personalize and then themes (or something similar) and the aero design should be there now. For me, it doesnt automatically load up until i did it after installing the drivers.:)

Well done on your build. From the simplicity of your reply it must have been a dodle. :)
 
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