Spec Me A Lightweight System - £300

Slogan · 23 Aug 2006 at 17:53

Hello, a family member is looking a computer for around £300.

The computer will be used mainly for word processing, browsing the internet, shifting music from the hard drive to the mp3 player and msn - nothing overly demanding at all.

I considered Conroe, but even the cheapest one would swallow a huge portion of the budget and with the AMD price crashes - they could well be the way to go.

I don't know much about AMD at all, in terms of chipsets and all of that jargon - but was hoping one of you could kindly help me out.

In terms of onboard graphics - what can be expected? I've never used onboard graphics, but is it pretty bad? I can't see a graphics card squeezing into the system budget somehow. But thought I would see what the general consensus is.

Just a tower and all of the things in a tower - no need to worry about speakers, keyboards, mice etc...

Cheers.

Pulse · 23 Aug 2006 at 19:21

so your looking for all the following?

CPU
MOBO
RAM
HDD(s) -how much space you looking for?
GFX -how much gaming do you do?
CD/DVD Drives -what would you like?
Case
PSU

semi-pro waster · 23 Aug 2006 at 19:33

Given the budget I'd probably go for something like this, it is still way overkill for the uses specified but buying new this is getting on for about as cheap as you will get. It has onboard graphics which will be enough to play older games pretty decently, even things like Half Life 2 at 800x600, maybe even 1024x768 depending on the detail levels. I've included a fairly large hard drive since you say it will be used for music storage.

CA-052-AN Antec NSK4400 Mini Tower Case - 380W SmartPower PSU (CA-052-AN)
£39.95 £39.95
MB-119-AS Asus A8N-VM CSM Micro ATX (Socket 939) PCI Express Motherboard (MB-119-AS)
£46.95 £46.95
CP-118-AM AMD Athlon 64 3200+ Venice (Socket 939) - Retail (ADA3200BPBOX) (CP-118-AM)
£49.95 £49.95
MY-004-OK OcUK Value 1GB (2x512MB) PC3200 184pin DDR Memory Dual Channel Kit (MY-004-OK)
£55.95 £55.95
CD-035-NE NEC ND3550 16x16 DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM (CD-035-NE)
£19.95 £19.95
HD-018-SA Samsung SpinPoint P SP2504C 250GB SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-018-SA)
£41.95 £41.95
Subtotal £254.70
VAT £44.58
Total £299.28

Pulse · 23 Aug 2006 at 19:51

AMD Athlon 64 3200+ Venice (Socket 939) - Retail (ADA3200BPBOX) (CP-118-AM)
£49.95
G.Skill 1GB DDR ZX PC3200 (2x512MB) CAS2 Dual Channel Kit (F1-3200PHU2-1GBZX) (MY-002-GS)
£61.95
Abit NF95 GeForce 6100 Micro ATX (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-098-AB)
£38.95
Samsung SpinPoint P SP2504C 250GB SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-018-SA)
£41.95
Antec NSK4400 Mini Tower Case - 380W SmartPower PSU (CA-052-AN)
£39.95
NEC ND4570 16x16 DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM (CD-030-NE)
£21.95
Subtotal £254.70
VAT £44.58
Total £299.28

Naffa · 23 Aug 2006 at 19:54

Ignore.. I'm being a royal noob. :/

EDIT: I'd go with Pulses, but I'd switch the case to one of these http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/Arctic_Cooling_Cases.html due to the better PSU.

EDIT EDIT: He's changed it now, dw lol.

semi-pro waster · 23 Aug 2006 at 22:39

naffa said:
EDIT: I'd go with Pulses, but I'd switch the case to one of these http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/Arctic_Cooling_Cases.html due to the better PSU.

Out of curiousity why? The Nforce 6150 chipset on the Asus offers a better graphics chip but apart from that they are basically the same specification, the Gskill might be slightly better Ram but at stock it makes no difference and the DVDRW offers nothing extra apart from 5x DVD-Ram writing.

Naffa · 23 Aug 2006 at 23:44

Well because there will be NO need whatsoever for the extra 50 on the chipset. I'm sure the 6100 will handle watching videos and the like fine. And like you said, the DVDRW is better and I think I'd rather have the G.Skill than OcUK value..

Basically.. It's a better system for the needs of the OP.