Spec Me a PC

unwashed potato! · 11 Mar 2006 at 10:05

My mum is wanting a new PC soon for around £1k. She is thinking of buying this thing from a world where the sell pcs (get it, cnt say the actual store) for £1.3k which all it is is just a screen and the hardware is attached on the screen at the back.I am trying to convince her to go with something else, and maybe just let me buy the parts and put it together fro her and make a very good pc for much less money.

Bascially what she wants is for it to be small, possibly the micro ATX i think ther called, and for it to be silent as possible, if not dead silent. I will be a media pc however she does play the latest games like sims2 so it will nedd to be able to do this and be ready for future games. think thats all she wanted, will post if she has any other requirements. thanks in advance,

semi-pro waster · 11 Mar 2006 at 11:06

I don't know if you meant that you need the monitor for £1,000 but if your mum is going spend £1,300 then I'd guess it isn't that important. I was going to go for Windows XP Home which would put this under budget but then remembered that you need XP Pro for dual CPUs(and by extension dual cores). All the parts are pretty near top of the line which makes it major overkill if Sims2 is the most demanding game to be played but nevermind. If you do need a monitor included in the budget then post back and the specification can be re-jigged.

CA-021-AN Antec Aria Micro ATX Cube Case - 300W PSU (CA-021-AN)
£57.95 £57.95
MB-119-AS Asus A8N-VM CSM Micro ATX (Socket 939) PCI Express Motherboard (MB-119-AS)
£54.95 £54.95
CP-127-AM AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4400+ (Socket 939) - Retail (ADA4400CDBOX) (CP-127-AM)
£284.95 £284.95
MY-046-GL GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC3200 Value Dual Channel Kit CAS3 (GE2GB3200BDC) (MY-046-GL)
£109.95 £109.95
CD-026-NE NEC ND4551 16x16 DVD±RW Dual Layer LabelFlash ReWriter (Black) - OEM (CD-026-NE)
£27.95 £27.95
HD-046-WD Western Digital Caviar SE16 250GB 2500KS SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD-046-WD)
£59.95 £59.95
GX-121-SP Sapphire ATI Radeon X1800 XT 256MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-121-SP)
£184.95 £184.95
OS-002-MS Microsoft Windows XP Professional Edition inc. SP2 - OEM - 1Pk (E85-04026) (OS-002-MS)
£81.95 £81.95
Subtotal £862.60
VAT £150.96
Total £1,013.56

ACESHIGH · 11 Mar 2006 at 11:18

Great spec listed above.

KizZ · 11 Mar 2006 at 12:49

Great spec! Your mum will be impressed

unwashed potato! · 12 Mar 2006 at 18:31

ok that was very nice spec indeed. unfortnutely she does need a screen, mouse, keyboard, and i would imagine speakers too, however we don't need windows as we already have a spare unused copy of Media Centre in the house. In the new spec's can we make it as close to £1000 as possible so that she can save the money for something else. About the games, i don't think that she will be playing much more demanding games for a very long time now so i guess you don't too much power for graphics, although obviosly the more the better.

Rember aswell she would like to keep it as silent as possible

thanks again

ACESHIGH · 13 Mar 2006 at 03:04

Antec Aria Micro ATX Cube Case - 300W PSU (CA-021-AN)
£68.09*

Asus A8N-VM CSM Micro ATX (Socket 939) PCI Express Motherboard (MB-119-AS)
£64.57

AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 3800+ (Socket 939) - Retail (ADA3800BVBOX) (CP-134-AM)
£214.97*

Corsair 2GB DDR Value Select PC3200 CAS3.0 Kit (2x1GB) (VS2GBKIT400C3) (MY-080-CS)
£111.57

Philips SPD2400BM 16x16 DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM (CD-006-PH)
£25.79

Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 NCQ 160GB ST3160812AS SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-050-SE)
£56.34

Sapphire ATI Radeon X1800 XT 256MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-121-SP)
£217.32*

Microsoft Laser Mouse 6000 - Retail (KB-056-MS)
£23.44

Microsoft Multimedia Keyboard v1.0 - OEM (N8600004) (KB-047-MS)
£11.69

Creative Inspire T3030 2.1 Speakers - Retail (SP-059-CL)
£35.19

Viewsonic VE710b 17" LCD Monitor - Black (MO-042-VS)
£170.32*

£999.29 including VAT.

Great ystem.
Fast dual core CPU.
Best bang per buck graphics card.
2 gig good ram.
Great, quiet dvd burner
Largish HDD
& other bits you asked for are all good.

Naffa · 13 Mar 2006 at 03:51

CP-150-AM AMD Athlon 64 3700+ San Diego 90nm (Socket 939) - OEM (CP-150-AM)
£119.95 £119.95
MB-121-AS Asus A8V-E SE VIA K8T890 (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-121-AS)
£47.95 £47.95
MY-046-GL GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC3200 Value Dual Channel Kit CAS3 (GE2GB3200BDC) (MY-046-GL)
£109.95 £109.95
GX-016-GI Gigabyte GeForce 6800 GS 256MB GDDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) & Quake 4 Bundle - Retail (GX-016-GI)
£119.95 £119.95
HD-045-WD Western Digital Caviar Special Edition 320GB 3200JD SATA 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-045-WD)
£76.95 £76.95
CD-016-AS Asus DRW-1608P2 16x16 DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - Retail (CD-016-AS)
£24.50 £24.50
HS-015-ZA Zalman CNPS9500-LED Aero Flower (Socket 939/754/478/775) CPU Cooler (HS-015-ZA)
£24.95 £24.95
CA-017-TT Thermaltake VB1000BNS Soprano SuperMidi Tower - Black (CA-017-TT)
£39.95 £39.95
CA-005-HP Hiper HPU-4K580-MK Type R 580W Modular ATX2.2 PSU - Black UV (CA-005-HP)
£52.95 £52.95
MO-012-AC Acer AL1916W 19" Widescreen LCD Monitor - Black/Silver (MO-012-AC)
£154.95 £154.95
KB-058-LG Logitech Cordless Optical Desktop Rechargeable Black/Silver - OEM (KB-058-LG)
£29.95 £29.95
SP-050-CL Creative I-Trigue 2.1 3400 Speakers - Retail (SP-050-CL)
£45.95 £45.95
Subtotal £847.95
VAT £148.40
Total £996.35

got everything there. nice speakers, 19" widescreen LCD, mouse & keyboard. can go for dual core but would put you slightly over budget.

ACESHIGH · 13 Mar 2006 at 04:54

A 6800GS & and a via mobo - wouldnt be my choices.
Dual core is also a far more viable long term option

unwashed potato! · 13 Mar 2006 at 12:34

ACESHIGH said:
A 6800GS & and a via mobo - wouldnt be my choices.

what would be your choices then?

the latest specs by naffa seem best with a few adjustments, e.g. dual core, better graphics card and mobo, also the case seems to be quite large from the picture, remember it needs to be small. Lastly how quiet would that pc be?

Naffa · 13 Mar 2006 at 17:34

ACESHIGH said:
A 6800GS & and a via mobo - wouldnt be my choices.
Dual core is also a far more viable long term option

oh yeah, sorry an X1800XT is definatly essential for running the Sims2.

A[L]C · 13 Mar 2006 at 17:45

How about a shuttle pc for him lads? Im no good at speccing tho so just an idea

semi-pro waster · 13 Mar 2006 at 17:47

naffa said:
oh yeah, sorry an X1800XT is definatly essential for running the Sims2.

To be fair I think ACESHIGH might just have been trying to highlight some sort of conflict between Via chipsets and the 6800series but that is simply a guess by me.

That said I'm using a socket 754 Asus motherboard based on a Via chipset with a 6800gt and that works great so I don't know of any obvious problems.