spec me a sub £200 base unit please

baldraptor

baldraptor

baldraptor

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28 Sep 2004
Posts
156
Hi
I need to put together a PC for my sons xmas pressie,
What would you recomend -I have case,graphics card already but need motherboard,memory,processor and maybe hard drive though have a couple I could use if push came to shove-and hopefully not spend more than £200 lol not sure if thats possible but fingers crossed.
He will be using it for homework/internet and games such as warhammer,total war etc so nothing too intensive
cheers
 
got 2 specs, 1 for £200, and a cheaper reasonable option:

£200 spec:

Intel Core 2 Duo E2200 "LGA775 Conroe" 2.20GHz (800FSB) - Retail £41.99 (£49.34)

GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC2-6400C5 800MHz Value DDR2 Dual Channel Kit (GX22GB6400DC) £24.99 (£29.36)

Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 250GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (ST3250410AS) £28.99 (£34.06)

Asus P5Q Intel P45 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £64.99
(£76.36)

Sub Total : £160.96
Shipping : £8.25
VAT : £29.61
Total : £198.82


cheaper option:

change mobo and processor to :

Intel Core 2 Duo E2180 "LGA775 Conroe" 2.00GHz (800FSB) - Retail £38.99 (£45.81)

Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L Intel P35 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £49.99 (£58.74)

Total : £177.67
 
psu is a hyper one I got as replacement for one that went up in flames and the graphics is prob going to be an x800 until funds permit changing it-thanks for help btw
 
Show some AMD love !

Your basket
Product Name Qty Price Line Total
GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC2-6400C4 800MHz Black Dragon DDR2 Dual Channel Kit (GB22GB6400C4DC) GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC2-6400C4 800MHz Black Dragon DDR2 Dual Channel Kit (GB22GB6400C4DC) £25.99
(£30.54) £25.99
(£30.54)
Asus M2A-VM HDMI Micro ATX (Socket AM2) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard Asus M2A-VM HDMI Micro ATX (Socket AM2) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £39.99
(£46.99) £39.99
(£46.99)
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 6000+ 3.00GHz (Socket AM2) - Retail AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 6000+ 3.00GHz (Socket AM2) - Retail £62.99
(£74.01) £62.99
(£74.01)
Sub Total : £128.97
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £8.25
VAT is being charged at 17.5% VAT : £24.01
Total : £161.23


No need to OC, working straight outta box, also decent onboard graphics.

39quid to spare, you can either get decent second hand GPU (1900XT or even 8800gt soon), another 2gb of ram ( yep even for 32bit OS it makes diff ), or new 320gb SATA HDD.

However, I would consider getting better PSU like this one:
Enermax Pro 82+ 385W EPR385AWT ATXv2.3 Silent PSU Enermax Pro 82+ 385W EPR385AWT ATXv2.3 Silent PSU
 
It's probably a bit faster at stock there but with a mATX motherboard you won't be able to overclock much although you could with the Intel option so it depends on whether you are willing to overclock.
 
Don't bother going with AMD. With Intel, if your soon decides to play some newer, more intensive games, the system can be brought up to 3GHz no problem. That kind of performance increase cannot be said at all for the AMD systems.

mp260767's build looks good to me.
 
Last edited:
lamboman said:
Don't bother going with AMD. With Intel, if your soon decides to play some newer, more intensive games, the system can be brought up to 3GHz no problem. That kind of performance increase cannot be said at all for the AMD systems.

mp260767's build looks good to me.
Click to expand...


no one of the E2xxx intels will do better than this AMD, unless you get very good chip, slap in TRUE, good large case with good cooling, good memory and OC it to about 3.7ghz.

Then you have to add about 80-100quid extra on the top of the budget, and you must get lucky chip and run the CPU max OCed to the limits 24/7.

Most of them will do 3.0 - 3.3ghz max for stable 24/7 running, and thats with good cooling, and even at this speed, that CPU isnt any faster than the mentioned AMD at same speed. the 6000+ also has more cache and will be running on stock = a lot cooler. And even then if you need extra power you can OC it to 3.4+.

a lot of AMD haters ;-).
Ofcourse AMD has atm no competition for the Wolfdale series and high cache quad series but the E2xxx aint all that powerfull, well it is for the price, but after all it is max 2.2ghz compared to 3.0ghz stock, so even the high OC possibility makes it hard to catch up the extra 800mhz and extra cache.


Now if he was about to take E7200 and had extra cash for decent cooler then fine, go intel.


So short conclusion:
Unless you find extra cash or you are sure that you will be upgrading CPU soon (few months max) for something like E8200/Q6600 then dont bother with E2xxx series.


@semi-pro waster
motherboard with onboard GPU because I wasnt sure if he is going to use that X800 or not ;). Still it's a very good CPU for this kind of hardware.
Remember that just pro CPU won't work, he will need to pair it with 4gb good memory and 8800gt minimum to get it anywhere ;)
 
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