Spec me a system < £450

jke

jke

jke

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Joined
13 Mar 2009
Posts
3
Hello!

I want to buy a new tower, primarily for studying, but also for gaming.

I have a monitor, keyboard and mouse.
I need everything else.

Recommended specification would be greatly appreciated :).

John
 
little over. Gives you mid ranged, you didn't say how much gaming was important to you, so i gave you a good (not amazing gfx card) CPU which you can overclock nicely with enough memory for use with 64bit OS.

XFX Radeon HD 4850 512MB GDDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (HD-485X-YDFC) £112.69
(£97.99)
Intel Pentium Dual-Core E5200 "LGA775 Core 2" 2.50GHz (800FSB) - Retail £68.99
(£59.99)
Abit IP35 Pro XE Intel P35 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £68.99
(£59.99)
Akasa Ultra Quiet 400W Paxpower Active PFC ATX2.2 Power Supply - Black Nickel £42.99
(£37.38)
Samsung SpinPoint F1 320GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD322HJ) Samsung SpinPoint F1 320GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD322HJ) £40.24
(£34.99) £40.24
(£34.99)
Kingston HyperX 4GB (2x2GB) DDR2 PC2-6400C5 800MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX6400D2K2/4G) £31.83
(£27.68)
Coolermaster Elite 330 Midi Tower Case - Black (No PSU) £29.89
(£25.99)
Scythe Katana 2 CPU Cooler (Socket 478/754/939/940/AM2/LGA775) £26.44
(£22.99)
Samsung TS-H653F 22x DVD±RW SATA Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM £16.09
(£13.99)
Sub Total : £380.99
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £12.50
VAT is being charged at 15% VAT : £59.02
Total : £452.51

you haven't said what screen resolution you are using either.
 
hawker1986 said:
It will save you a few pounds, and that HSF is more than good enough to cool a 5200 even very OCd. And the RAM I would chose because I favour corsair over Kingston.
Click to expand...

I like you're justification :)
The Corsair you have chosen is actually higher latency. 5-5-5-18 compared the the cl5 -15 i chose. not much, but makes a little difference especially as kingston is cheaper.

Also the Scythe is a better heatsink and allows better upgradeability in the future.

I'd still stick with mine, though sure there are a few things that could be changed.
 
It was just my opinion, ive used both kingston and corsair and ive had many more kingston chips fail over the years, so I was just trying to share my experience. I never said there was anything wrong with your suggestions, just some alternatives.
 
Great suggestions, thank you :)
Not sure about my screen resolution (screens at home, im at work right now) - how would that affect the tower specification?

Thanks again :)
 
Being able to game at a higher res may need a better cpu or graphics card.
The 4850 should be enough for a lot of games though.
Do you know what the size of your screen is?
 
Sash said:
Being able to game at a higher res may need a better cpu or graphics card.
The 4850 should be enough for a lot of games though.
Do you know what the size of your screen is?
Click to expand...

Pretty much there. If you are using resolutions of 1920x1200 or greater (most commonly found on 24"+ though some 22's now support 1920x1080) you really want to have 1GB of memory on your GPU.

On you're budget though the 4850 should play most games you want. If you really want the lastest games on high spec think about throwing another £30 at the build and getting a HD4870 or if you are using bigger resolutions its worth the extra £50 for a HD4870 1GB, but depends if you want to cassual game or highest settings.

Don't really need to worry about you're CPU too much, you can overclock that little gem anyway.
 
Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 4870 "Toxic" 512MB GDDR5 TV-Out/Dual DVI/HDMI (PCI-Express) - Retail (11133-06-40) £160.99
(£139.99) £160.99
(£139.99)
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 7750+ Black Edition 2.70GHz (Socket AM2+) - Retail £57.49
(£49.99) £57.49
(£49.99)
Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (ST3500418AS) £49.44
(£42.99) £49.44
(£42.99)
OCZ ModXStream Pro 400w Silent SLI Ready ATX2 Modular Power Supply £47.14
(£40.99) £47.14
(£40.99)
Gigabyte GA-M61PME-S2 (Socket AM2) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £45.99
(£39.99) £45.99
(£39.99)
Coolermaster Elite 335 Case - Black (No PSU) £34.49
(£29.99) £34.49
(£29.99)
OCZ Gold Edition 4GB (2x2GB) DDR2 PC2-8500 4GB Dual Channel (OCZ2G10664GK) £34.49
(£29.99) £34.49
(£29.99)
Akasa AK-876 CPU Cooler (Socket 754/939/940/AM2) £14.94
(£12.99) £14.94
(£12.99)
Samsung TS-H493B SATA DVD-ROM/CD-RW Drive - Black (OEM) £9.19
(£7.99) £9.19
(£7.99)
Sub Total : £394.91
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £11.75
VAT is being charged at 15% VAT : £61.00
Total : £467.66

EDIT: I built this spec on saturday for my gf's brother and it works great, he has the 9800gt rather than the 4870 though

You could get the 1gb 4870 for £5 extra but if £450 is your limit then the 4850 or the nvidia 9800 gt is about £90
 
Last edited:
Thanks, the screen size is 26".

Ok i'll use one of these specifications and consider an upgraded graphics card.
 
Last edited:
XFX ATI Radeon HD 4850 "XXX Edition" 512MB GDDR5 TV-Out/Dual DVI/HDMI (PCI-Express) - Retail £109.99

AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 5600 2.90GHz (Socket AM2) - Retail £60.94

OCZ StealthXStream 400w Silent ATX2 Power Supply £45.99

Gigabyte GA-MA74GM-S2 (Socket AM2) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £45.99

Corsair XMS2 4GB DDR2 PC2-8500C5 TwinX (2x2GB) Dual Channel Kit (Twin2X4096-8500C5) £39.99

Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 250GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (ST3250410AS) £39.09

Coolermaster Elite 335 Case - Black (No PSU) £34.49

Akasa AK-876 CPU Cooler (Socket 754/939/940/AM2) £14.94

Samsung TS-H353B 16x DVD-ROM SATA (Black) - OEM £11.49

Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £12.50
VAT is being charged at 15% VAT : £54.43

Total : £417.27

If you want you can get a better CD drive and a bigger HDD. Or you could get a better graphics card, ie the 4870 @ £164.99

Hope this helps

dP
 
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