Spec me a test bed

[mishima]

Hi guys,

I'm looking for some components for a test bed - thought I would see what you guys thought and see what suggestions came up.

Thanks!

 

[semi-pro waster]

Test bed for what? Do you have a budget in mind for this system? Finally what parts do you need - just the system box itself or everything?

 

[mishima]

It's quite vague at the moment. All I need is mobo, RAM, CPU, PSU - barebones basically its purely for testing purposes. For reviews. Budget - as low as possible!

 

[semi-pro waster]

You could shave a few quid off this specification by going for an E1200 and an OcUK Huntkey PSU as they should both be fine for general usage but I think these parts are slightly higher quality and don't cost that much more.

Gigabyte GA-P31-DS3L Intel P31 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £44.99
(£52.86) £44.99
(£52.86)
Intel Core 2 Duo E2160 "LGA775 Conroe" 1.80GHz (800FSB) - Retail £37.99
(£44.64) £37.99
(£44.64)
Corsair VX 450W ATX PSU (CMPSU-450VXUK) £39.99
(£46.99) £39.99
(£46.99)
OCZ 2GB (2x1GB) PC2-6400C4 Dual Channel Platinum Revision 2 XTC Series DDR2 (OCZ2P800R22GK) £20.49
(£24.08) £20.49
(£24.08)
Sub Total : £143.46
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £8.95
VAT is being charged at 17.5% VAT : £26.67
Total : £179.08

 

[mishima]

top man, thanks semi. Looks good to me, I'll hook it up to my monitor so thats ideal!

 

[mishima]

Just realised I'm going to need more than I actually thought... HDD, DVDROM and GFX too as I'll need to install OS and have functionality.

 

[semi-pro waster]

I've changed the motherboard for one with onboard graphics now, not sure how well it overclocks though and the optical and hard drives are included.

OcUK Value IG31A-CFS Intel G31 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £40.99
(£48.16) £40.99
(£48.16)
Intel Core 2 Duo E2160 "LGA775 Conroe" 1.80GHz (800FSB) - Retail £37.99
(£44.64) £37.99
(£44.64)
Corsair VX 450W ATX PSU (CMPSU-450VXUK) £39.99
(£46.99) £39.99
(£46.99)
OCZ 2GB (2x1GB) PC2-6400C4 Dual Channel Platinum Revision 2 XTC Series DDR2 (OCZ2P800R22GK) £20.49
(£24.08) £20.49
(£24.08)
Samsung SH-S202HBEBN 20x DVD±RW IDE Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM £13.99
(£16.44) £13.99
(£16.44)
Hitachi Deskstar 7K160 160GB SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM £26.99
(£31.71) £26.99
(£31.71)
Sub Total : £180.44
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £8.95
VAT is being charged at 17.5% VAT : £33.14
Total : £222.53

 

[mishima]

Wow thats a good spec mate thanks. Do you think the Corsair PSU will take the latest GPU's? GTX etc? GT's?

 

[semi-pro waster]

It should be able to deal with pretty much any single graphics card fine, the rest of the system isn't hugely demanding at the moment.