Spec me plz £500 Max

celliott

celliott

celliott

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21 Jun 2004
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Berkshire
Currently building a new PC for a mate and im not sure what spec is going to be best for him. Ideally he needs at least 1GB Ram, 17" TFT, Athlon64 CPU and a pretty high end graphics card. To save some money 80GB hard disk is fine. £500 is the max which should ideally include postage. £550 could be possible if its going to make a big difference.

What would you build?
 
There isn't much point in getting a really good graphics card if the rest of the system is unbalanced, I'd probably go for something like this which comes in somewhere around the budget. You could change the motherboard for the ASRock Dual motherboard to save a little extra but I wouldn't like to cut back on much else.

MO-018-OK OcUK Value Hanns-G HC174D 17" LCD Monitor - Silver/Black (MO-018-OK)
£86.95 £86.95
CA-052-AN Antec NSK4400 Mini Tower Case - 380W SmartPower PSU (CA-052-AN)
£43.95 £43.95
HD-023-SA Samsung SpinPoint P HD080HJ 80GB SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-023-SA)
£25.95 £25.95
CD-035-NE NEC ND3550 16x16 DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM (CD-035-NE)
£19.95 £19.95
MB-120-AS Asus A8N5X nForce4 (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-120-AS)
£44.95 £44.95
MY-004-OK OcUK Value 1GB (2x512MB) PC3200 184pin DDR Memory Dual Channel Kit (MY-004-OK)
£56.95 £56.95
CP-119-AM AMD Athlon 64 3500+ Venice (Socket 939) - Retail (CP-119-AM)
£54.95 £54.95
GX-025-BG BFG 3DFuzion GeForce 7600 GT 256MB GDDR3 TV-Out/DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-025-BG)
£99.95 £99.95
Subtotal £433.60
VAT £75.88
Total £509.48
 
Thanks for that, looks a bit better than what I came up with. Is the OcUK ram ok then? I was unsure as it doesnt have any heatspreaders.
 
celliott said:
Is the OcUK ram ok then? I was unsure as it doesnt have any heatspreaders.
Click to expand...

It is fine basic generic Ram, nothing special but compatible with anything requiring DDR400. Heatspreaders are by and large a bit of a gimmick as far as I am concerned, they look pretty but most people will not be testing their Ram hard enough to warrant the additional cooling they 'might' provide.

That said they are often present on better quality Ram but of themselves heatspreaders do little.
 
BillytheImpaler said:
I'm just curious but why do you require an Athlon 64 CPU?
Click to expand...

Because thats what the user has asked for. If I am building a system for them I will make it around their requirements and they are good reliable CPU's. Conroe is out of the question here due to price and I dont rate P4's.
 
BG-080-AB **B Grade** Abit AW8 Intel 955X (Socket 775) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-083-AB)
£49.00 £49.00
HD-023-SA Samsung SpinPoint P HD080HJ 80GB SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-023-SA)
£25.95 £25.95
CA-052-AN Antec NSK4400 Mini Tower Case - 380W SmartPower PSU (CA-052-AN)
£43.95 £43.95
CP-116-IN Intel Pentium 4 805 Dual Core "LGA775 Smithfield" 2.66GHz (533FSB) - Retail (CP-116-IN)
£59.95 £59.95
GX-025-BG BFG 3DFuzion GeForce 7600 GT 256MB GDDR3 TV-Out/DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-025-BG)
£99.95 £99.95
MY-030-GL GeIL 1GB (2x512MB) PC5300 667MHz Value DDR2 Dual Channel Kit (GX21GB5300DC) (MY-030-GL)
£51.95 £51.95
CD-035-NE NEC ND3550 16x16 DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM (CD-035-NE)
£19.95 £19.95
MO-018-OK OcUK Value Hanns-G HC174D 17" LCD Monitor - Silver/Black (MO-018-OK)
£86.95 £86.95
Subtotal £437.65
VAT £76.59
Total £514.24

Very similar just with an alternative CPU/mobo, only real advantages are dual core and DDR2. Keep in mind it would have to be OCed to keep pace.
 
I think Semi Pro's spec would be a good choice. If only there were any C2D motherboards that were cheap. If that were the case you could get an 805 for it now then upgrade when Conroes get cheaper.
 
BillytheImpaler said:
I think Semi Pro's spec would be a good choice. If only there were any C2D motherboards that were cheap. If that were the case you could get an 805 for it now then upgrade when Conroes get cheaper.
Click to expand...


There are...

Asus P5VD2-MX Micro ATX (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard (MB-163-AS)
Price: £39.95 (£46.94 Including VAT at 17.5%)

No good for overclocking though, theres also the Asrock xfire conroe board but again not a great clocker (no voltage control afaik). Better than the VIA based Asus though.

Asrock ConroeXFire-eSATA2 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard (MB-003-AK)
Price: £53.95 (£63.39 Including VAT at 17.5%)

And:
Asrock Conroe945G-DVI (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard (MB-004-AK)

Price: £44.95 (£52.82 Including VAT at 17.5%)
 
I think Socket 939's dead for anyone building new! So...
  • MSI K9N Neo-F nForce 550 (Socket AM2) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard (MB-071-MS) £49.95
  • GeIL 1GB (2x512MB) PC5300 667MHz Value DDR2 Dual Channel Kit (GX21GB5300DC) (MY-030-GL) £51.95
  • Samsung SpinPoint P HD080HJ 80GB SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-023-SA) £25.95
  • NEC ND3550 16x16 DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM (CD-035-NE) £19.95
  • Antec NSK4400 Mini Tower Case - 380W SmartPower PSU (CA-052-AN) £43.95
  • Leadtek GeForce 7600 GT 256MB GDDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-080-LT) £99.95
  • AMD Athlon 64 3500+ 2.2GHz (Socket AM2) - Retail (CP-164-AM) £54.95
  • Hyundai ImageQuest B71A 17" LCD Monitor - Black (MO-033-HY) £119.95
  • Subtotal £466.60
  • VAT £81.66
  • Total £548.26

EDIT: Think I'm over budget :o Anyway, recommend Raikiri's spec BUT only with a mobo that can take an Intel Core 2 DUO chip :) Socket 939, apart from the lack of processors in the near future, see DDR RAM being also hard to find/get/etc :eek:
 
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