Spec me some gear

Joe T · 1 Jul 2006 at 18:22

My old man's pc needs rebuilding. Basically I need:

- mobo
- cpu (I usually buy AMD, but am open to other options)
- ram (around 1gb would be fine, and I usually prefer to buy crucial)
- PSU - Tagan maybe?
- HSF

One priority is low noise. We would be willing to spend a bit more on a quiet HSF and PSU.

It's to fit in a standard ATX case.

There isnt really a budget at the mo, just really to get something that will last, and that offers a good level of performance/£.

It's to be used for emails/surfing/maybe some photo editing and just general office use.

Anyone got any ideas for me then?

Cheers in advance fols

Stelly · 1 Jul 2006 at 18:24

How much u going to spend??

Stelly

Joe T · 1 Jul 2006 at 21:06

Stelly said:
How much u going to spend??

Stelly

As I say, no strict budget. Mostly a case of getting a good sound system with a good prive/performance ratio. There is usually a poit where if you spend more, the extra performance isnt worth it. Do you see what I mean?

Thanks

Joe

Raikiri · 1 Jul 2006 at 21:12

MB-011-IN Intel DP965LT 965 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard (MB-011-IN)
£74.95 £74.95
CP-126-IN Intel Core 2 DUO E6300 "LGA775 Conroe" 1.86GHz (1066FSB) - Retail (CP-126-IN)
£129.95 £129.95
MY-081-CR Crucial 1GB (2x512MB) DDR2 PC2-4200C4 Dual Channel Kit (CT2KIT6464AA53E) (MY-081-CR)
£58.95 £58.95
HD-018-SA Samsung SpinPoint P SP2504C 250GB SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-018-SA)
£43.50 £43.50
HS-017-AR Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro CPU Cooler (Socket 775) (HS-017-AR)
£14.95 £14.95
CA-000-SS Seasonic S12 430W Silent ATX2.2 Power Supply (CA-000-SS)
£44.95 £44.95
GX-087-LT Leadtek GeForce 7300 GT 256MB DDR2 TV-Out/DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-087-LT)
£49.95 £49.95
Subtotal £417.20
VAT £73.01
Total £490.21

Very fast system there for general use, although working to a budget would be much easier! I would personally go for the 2gb of G.Skill for £117 though.

Stelly · 1 Jul 2006 at 21:18

Overclock it like you stole it

Intel Core 2 DUO E6600 "LGA775 Conroe" 2.40GHz (1066FSB) - Retail (CP-128-IN) £214.95
Intel Extreme D975bx-304 975X (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard (MB-010-IN) £139.95
G.Skill 2GB DDR2 LA PC2-5300 (2x1GB) CAS4 Dual Channel Kit (F2-5400PHU2-2GBLA) (MY-012-GS) £99.95
Enermax Liberty 620W ELT620AWT ATX2.2 Modular SLI Compliant PSU (CA-024-EN) £84.95
Scythe Ninja Plus Heatpipe CPU Cooler (Socket 478, 754, 939, 940, LGA755) (HS-003-SY) £26.95
Shipping £8.95

TOTAL £676.45

Let me know what you think, if you want a really quiet PSU get the seasonic

Stelly

trojan698 · 1 Jul 2006 at 21:27

For office work and web browsing? Overkill! You might need a gfx there too stelly!

Joe T · 1 Jul 2006 at 21:36

Cheers fellas.

I kust realised that most of the Mobos are PCi-Express these days, so a new GPU will be required - I didnt actually specify one in my first post though.. It doesnt need to have any game playing ability at all!

So Intel cpu and Intel mobo are what its at these days is it?

Stelly, I think your CPU is probably too expensive. I would be thinking of more like £120 plus VAT, maybe like the one posted by Rakiri.

From your posts I think this might pretty good:

MB-011-IN Intel DP965LT 965 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard (MB-011-IN)
£74.95 £74.95
CP-126-IN Intel Core 2 DUO E6300 "LGA775 Conroe" 1.86GHz (1066FSB) - Retail (CP-126-IN)
£129.95 £129.95
CA-000-SS Seasonic S12 430W Silent ATX2.2 Power Supply (CA-000-SS)
£44.95 £44.95
G.Skill 2GB DDR2 LA PC2-5300 (2x1GB) CAS4 Dual Channel Kit (F2-5400PHU2-2GBLA) (MY-012-GS) £99.95
HS-017-AR Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro CPU Cooler (Socket 775) (HS-017-AR)
£14.95 £14.95 (or maybe the Ninja Scythe)
And the cheapest PCI-Express graphis around which seems to be this one:
BFG 3DFuzion GeForce 6200 LE Turbo Cache 256MB DDR TV-Out/DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-027-BG)
£19.95 £19.95

Total of just under £400 plus VAT.

I know this is ocuk, but this is my Dad's machine so wont be overclocked!

Seem ok to you folks?

Raikiri · 1 Jul 2006 at 21:40

Sounds alright, would try to avoid the turbo cache graphics though if at all possible as they use system ram.

Joe T · 1 Jul 2006 at 21:50

Raikiri said:
Sounds alright, would try to avoid the turbo cache graphics though if at all possible as they use system ram.

OK, thanks.

The hdd is to come out of his old system. I assume its a bad idea to reinstall windows over the top of the old one? I also assume these days that a new mobo does require a windows re-install?

Thanks

Air_Arms · 1 Jul 2006 at 21:56

Joe T said:
OK, thanks.

The hdd is to come out of his old system. I assume its a bad idea to reinstall windows over the top of the old one? I also assume these days that a new mobo does require a windows re-install?

Thanks

Not always, but often. If it does work, you will need to stick ALL the drivers back on for windows (or some of them)

Joe T · 2 Jul 2006 at 10:05

Anyone else care to comment on the whole windows re-install thing?

Also, anyone got any appropriate specs that use processors that are actually available at this point inttime?

Thanks

hp7909 · 2 Jul 2006 at 10:36

Joe T said:
Anyone else care to comment on the whole windows re-install thing?

Also, anyone got any appropriate specs that use processors that are actually available at this point inttime?

Thanks

Recommend reinstalling Windows even if you somehow managed to make it work with new componets. Use a program like Acronis True Image to backup drive/partition as is. Then after reinstalling Windows & other programs you can recover docs, e-mails, settings, bookmarks, etc :cool:

Seein that he will not be gaming & doesn't require killer-specs, here's my suggestion based on items currently in-stock:

AMD Athlon 64 3800+ 2.4GHz (Socket AM2) - Retail (CP-165-AM) £84.95
Asus M2NPV-VM Micro ATX (Socket AM2) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard (MB-144-AS) £54.95 - excellent onBoard GeForce 6150 GPU
Tagan TG380-U01 380W ATX2.0 Silent PSU (CA-001-TG) £39.95 - eXtreme PSU Calculator
Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 250GB ST3250620AS SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD-079-SE) £52.50 - Get Perpendicular
Crucial 1GB (2x512MB) DDR2 PC2-5300C5 Dual Channel Kit (CT2KIT6464AA667) (MY-083-CR) £59.95
Subtotal £292.30
Shipping (City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)) £8.95
VAT £52.72
Total £353.97

Joe T · 2 Jul 2006 at 10:44

Looks good. How about a quiet hsf?

hp7909 · 2 Jul 2006 at 12:14

Joe T said:
Looks good. How about a quiet hsf?

AMD Cool 'n' Quiet should reduce speed of stock HSF to barely audible RPM

Joe T · 2 Jul 2006 at 12:28

hp7909 said:
AMD Cool 'n' Quiet should reduce speed of stock HSF to barely audible RPM

Cool, thanks.

Joe T · 11 Jul 2006 at 18:03

The Asus M2NPV-VM - can someone confirm if this has 2x IDE ports and 1x floppy ports? The Asus website isnt specific, and I cant tell for sure from the picture on there either.

Thanks in advance.

hp7909 · 12 Jul 2006 at 06:15

Joe T said:
The Asus M2NPV-VM - can someone confirm if this has 2x IDE ports and 1x floppy ports? The Asus website isnt specific, and I cant tell for sure from the picture on there either.

Thanks in advance.

The new Socket AM2 mobo's seem to have only 1 IDE. But the M2NPV-VM's a NVIDIA GeForce 6150 + nForce 430 based motherboard & not nForce 5, so not to sure if same :confused:

Anyway, seek manual here (for some reason can't download on my end) :cool:

Stephen7372 · 12 Jul 2006 at 08:15

TNN 300 case for totally quietness

UKTopGun · 12 Jul 2006 at 13:03

Do you really need Conroe for a system which is only going to be used for general use?

Wouldn't it be better off waiting for the price drops on the X2 3800+?

Joe T · 12 Jul 2006 at 20:14

hp7909 said:
The new Socket AM2 mobo's seem to have only 1 IDE. But the M2NPV-VM's a NVIDIA GeForce 6150 + nForce 430 based motherboard & not nForce 5, so not to sure if same Anyway, seek manual here (for some reason can't download on my end)

Cheers for that. It seems it has 2xIDE but doesnt have a floppy. I think he will have to manage without