Spec thread - £450

Tasocahtfu

Tasocahtfu

Tasocahtfu

Associate
Joined
14 Dec 2004
Posts
755
Location
Essex
Hi,

Been asked to build a system for a friend, who has a budget of £450. Included in this will need to be a 22" TFT and Vista Home Premium. It will be used primarily for browsing the internet, downloading, music library etc, as well as some work (but we're only talking Office). He doesn't play games, but it will need a decent amount of storage.

Needs to be as quick and quiet as possible, last thing I want is for him to start moaning that it's slow when he's downloading, playing music, and trying to burn DVD's at the same time! Won't be overclocking it.

Can anyone help?

Cheers
 
Last edited:
Just to let you know what we're dealing with, here are a couple of quotes from his emails! ;)


"games not that bothered but will be downloading **** loads so massive memory and fast download er speed thingy"


"yes please flat screen has to be flat 22 inches with tft etc etc ?"


:D
 
overclockersukyourbaskeka6.gif

£222.07 isn't really enough for a full rig with decent performance.
I can cut away tiny bits from this to lower the price but there isn't much I can do to get better performance.
 
You do realise that over half the budget is gone on os & a monitor. Does it have to be that size?

And a fast download speed depends on his internet connection, lol.
 
Cr0fty said:
And a fast download speed depends on his internet connection, lol.
Click to expand...

Well aware of that, hence my post ;)

I know, I have tried to explain that the screen choice will severely limit the options, but he is adamant. Will have another go.

@ Billy - Thanks for that, I appreciate it's difficult with the requirements given, that looks pretty good. Am going to see if I can convince him to drop the screen size, hopefully he'll see sense :)
 
Thanks for that hp7909, looks good also. I've just emailed the guy to suggest bumping up his budget to £500 as well to try and help. So difficult when people don't understand the performance difference between an ok component and a decent one. :(
 
If all he cares about is screen size and hard-disk size....send him to that well known internet-only retailer. you won't get better for the money building from parts.
 
I should note that if he thinks that a newer faster computer will result in faster downloads he's going to be very unhappy when he gets it and discovers that that is not the case. Break the news.
 
That's not what he thinks, he just gets his words mixed up a bit. I've explained to him about downloading before, it's the actual speed of the computer he is talking about - moving around Windows, speed of things opening etc.

He isn't upgrading from another computer, he currently has a laptop which he has had for a while, this will be his first proper PC.

Managed to convince him to drop to a 19" monitor, and I think he would be happy budget wise as long as it doesn't break the £500 barrier. Does this help much, or would it be better to do as supernova suggests? I have always found their stuff to be a bit slow, but if it's a better bet for the money then fair enough.

Thanks for the help.
 
Last edited:
Would this be any good? Worth doing over a system from that well-known online-only retailer, or not really, based on what it will be used for?

spec.gif


Cheers
 
Nice one Vintastic :D

Do you reckon that system would be worth doing based on it's intended use, or shall I just tell him to go to you know where?

Cheers
 
no worries! i just did a bit of research at you know where... the closest pc they had was a fiver cheaper, and didn't look too good: it had only a gig of ram (unnamed 667mhz stuff) , a mystery 250gb hard drive, and everything else was quite comparable, though they had an extra inch on the widescreen. It depends if you like to know what you're getting (and probably end up your mate's tech support) or get a kind of crap pc with mystery parts but it's not your problem to fix it :D
 
Thinking about it, if it were me I'd probably stretch to £500... you can get a lot more for your money around there.

Stealing a few ideas from the good folk that posted before, this might be a good spec for £500. Gives him a proper non-widescreen 19" (i just think anything widescreen under 22" is too small) and a more respectable case and power supply, plus the motherboard integrated graphics don't sound too awful.
spec500btg0.jpg


Alternatively, to give him something to upgrade from... keep the 19" widescreen and get a Antec Sonata with the 500w PSU, which is a genuinely good case he could use in a future build. Hope that gives you an idea or two!
spec500yo0.jpg
 
Cheers mate, very helpful posts.

That's a good point about ending up as his support, although I suspect it will happen regardless! And I'm hoping he won't have too many problems!

I spoke with him about the monitor and he's decided upon a standard 19" one. Will speak to him about the ideas you have suggested and go from there.

Thanks again for you help :)

Cheers
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom