Specifications for a friend..! vs mega corporation

KPeh · 5 Mar 2006 at 14:33

I haven't been keeping tabs with all the latest advancements, but at the moment a friend of mine is looking to spend slightly over 2k on a Dell with a 3ghz dual core p4, a 7800gtx and 2gb of ram. I'm sure this is overpriced. So I'm considering building one for him, but have no idea about what's good and what's not!

The requirements:
To run Oblivion easily
Fast CPU, fast graphics, probably 2gb of ram.
Logitech wireless mouse & keyboard (or equivilant)
19" TFT.
Need everything really, including case.

Oh, another reason to why the dell was expensive, he had selected 2 raid 0 hard drives, and a backup. Capacity not a concern. To be fair, there were extensive load times in Morrowind so it was probably quite a good pick.

Can anyone help? Thanks

.

fini · 5 Mar 2006 at 15:03

Asus A8N-SLi Premium nForce4 SLi (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-111-AS) £104.95
Mushkin 2GB DDR XP4000 Redline Extreme Performance Dual Channel Kit (2x1GB) (991493) (MY-002-MK) £199.95
Seagate Barracuda 7200.8 300GB ST3300831A ATA-100 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-025-SE) £64.95
Logitech Cordless G7 Gaming-Grade Laser Mouse (KB-070-LG) £48.95
Dell Ultrasharp 1905FP 19" Performance LCD Monitor - Midnight Grey (MO-003-DE) £229.95
Akasa Eclipse-62 Aluminum Case (CA-005-AK) £69.95
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4400+ (Socket 939) - Retail (ADA4400CDBOX) (CP-127-AM) £284.95
BFG GeForce 7800 GTX OC 256MB GDDR3 VIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-009-BG) £279.95
Pioneer DVR-111DBK 16 x 16 DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter - (Black) OEM (CD-038-PO) £24.95
Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Fatal1ty FPS Edition - Retail (SC-032-CL) £119.93
Creative Inspire 7.1 T7900 Speakers - Retail (SP-039-CL) £66.95
Western Digital Raptor 36.7GB WD360GD 10,000RPM SATA 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-007-WD) £63.95
Tagan TG580-U22 580W ATX2.01 2Force SLi Compliant Silent PSU (CA-006-TG) £62.95
Subtotal £1,622.33
VAT £283.91
Total £1,906.24

You need to add a keyboard onto that cause I couldn't decide... Also I'd wait for the 7900's to come out - they'll cost basically the same.

fini

Explicit · 5 Mar 2006 at 15:13

AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4400+ (Socket 939) - Retail (ADA4400CDBOX) (CP-127-AM)
£334.82
Asus A8R32-MVP Deluxe Crossfire (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-131-AS)
£146.82
Mushkin 2GB DDR XP4000 Redline Extreme Performance Dual Channel Kit (2x1GB) (991493) (MY-002-MK)
£234.94
Connect3D ATI Radeon X1900 XT-X 512MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (3055) (GX-046-CO)
£381.82
Western Digital Raptor 74GB WD740GD 10,000RPM SATA 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-015-WD)
£110.39
Western Digital Caviar SE16 320GB 3200KS SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD-070-WD)
£93.94
NEC ND4551 16x16 DVD±RW Dual Layer LabelFlash ReWriter (Black) - OEM (CD-026-NE)
£32.84
Tagan TG580-U15 580W ATX2.01 Easycon SLi Compliant Modular Silent PSU (CA-009-TG)
£91.59
Antec P180 Advanced Super Midi Tower Case - No PSU (Silver) (CA-039-AN)
£93.94
Arctic Cooling Freezer 64 Pro CPU Cooler (Socket 754/939/940) (FG-000-AR)
£17.04
Acer AL2016Ws 20" Widescreen LCD Monitor - Black/Silver (MO-015-AC)
£287.82
Logitech Cordless Desktop S 510 - Black/Silver (KB-073-LG)
£41.07
Logitech Z-5400 THX® Certified 5.1 310 Watts Speakers - Retail (SP-035-LG)
£135.07

Total inc VAT: £2002.10

What a rig! :eek:

Larok · 5 Mar 2006 at 15:15

Shopping Cart (Prices in British Pounds)
REFERENCE DESCRIPTION QUANTITY PRICE COST
CP-150-AM AMD Athlon 64 3700+ San Diego 90nm (Socket 939) - OEM (CP-150-AM) 1
£122.95 £122.95
MB-111-AS Asus A8N-SLi Premium nForce4 SLi (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-111-AS) 1
£104.95 £104.95
MY-079-CS Corsair 2GB DDR XMS3200C2PT TwinX (2x1GB) CAS2 (MY-079-CS) 1
£124.95 £124.95
GX-033-OK OcUK GeForce 7800GTX SILENT Extreme 256MB GDDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) (GX-033-DE) 1
£219.95 £219.95
HD-015-WD Western Digital Raptor 74GB WD740GD 10,000RPM SATA 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-015-WD) 2
£93.95 £187.90
HD-046-WD Western Digital Caviar SE16 250GB 2500KS SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD-046-WD) 1
£60.95 £60.95
CA-014-TT Thermaltake VB1000SWS Soprano SuperMidi Tower - Silver (CA-014-TT) 1
£42.95 £42.95
CD-030-NE NEC ND4570 16x16 DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM (CD-030-NE) 1
£24.95 £24.95
HS-015-ZA Zalman CNPS9500-LED Aero Flower (Socket 939/754/478/775) CPU Cooler (HS-015-ZA) 1
£29.95 £29.95
SC-034-CL Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Music - Retail (SC-034-CL) 1
£69.95 £69.95
CA-025-EN Enermax Liberty 500W ELT500AWT ATX2.2 Modular SLI Compliant PSU (CA-025-EN) 1
£63.95 £63.95
AC-000-AC Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound (3.5g) (AC-000-AC) 1
£5.50 £5.50
SP-000-AE Acoustic Energy Aego M 2.1 Speakers (Black) - Retail (SP-000-AE) 1
£69.95 £69.95
KB-052-LG Logitech Cordless Internet Desktop Pro Black - OEM (KB-052-LG) 1
£19.95 £19.95
KB-070-LG Logitech Cordless G7 Gaming-Grade Laser Mouse (KB-070-LG) 1
£48.95 £48.95
MO-029-SA Samsung SM-930BF 19" LCD Monitor - Silver/Black (MO-029-SA) 1
£204.95 £204.95
Subtotal £1,402.70
Shipping (City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)) £54.45
VAT £255.01
Total £1,712.16

There's two raptors there for a raid config and a big HD for storage. It's a gaming screen, if you want to use it for movies maybe switch to the regular 930. Single core cpu does the job nicely, especially with a stable overclock. The GTX card should overclock decently also.

If you wanted to go for ATI the mobo and card specced by Explicit would be a good choice. Don't really like fans if I can help it tho.

KPeh · 5 Mar 2006 at 15:49

Wow, you are all fantastic

.

Just messing around with a mix of some of the above at the moment, but how do the graphics cards compare, the Radeon X1900 and the Geforce 7900? Would two WD 10k rpm drives be a lot louder than say two Seagate or Maxtor 7,200rpms?

Larok · 5 Mar 2006 at 15:59

Yes louder for sure, especially on a quiet rig. I run just one 7200rpm drive in a silent drive enclosure, with an external backup drive.

Explicit · 5 Mar 2006 at 16:14

KPeh said:
but how do the graphics cards compare, the Radeon X1900 and the Geforce 7900? Would two WD 10k rpm drives be a lot louder than say two Seagate or Maxtor 7,200rpms?

The 1900 is currently in a league of its own. The 7900 series isn't out yet, so we have no idea how it will line up against the 1900 cards. None of the 7800 series can even touch the 1900 series.

I would adivse getting one raptor for installing the OS, games, software etc because it has the benefit of being 10K rpm, which will really boost boot times, loading times etc. Then I would add a second drive designed for storage only. That seems to be the best solution for balancing speed, quietness and storage space.

The seagates are great drives, as are Hitachi and WD. But maxtor has gone downhill recently so I would be cautious if buying them.

KPeh · 5 Mar 2006 at 16:29

Explicit said:
The 1900 is currently in a league of its own. The 7900 series isn't out yet, so we have no idea how it will line up against the 1900 cards. None of the 7800 series can even touch the 1900 series.

I would adivse getting one raptor for installing the OS, games, software etc because it has the benefit of being 10K rpm, which will really boost boot times, loading times etc. Then I would add a second drive designed for storage only. That seems to be the best solution for balancing speed, quietness and storage space.

The seagates are great drives, as are Hitachi and WD. But maxtor has gone downhill recently so I would be cautious if buying them.

Yep, a single raptor sounds like the best idea, didn't know about the Maxtors though - thanks for that - they're the drives I usually purchase too.

Apparently the 7900 is out on Thursday, so I guess I'll see how it compares then.

MikeTimbers · 5 Mar 2006 at 16:44

It's actually not easy to beat the mega-corporations for price. The problem with them is that they are so proprietary usually that you will never be able to grow the system yourself. if you are the kind of buyer that buys a PC, runs it unchaged for four years then buys another complete new system, buying a mega-corp machine is not actually a bad deal usually. The support isn't terrible and the prices are hard to beat especially if you buy one from someone like OCUK!

The downside is that all is not usually what it seems. The TFT may only have a D-Sub rather than a DVI, the memory slots may be fully populated with slow RAM, the system may be loud or overheat under extended full load.

The rigs already listed above are all great specifications but are you going to build it for him? For free? Will you then support it for him? For free? What about a legal OS? What about some applications?

PieEater · 5 Mar 2006 at 19:10

MikeTimbers said:
The support isn't terrible

I agree with all of your comments however Dell's support is terrible and I would avoid them like the plague. There are other UK based companies who would be a better choice.

Having worked on and built PC's for a number of friends and family I would advise discussing the level of support they are expecting and agreeing what you would be willing to give. Being phoned up 2 or 3 times a day by someone who can't be bothered to RTFM will put a strain on any friendship. My father in law despite knowing I was ill in bed with the flu phoned me up at 10pm and said "my computer is saying it has a virus, it says "to safely remove the virus, click here", I don't know what to do" ..... :rolleyes:

Now I only do work for people who I know I will never hear from again, which basicly is no-one

Andre · 5 Mar 2006 at 20:00

Dont forget
Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition inc. SP2 - OEM (OS-001-MS) Price: £50.95 (£59.87 Including VAT at 17.5%)

and
1 NOD32 PC/Workstation Licence £23.00 (1 Yr), £35 (2yr) £46 (3yr)

on top of the quote provided - just so you can actually run the machine - unless you are running Linux

BigDom · 5 Mar 2006 at 20:47

This is a good solid spec, gives you all you wanted with room to spare and is very good price. Anything more cash IMO is a waste of money.

OS-002-MS Microsoft Windows XP Professional Edition inc. SP2 - OEM (OS-002-MS)
£81.95 £81.95
MB-129-AS Asus A8R-MVP Crossfire (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-129-AS)
£69.95 £69.95
MY-046-GL GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC3200 Value Dual Channel Kit CAS3 (GE2GB3200BDC) (MY-046-GL)
£99.95 £99.95
GX-060-PC PowerColor ATI Radeon X1900 XT 512MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-060-PC)
£309.95 £309.95
HD-015-WD Western Digital Raptor 74GB WD740GD 10,000RPM SATA 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-015-WD)
£93.95 £93.95
HD-018-SA Samsung SpinPoint P SP2504C 250GB SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-018-SA)
£54.95 £54.95
CD-028-NE NEC ND4551 16x16 DVD±RW Dual Layer LabelFlash ReWriter (Silver) - OEM (CD-028-NE)
£27.95 £27.95
CA-001-AR Arctic Cooling T2 Silentium Silent Midi Tower Case - 450W Seasonic Silent PSU (CA-001-AR)
£49.95 £49.95
MO-019-HY Hyundai ImageQuest L90D+ 19" LCD Monitor - Silver/Black (MO-019-HY)
£214.95 £214.95
CP-127-AM AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4400+ (Socket 939) - Retail (ADA4400CDBOX) (CP-127-AM)
£284.95 £284.95
KB-074-LG Logitech Cordless Desktop MX 3000 Laser - Retail (KB-074-LG)
£54.95 £54.95
SP-032-LG Logitech Z-4 2.1 40 Watts Speakers - Retail (SP-032-LG)
£44.95 £44.95
Subtotal £1,388.40
Shipping (City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)) £24.95
VAT £247.34
Total £1,660.69

KPeh · 5 Mar 2006 at 20:56

MikeTimbers said:
The rigs already listed above are all great specifications but are you going to build it for him? For free? Will you then support it for him? For free? What about a legal OS? What about some applications?

PieEater said:
Having worked on and built PC's for a number of friends and family I would advise discussing the level of support they are expecting and agreeing what you would be willing to give. Being phoned up 2 or 3 times a day by someone who can't be bothered to RTFM will put a strain on any friendship. My father in law despite knowing I was ill in bed with the flu phoned me up at 10pm and said "my computer is saying it has a virus, it says "to safely remove the virus, click here", I don't know what to do" .....

Heh, have done. Specified I don't want to be tech support for life, and when there's something he can google to solve, he knows to do it

. Also he assures me that he will regularly format, and is anyway a very good friend of mine. So no problems there! I have learnt from past experience & mistakes

.

Is the OEM windows ok? Seem to remember some problems about updating OEM versions, or somesuch. That was ages ago and refering to win2k I think.

And is Nod32 a good virus scanner? I was just going to stick AVG on it!

p4radox · 5 Mar 2006 at 21:59

I'd get this:

Antec Sonata II Piano Black Quiet Case - 450W Smart Power PSU (CA-040-AN)
£65.95 £65.95
Hyundai ImageQuest B90A 19" LCD Monitor (MO-027-HY)
£184.95 £184.95
DFI LanParty UT NF4 Ultra-D (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-014-DF)
£79.95 £79.95
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4400+ (Socket 939) - Retail (ADA4400CDBOX) (CP-127-AM)
£284.95 £284.95
G.Skill 2GB DDR ZX PC3200 (2x1GB) CAS2 Dual Channel Kit (F1-3200PHU2-2GBZX) (MY-007-GS)
£129.95 £129.95
MSI ATI Radeon X1900 XT 512MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-060-MS)
£289.95 £289.95
Hitachi Deskstar T7K250 NCQ 250GB SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM (0A31636) (HD-002-HI)
£63.95 £63.95
NEC ND4551 16x16 DVD±RW Dual Layer LabelFlash ReWriter (Black) - OEM (CD-026-NE)
£27.95 £27.95
Samsung SH-D162 DVD-ROM (Black) - OEM (CD-002-SA)
£11.95 £11.95
Thermaltake Big Typhoon 4 in 1 Heatpipe (Socket 939/754/775/478) CPU Cooler (CL-P0114) (HS-007-TT)
£21.95 £21.95
Seasonic S12 500W Silent ATX2.0 Power Supply (CA-001-SS)
£75.95 £75.95
Creative GigaWorks 5.1 G500 THX® Pro Gamer Speakers - Retail (SP-067-CL)
£125.95 £125.95
Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Music - Retail (SC-034-CL)
£69.95 £69.95
Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition inc. SP2 - OEM (OS-001-MS)
£50.95 £50.95
Subtotal £1,484.30
VAT £259.76
Total £1,744.06

KPeh · 9 Mar 2006 at 16:14

Just sorting out the final spec at the moment, with my last question I hope

! Is PC3200 the normal speed ram for the X2 4400+? So PC4000 would only be useful if it were overclocked..?

Street · 9 Mar 2006 at 16:57

KPeh said:
And is Nod32 a good virus scanner? I was just going to stick AVG on it!

Yeh I would stick either Nod32 or Kaspersky on it myself. Don't really rate AVG, used to use it... but then I suppose it is free so you can't complain. Have just switched from Nod32 to Kaspersky and I feel Kaspersky is the better virus checker.

KPeh said:
Is PC3200 the normal speed ram for the X2 4400+? So PC4000 would only be useful if it were overclocked..?

Yeh spot on

KPeh · 10 Mar 2006 at 02:23

Right, finally got it sorted, based it heavily on Explict's model.. I guess I want to know if there are any conflicts etc. I'm assuming PCI cards are backwards compatible with PCI-Express slots. Or do the motherboards also have PCI slots (really out of date with this stuff, as I said!).

Anyway:
-------
CPU/motherboard/ram/graphics:
-------
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4400+ (Socket 939) - Retail (ADA4400CDBOX) (CP-127-AM)
£284.95 (£334.82)
Asus A8R32-MVP Deluxe Crossfire (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-131-AS)
£119.95 (£140.94)
Corsair 2GB DDR XMS3200C2PT TwinX (2x1GB) CAS2 (MY-079-CS)
£124.95 (£146.82)
Connect3D ATI Radeon X1900 XT-X 512MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (3055) (GX-046-CO)
£294.95 (£346.57)

£824.80 (£969.15)
------
Power supply/Sound card/Primary Hard Drive/Secondary Hard Drive
------
Tagan TG580-U15 580W ATX2.01 Easycon SLi Compliant Modular Silent PSU (CA-009-TG)
Price: £77.95 (£91.59) [Out of stock at the moment, change it to a FSB one if they don't get any in]
Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Music - Retail (SC-034-CL)
Price: £69.95 (£82.19)
Western Digital Raptor 74GB WD740GD 10,000RPM SATA 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-015-WD)
£93.95 (£110.39)
Seagate Barracuda 7200.8 NCQ 300GB ST3300831AS SATA 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-021-SE)
£67.95 (£79.84)

£309.80 (£364.01)
-----
Case/monitor/Fans
-----
Akasa Eclipse-62 Aluminum Case (CA-005-AK)
£66.95 (£78.67)
Samsung SM-940B 19" LCD Monitor - Black/Silver (MO-032-SA)
£204.95 (£240.82)
Vantec SF12025L Stealth 120mm fan - Retail (FG-005-VT) x2
£7.95 (£9.34) x2 = £15.90 (£18.68)

£287.80 (£338.17)
------
Peripheral bits: Keyboard&Mouse/Mouse mat/DVD-RW drive/DVD drive/Artic Silver/Semi UPS/DVI cable/Windows/TV Tuner/Wireless network card
------
Logitech diNovo Laser Media Desktop - Retail (KB-076-LG)
£104.95 (£123.32)
Everglide Ricochet 2.52 - Black (GS-016-EV)
£23.95 (£28.14)
NEC ND4570 16x16 DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM (CD-030-NE)
£24.95 (£29.32)
Sony DDU-1615 DVD-ROM (Black) - OEM (CD-020-SO)
£10.95 (£12.87)
Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound (3.5g) (AC-000-AC)
£5.50 (£6.46)
Belkin 500VA Superior Series Emergency Battery Backup (F6H500UKUNV) (UP-010-BE)
£17.95 (£21.09 Including VAT at 17.5%)
Belkin Pro Series DVI Cable 3M (F2E4141EA10-DD) (CB-127-BE)
£19.95 (£23.44 Including VAT at 17.5%)
Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition inc. SP2 - OEM (OS-001-MS)
£50.95 (£59.87)
Hauppauge WinTV HVR-1100 Freeview TV Tuner (GX-025-HA)
£42.95 (£50.47)
Belkin F5D7000UK 802.11g Wireless PCI Adapter (NW-007-BE)
£16.95 (£19.92)

£319.05 (£374.88)
-----

Total (without VAT): £1741.45
Total (with VAT): £2046.20

-----

Thanks very much people, you've been a fantastic help

.

ajgoodfellow · 10 Mar 2006 at 04:00

That's a good choice of components

The motherboard has PCI slots so you'll be able to use your sound card etc without a problem

Go for an Antec or Enermax PSU over the Tagan and go for the Western Digital SATA II 16MB cache drive over the Seagate as it's faster

There's nothing wrong with buying an OEM copy of windows - it'll work just like the retail version

I'd recommend Avast as the anti-virus checker - it's free and better than AVG from my experience (had both)

ACESHIGH · 10 Mar 2006 at 12:33

Thats a very good spec.
X2 4400+ has to be the pic of dual core CPU's at present.

As above, slight changes could be made based on personal preferances really.
But everything looks good to me.

The only thing is, that imo Avast is not very good, as it seems to impact system performance adversely more so than say Norton Antivirus or PC-Cillin.

AFK_Matrix · 10 Mar 2006 at 13:35

Just 2 things I would point out mate.

I am 99% sure that you will get a DVI cable with your monitor, if you like go to the monitor forum and ask there.

And second I would recommend that you think about purchasing this:

APC Back-UPS ES BF500UK 500VA 350W (UP-010-AP)
Or
APC Back-UPS CS 500VA USB/Serial 230V (UP-000-AP)

Over what you have:

Belkin 500VA Superior Series Emergency Battery Backup (F6H500UKUNV) (UP-010-BE)

Mainly becuase you are running a high end rig and also becuase of this thread: Belkin UPS Thread Needs to be Read

I have a APC Server sized UPS and tbh they are the proper deal and there the leading company in UPS's.