take the £500 challenge

bigfred · 21 Jul 2006 at 16:31

ok, here's the deal....

the wife is pregnant, so i got to spend some money whilst i have the chance!!! I want a new setup, but fund are pretty limited at the minute.. so i thought i woud make a start... Ultimately i am after a good gaming setup... but it is something that i will have to build on over the next 6 months or so...

i have £500 right now, so i reckon that i can get most of what i need less the graphics card and a fancy audio card...

so if someone could have ago at specking me a system... speed and storage as high as i can afford.

REMEMBER I DONT WANT TO GET GRAPHICS CARD OR AUDIO CARD RIGHT NOW
hope this makes sense... let me know if you want me to alaborate on this more.....

thanks a lot....

bigfred.

i've come up with this one.... not sure what fan to get though?

MB-101-AS Asus A8N-SLi SE nForce4 SLi (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-101-AS)
£56.95 £56.95
CP-134-AM AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 3800+ (Socket 939) - Retail (ADA3800BVBOX) (CP-134-AM)
£99.95 £99.95
MY-006-OK OcUK Value 2GB (2x1GB) PC3200 184pin DDR Memory Dual Channel Kit (MY-006-OK)
£99.95 £99.95
HD-070-WD Western Digital Caviar SE16 320GB 3200KS SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD-070-WD)
£63.95 £63.95
CA-012-OK OcUK Value Estar 7799 Case With 400W PSU (CA-012-OK)
£25.30 £25.30
CD-045-LG LG GSA-H10NBAL 16x16 DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM (CD-043-LG)
£20.50 £20.50
Subtotal £366.60
VAT £64.16
Total £430.76

Stelly · 21 Jul 2006 at 16:51

Ok so you have nothing not even a monitor or keyboard??

Stelly

bigfred · 21 Jul 2006 at 16:54

sorry should have said.... i do have monitor keyboard and mouse.....

am running old P4 at the minute....

Skilty · 21 Jul 2006 at 16:56

So I take it you've already got a graphics card, if so is it AGP or PCI-Express?

As Stelly said you have a keyboard etc already?

bigfred · 21 Jul 2006 at 16:57

i do... at the minute i am using a ATI radeon (PCI).. i will upgrade this later on once i have the funds.

Stelly · 21 Jul 2006 at 16:58

Do you want to keep with your old monitor for now?

Stelly

bigfred · 21 Jul 2006 at 16:58

i will be.... just the the tower and its inners that i am after...

Skilty · 21 Jul 2006 at 17:15

How about the kit below, gives you more upgrade opportunites later etc if you can spare an extra £15 go for the DS4 board.

Intel Core 2 DUO E6300 "LGA775 Conroe" 1.86GHz (1066FSB) - OEM (CP-135-IN) - £114.95
Gigabyte GA_965P_DS3 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard (MB-061-GI) - £94.95
G.Skill 2GB DDR2 NR PC2-6400 (2x1GB) CAS5 Dual Channel Kit (F2-6400PHU2-2GBNR) (MY-014-GS) - £105.95
Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 320GB ST3320620AS SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD-078-SE) - £62.95
OcUK Value Estar 7799 Case With 400W PSU (CA-012-OK) - £25.30
LG GSA-H10NBAL 16x16 DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM (CD-043-LG) - £20.50

Subtotal £424.60
VAT £74.31
Total £498.91

Here are some gaming benchmarks for the E6300, beats the X2 3800+ each time:

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2795&p=14
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2795&p=15
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2795&p=16

bigfred · 21 Jul 2006 at 17:23

thanks a lot skilty, looks good to me.... i will need to add a fan to that, are they universal, or will i need a specific type?

again, thanks very much for your help..

GhostRider · 21 Jul 2006 at 17:26

CP-135-IN Intel Core 2 DUO E6300 "LGA775 Conroe" 1.86GHz (1066FSB) - OEM (CP-135-IN)
£114.95 £114.95
MB-003-AK Asrock ConroeXFire-eSATA2 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard (MB-003-AK)
£51.95 £51.95
CA-007-EN Enermax Noisetaker 485W EG495AX-VE(G) SFMA ATX2.0 PSU (CA-007-EN)
£49.95 £49.95
CA-020-AK Akasa AK-ZEN-01-BK Zen Black Case (CA-020-AK)
£27.95 £27.95
MY-012-GS G.Skill 2GB DDR2 LA PC2-5400 (2x1GB) CAS4 Dual Channel Kit (F2-5400PHU2-2GBLA) (MY-012-GS)
£91.95 £91.95
HD-078-SE Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 320GB ST3320620AS SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD-078-SE)
£62.95 £62.95
CD-078-SA Samsung SH-S182D 18x18 DVD±RW ReWriter (Black) (CD-078-SA)
£20.95 £20.95
Subtotal £420.65
VAT £73.62
Total £494.27

Here is a spec like yours with no GPU

I def think about the adding a better PSU and conroe is proccessor in demand

Skilty · 21 Jul 2006 at 17:29

bigfred said:
thanks a lot skilty, looks good to me.... i will need to add a fan to that, are they universal, or will i need a specific type?

again, thanks very much for your help..

Might want to swap the CPU for:

Intel Core 2 DUO E6300 "LGA775 Conroe" 1.86GHz (1066FSB) - Retail (CP-126-IN) - £129.95

It includes the retail heatsink and fan.

Get someone else to double check the spec on here but on your budget thats what I would be going for. Can chuck an E6600 when they come down in price etc.

In theory you should have some overclocking room on the E6300 as well.

Skilty · 21 Jul 2006 at 17:30

GhostRider said:
CP-135-IN Intel Core 2 DUO E6300 "LGA775 Conroe" 1.86GHz (1066FSB) - OEM (CP-135-IN)
£114.95 £114.95
MB-003-AK Asrock ConroeXFire-eSATA2 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard (MB-003-AK)
£51.95 £51.95
CA-007-EN Enermax Noisetaker 485W EG495AX-VE(G) SFMA ATX2.0 PSU (CA-007-EN)
£49.95 £49.95
CA-020-AK Akasa AK-ZEN-01-BK Zen Black Case (CA-020-AK)
£27.95 £27.95
MY-012-GS G.Skill 2GB DDR2 LA PC2-5400 (2x1GB) CAS4 Dual Channel Kit (F2-5400PHU2-2GBLA) (MY-012-GS)
£91.95 £91.95
HD-078-SE Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 320GB ST3320620AS SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD-078-SE)
£62.95 £62.95
CD-078-SA Samsung SH-S182D 18x18 DVD±RW ReWriter (Black) (CD-078-SA)
£20.95 £20.95
Subtotal £420.65
VAT £73.62
Total £494.27

Here is a spec like yours with no GPU

I def think about the adding a better PSU and conroe is proccessor in demand

Forgot that OcUK are selling Asrock now