V. cheap PC system.

fobose

fobose

fobose

Soldato
Joined
6 Dec 2005
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Location
Cambridge, UK.
Right, bros laptop is on the fritz - keeps turning itself off as it gets to hot (96c in everest stability check and drops to 82c when speed step thingy kicks in and back up to 96c again) - tried putting some AS5 on the heat sink but not luck (it dropped the temps about 5c idle but still gets up to 96C).

Anyway. I want to build my bro a V.cheap PC, as in <£250 really.

This is what I have come up with:

Asrock 4CoreDual-VSTA £38.18
Intel Core 2 Duo E4300 £72.72 - thought about the E2140 for even more cheapness.
Antec Sonata II w/ 450w PSU £62.26

Total: £173.16 inc vat.

Already have:
Gigabyte 6600GT Passive
4x256mb KHX PC3200 (Can only use 2 with the asrock board though)
Nec 2500A DVDRW
100GB PATA (I think) Laptop hard drive - not sure if this will work though?
Can get a keyb + mouse too.

Monitor wise... I dont have a spare any more so maybe a 19" WS for £100?

What do you guys think?
 
Cool, I like your thinking E2160 it is. Personally I am not keen on the case but will show my bruv and see what he thinks about it - he might not like the sonata tho lol.

That'll save atleast £20 which is a reasonable amount, and a futher £20 odd if he gets the cheaper case ;D - I have a feeling I will be buying all of this for his bday (and he is an older brother lol).

<edit>

Asrock 4CoreDual-VSTA VIA PT880 Ultra, S775, AGP / PCI-E, DDR ** Please see Tech specs ** £32.49 £38.18

Intel Core 2 Duo E2160, Socket 775, 1.8 GHz, 800MHz FSB, Conroe Core, 2x 512KB Cache, Retail £49.18 £57.79

Antec Sonata II Case in Piano Black with 450w aPFC PSU £57.28 £67.30

17" Hanns-G HW173D Silver/Black Widescreen LCD, 1440x900, 500:1, 8 ms, VESA

Total: £264.59

Not bad, 17" WS monitor is a bit.....small though but bigger than a 15" laptop screen.
 
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DDR2 is so cheap for 1gb (~£20 for suitable PC5300) that I'd probably forget all about the PC3200 you have, maybe flog it off in the MM for someone with an old system.

Other than that it looks fine for a cheap system. :)
 
p4radox said:
I'd go for the E2160, great little chips.

You could get away with this case to save some more cash:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-052-AN&groupid=701&catid=7&subcat=160

Then I think you should really try and get a bit more RAM. 512mb is not a lot in a modern system, especially paired with a Core 2 Duo.
Click to expand...


Agreed with the case,

I have one of the antex NSK4400's here currently used as my parents pc.

The only reason I don't use it is due to the placement of the power connector on my motherboard, the hard drive bays and the length of my 8800GTS.

As a side note the PSU is very good that comes with the case and has no issues powering a 8800GTS OC with an overclocked E4300 based system.
 
Cool :O Your right, will have to flog the DDR and get some DDRII for that price. - Thinking of using a 500gb seagate 7200.9 for the HDD now to (its currently a backup drive in an enclosure), could try and stick the laptop drive in it instead ;)
 
Yup, I read lots of reviews from what people had said on here last year when it first came out - my eyes popped out my head when I saw the £82 price tag, then I realised after about 5mins it was the 17" model lol :(
 
You're on the right track, i've been posting in a lot of threads about that CPU/motherboard combo...it's perfect for people like us who still have IDE/AGP/DDR1...I've overclocked my CPU (e2160) 50% with no problems whatsoever..I do have an Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 pro heatsink, but if you look in the e2160 overclocking and the dual-vsta motherboard threads, this guy named Camelot achieved the same overclock as me with the stock intel heatsink and fan.

because of that I had to raise my FSB to 305 to beat him :P J/k
 
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