Value for Money Challenge

[phoo]

This is a challenge to try and find the best value for money PC's (at stock and for overclockability) using parts from OCUK. This means there are two seperate challenges, one for best value for money stock and best value for money overclockable machine.

You need to include:
-Case
-Fan
-Memory
-Hard Drive
-Graphics Card
-Processor
-PSU
-DVD drive(s)
Plus any other accessories you think add value for money to your selection.

There is no need to include operating system (or any other software), peripherals or a screen, just the base unit. The PC must be able to cope with a range of different activities, it has to be well rounded enough to play games with nice frames per second as well as act as a good work station, for example.

While strictly speaking there is no budget, this is measuring value for money not pure power, and as a guideline under £1500 and over £600 seems fair to me to get a fair spec for an excellent price!

I'll post my entry later on when i've finalized my own opinion but for now, Good luck!

-phoo

 

[semi-pro waster]

Welcome to the forums, the first specification offers pretty good value for money and decent overall performance as well as a limited amount of overclocking potential although a bigger hard drive might be a good idea.

CP-135-IN Intel Core 2 DUO E6300 "LGA775 Allendale" 1.86GHz (1066FSB) - OEM (CP-135-IN)
£99.99 £99.99
MB-004-AK Asrock Conroe945G-DVI (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard (MB-004-AK)
£45.99 £45.99
MY-034-GL GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC5300 667MHz Value DDR2 Dual Channel Kit (GX22GB5300DC) (MY-034-GL)
£139.99 £139.99
HS-021-AR Arctic Cooling Alpine 7 CPU Cooler (Socket 775) (HS-021-AR)
£5.99 £5.99
HD-023-SA Samsung SpinPoint P HD080HJ 80GB SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-023-SA)
£25.99 £25.99
CD-042-NE NEC AD5170 18x18 DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter (Silver) - OEM (CD-042-NE)
£18.99 £18.99
CA-052-AN Antec NSK4400 Mini Tower Case - 380W SmartPower PSU (CA-052-AN)
£42.99 £42.99
GX-025-BG BFG 3DFuzion GeForce 7600 GT 256MB GDDR3 TV-Out/DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-025-BG)
£84.99 £84.99
Subtotal £464.92
VAT £81.37
Total £546.29

This one is closer to high end but still with some regard to value for money, the EVGA 680 based motherboard might be better for overclocking but I don't know much about it yet. I haven't gone for a 8800 graphics card as I don't think they offer quite enough in the way of value for money(e.g. I couldn't justify spending the better part of £500 on a single graphics card). Other than that you could go for a second hard drive.

CP-128-IN Intel Core 2 DUO E6600 "LGA775 Conroe" 2.40GHz (1066FSB) - Retail (CP-128-IN)
£194.99 £194.99
HS-000-SB Tuniq Tower 120 CPU Cooler (HS-000-SB)
£28.99 £28.99
MB-062-GI Gigabyte GA_965P_DS4 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard (MB-062-GI)
£104.99 £104.99
MY-058-GL GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC6400C4 800MHz Ultra Low Latency DDR2 Dual Channel Kit (GX22GB6400UDC) (MY-058-GL)
£169.99 £169.99
CA-005-AK Akasa Eclipse 62 Aluminium Case - No PSU (CA-005-AK)
£69.99 £69.99
CA-004-CS Corsair HX 620W ATX2.2 Modular SLI Compliant PSU (CMPSU-620HXUK) (CA-004-CS)
£99.99 £99.99
CD-044-NE NEC AD7170A 18x18 DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM (CD-044-NE)
£19.99 £19.99
HD-078-SE Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 320GB ST3320620AS SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD-078-SE)
£62.99 £62.99
GX-050-CO Connect3D ATI Radeon X1950 XT-X SILENT Heatpipe 512MB GDDR4 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-050-CO)
£249.99 £249.99
SC-044-CL Creative X-Fi Xtreme Gamer Fatal1ty Professional Soundcard - Retail (SC-044-CL)
£85.99 £85.99
Subtotal £1,087.90
VAT £190.39
Total £1,278.29

 

[phoo]

Hi.

Thanks for fast reply keep them coming. That's a very nice set of components you have on both PC's. The first one is slightly underbudget (rarity that ^^) so might want to beef up that graphics card a bit? Other than that very nice.

Here's what i came up with:

CP-135-IN Intel Core 2 DUO E6300 "LGA775 Allendale" 1.86GHz (1066FSB) - OEM (CP-135-IN) 1
£99.99 £99.99
CA-041-AN Antec Titan 550 Tower Case - 550w TruePower PSU (CA-041-AN) 1
£96.50 £96.50
MB-061-GI Gigabyte GA_965P_DS3 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard (MB-061-GI) 1
£89.99 £89.99
MY-034-GL GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC5300 667MHz Value DDR2 Dual Channel Kit (GX22GB5300DC) (MY-034-GL) 1
£139.99 £139.99
GX-134-SP Sapphire ATI Radeon X1950 Pro 256MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-134-SP) 1
£111.99 £111.99
CD-047-LG LG GSA-H22NBAL 18x18 DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) (CD-047-LG) 1
£19.99 £19.99
HD-078-SE Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 320GB ST3320620AS SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD-078-SE) 1
£62.99 £62.99
Subtotal £621.44
VAT £108.76
TOTAL £730.20

Nearer the middle ground of yours, this is designed to be ran at stock but overclocking is open(ish) as an option.