System around £400. Should I go C2D?

[tfboy]

I'm building a budgetish system for a friend.
Around £400 for the base unit

He has no need for decent graphics, but would rather have fast CPU / RAM for multitasking in general windows stuff. MP3 / possibly DVD ripping, etc.

Question is, at around that price point, you can just about get a C2D, however, I think I'd have to limit myself to 1GB RAM. And if I go for 1GB RAM, should I get it in a single stick with a vue to upgrade when another £70-80 allows or should I get two matched 512MB sticks.

Are there compatibility / stability / speed issues (1T?) if running with 4 sticks on a C2D system?

I know A64 benefit a bit from dual channel RAM, but I'm at a lost with C2D systems.

Specs so far are, using Scan to price it up:

Antec NSK6500 ATX super midi with 430W £74
Asus P5B iG965 mobo (uATX, onboard VGA) £83
Intel C2D E6300 £117
.
.
.
250GB Samsung SP2504C spinpoint drive £49
Sony AW-G170AB2 Black DVD+-RW £20

The other possibility is scrapping completely the C2D system and either go for an A64 or something else to save on mobo/cpu combo and have more money elsewhere.


Any suggestions? Anything I should really change?

Cheers

[starbuck_]

Will you friend be overclocking? Does this price include an OS (XP/Vista), Monitor/Mouse Keyboard etc.?

If 400 doesnt include these then a C2D system would be the way to go.

A place to start, maybe:

[tfboy]

No overclocking in mind.

OS and everything doesn't need to be in the £400, he's already bought an OEM copy of XP on his previous build and this box is replacing his older 2yr old PC.

I think I'll go for the A64 one as he'd like to add a second optical drive for direct CD copying and a card reader. It's only £20 but it eats into the budget.

[excalibur2]

Originally Posted by tfboy

I'm building a budgetish system for a friend.
Around £400 for the base unit

He has no need for decent graphics, but would rather have fast CPU / RAM for multitasking in general windows stuff. MP3 / possibly DVD ripping, etc.

Question is, at around that price point, you can just about get a C2D, however, I think I'd have to limit myself to 1GB RAM. And if I go for 1GB RAM, should I get it in a single stick with a vue to upgrade when another £70-80 allows or should I get two matched 512MB sticks.

Are there compatibility / stability / speed issues (1T?) if running with 4 sticks on a C2D system?

I know A64 benefit a bit from dual channel RAM, but I'm at a lost with C2D systems.

Specs so far are, using Scan to price it up:

Antec NSK6500 ATX super midi with 430W £74
Asus P5B iG965 mobo (uATX, onboard VGA) £83
Intel C2D E6300 £117
.
.
.
250GB Samsung SP2504C spinpoint drive £49
Sony AW-G170AB2 Black DVD+-RW £20

The other possibility is scrapping completely the C2D system and either go for an A64 or something else to save on mobo/cpu combo and have more money elsewhere.


Any suggestions? Anything I should really change?

Cheers

Well if it's going to be a basic E6300 computer with no over clocking, why bother building one, you can get for example a Mesh elite E6300 gs with monitor and windows Xp and all goodies for £599, and without monitor £467......... all with a 3 year basic warranty. Of course extra is the delivery charge but then think of the time you will spend getting the parts and building the computer.

http://www.meshcomputers.com/Default...UCT&KEY=116787

[tfboy]

Ah thanks for that.

I've swapped the Antec case for the 4400 as it saves a few quid and he doesn't need firewire or audio at the front...

I suppose I could overclock slightly

I hadn't noticed that bundled 6300 + 512MB RAM + 200GB Maxtor drive offer. Sounds like a plan, but I'm not sure if I can convince myself to buy a Maxtor drive after I had constant failed drives (admittedly the diamondmax 9 series).

Forgive my ignorance, but if I wanted to slightly overclock a C2D system, can I still have memory dividers so RAM can stay at normal speeds whilst I increase the FSB / HTT / whatever-Intel-call-it-nowadays ?

[kalniel]

Yep.

Consider the asrock conroe motherboards as well to save a bit more money, perhaps to be put towards more ram.

[tfboy]

Originally Posted by kalniel

Yep.

Consider the asrock conroe motherboards as well to save a bit more money, perhaps to be put towards more ram.

Hmm. the only decentish Asrock board is on the i945 chipset. Whilst the Asrock CONROE945G-DVI gives dual head support, the PCIe is 4 lanes only so if ever he did want to upgrade to a dedicated GPU, it's probably not a good solution. I'll continue searching for a few more reviews (found one so far). If I were to go conroe to be able to o/c a bit, I'd better make sure the board offers some useful tweakability

The firewire also goes, although he doesn't have any immediate use and you can always throw in a PCI firewire card later

[kalniel]

Originally Posted by tfboy

Hmm. the only decentish Asrock board is on the i945 chipset. Whilst the Asrock CONROE945G-DVI gives dual head support, the PCIe is 4 lanes only so if ever he did want to upgrade to a dedicated GPU, it's probably not a good solution.

You must be thinking of a different model. That one is full 16x speed.

[tfboy]

Originally Posted by kalniel

You must be thinking of a different model. That one is full 16x speed.

I mis-read the info. The slot is full 16x speed, but the DVI card that plugs into it is only 4x.