£300 budget PC - realistic?

[willgar]

My current rig - a lovely shuttle SB61g2 (oh so quiet...) happily plays my rather sedate gaming collection of BF2, WOW, CIV4 and Total War with its P4 2.8ghz CPU, 1Gb of ram and a AGP (shudder) ATI 1600pro. Unfortunetly, a recent BF2 mod (Project reality .6) has highlighted its age and my need to to upgrade.

With a wife, kid and morgage my budget is somewhat stretched but after carefull consideration i have come up with this:

Barebone case / Asus V3-P5V900, S775 - £65
CPU / Intel Core 2 Duo E4300, Socket 775, 1.80 GHz - £75
Ram / 2x 1Gb Corsair XMS2, DDR2 PC5400 (667) - £60
Gfx / XFX 7900GT-256Mb £72

I plan to use my existing hard disk (dont want to have to re-install everything) and i have been told Win2k is forgiving in having its hardware transplanted. For a sub 300 barebones unit - are there any substitution you folks can recommend? will i need a seperate heatsink? and is the 250w power supply in the Asus Vintage case adequate for my requirements (i only have 1 hard disk / dvd to add to the above)

Any advice gratefully received,

Will

[badass]

My current rig - a lovely shuttle SB61g2 (oh so quiet...) happily plays my rather sedate gaming collection of BF2, WOW, CIV4 and Total War with its P4 2.8ghz CPU, 1Gb of ram and a AGP (shudder) ATI 1600pro. Unfortunetly, a recent BF2 mod (Project reality .6) has highlighted its age and my need to to upgrade.

With a wife, kid and morgage my budget is somewhat stretched but after carefull consideration i have come up with this:

Barebone case / Asus V3-P5V900, S775 - £65
CPU / Intel Core 2 Duo E4300, Socket 775, 1.80 GHz - £75
Ram / 2x 1Gb Corsair XMS2, DDR2 PC5400 (667) - £60
Gfx / XFX 7900GT-256Mb £72

I plan to use my existing hard disk (dont want to have to re-install everything) and i have been told Win2k is forgiving in having its hardware transplanted. For a sub 300 barebones unit - are there any substitution you folks can recommend? will i need a seperate heatsink? and is the 250w power supply in the Asus Vintage case adequate for my requirements (i only have 1 hard disk / dvd to add to the above)

Any advice gratefully received,

Will

If windows 2000 is too much of a pain when you change the hardware, perform a repair install on it (boot off the CD, select install on the same parition etc and you will be asked if you want to repair it.

[willgar]

Thank you

[mrt9888]

You could use the cheaper kingston RAM posted in the bargains thread http://www.play.com/PC/PCs/4-/327479...m/Product.html

[s_kinton]

You could save alot on the ram. Also, I wouldnt bother with 2000. Just go with XP if you have it.

[Biscuit]

Check power supply requirements here
http://www.extreme.outervision.com/PSUEngine
not sure exactly what your entire system would be but it looks like a 250w power supply would be pushing it a little, especially considering it wont be a particualy good one.

does it have to be small form factor? are you really intent on moving to C2D? because on such a tight budget i would probably go with AM2 AMD with the prices sooo cheap. The differences will be extremely minimal and you will able to afford a decent power supply therefore removing the risk of the power supply with that asus case not working. Here is what i specced up @ scan

AMD AM2 Athlon 64 3800+ £42.88
256Mb XFX 7900GT £71.66
Abit NF-M2S £34.30
2GB (2x1GB) CorsairTwinX XMS2, DDR2 PC2-6400 £67.73
Akasa Zen Case £28.78
430W Enermax Coolergiant £38.72

Carriage £10.80

Total £296.75

Some of these items are not in stock atm but could be replaced with similar items. If you did want to go uATX then just find a uATX mobo and case instead of the ones i stated, only thing i would point out is some of them can be a bit of a b*tch to work with.

Edit - If you really are intent on going barebones then

Asus V3-M2NC61S £69.09

New total - £263.02

or

Asus TM-210 Black/Silver MicroATX £23.48
380W Tagan TG380-U01 £37.47
Asus M2V-MX £33.78

New Total - £288.66

These last 2 options leave a bit of space for better CPU/GFX/Power supply... or to buy the wife somthing nice to make up for your purchase

(sorry i got caried away with all the options)

[willgar]

Thank you Biscuit.

Going to go check out your suggestion. Although, i have read such great reviews on the e4300 and e4400 cpu (and i would like to stick with Intel - past good experiances). Having had power supply's die on me before, i am going to revise my spec based on your suggestions.

One thing though - do i need a seperate chip cooler?

[Steve B]

One thing though - do i need a seperate chip cooler?

If you're not going to be doing any overclocking, the standard intel HSF will be fine.
Also, most of the overclocking coolers are huge (read: gimungous) and probably wont fit into a barebones case like some of the asus ones (too small, heightweise)

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I specced this system from Scan:

LN19292
AMD AM2 Athlon 64 4400+ Windsor Core, Dual Core 2.3GHz, 2x 512KB Cache, Energy Eff'' Retail £47.59 £55.92
LN12201
2Gb (2X1Gb) Corsair Value Select, DDR2 PC5300 (667), 240 Pin, Non-ECC Unbuffered, CAS 5-5-5-15 £43.53 £51.15
LN13627
256Mb XFX 7900GT Mem 1320 MHz, GPU 450 MHz, 24 Pipes, Dual DVI-I £60.99 £71.66
LN18287
Gigabyte GA MA69VM-S2, AMD 690V, AM2, PCI-E (x16), DDR2 400/533/667/800, SATA II, uATX £31.70 £37.25
LN16909
Antec NSK6500 uATX/ATX Super Mid Tower, has Hi-Efficiency 430W ATX12v v2.0 PSU £51.99 £61.09



Net Total £235.80

Carriage £10.66

V.A.T. £43.13

TOTAL £289.59

[badger]

Will, the answer is obvious. You must sell your wife and child to pay for a new computer. Just think what kind of rig you could get then.

[Lucio]

Actually, the unit my friend bought was v. nearly a complete PC and came to £210ish, if you ask Yoyotech for a bundle price you should get a similar deal.

EZ Pack Cube Case - 34870 - £46.88
aBit Fatal1ty F-I90HD - 52050 - £71.22
E2160 1.8GHz Processor - 74678 - £54.82
2 GB OCZ Value RAM PC6400 - 14588 - £53.72

Total is 226.64 inc VAT (at site prices)

It gets a reasonable FPS in World of Warcraft (40-60fps @ 1152x864 resolution). If you want to run more recent games, you can always chuck in a GFx card (either now or at a later stage). A popular one at this sort of price range (keeping with ATi to save headaches), is the X1950 PRO, which you're looking at approx £100 to get (depending on brand).

One thing you may find reusing the exsisting HDD is that Windows won't run if you're switching processor type (e.g. from AMD to Intel) and you'll need to wipe everything off.

[willgar]

Thank you all for the help: Went over my £300 budget by £50 (dam u VAT man...) and went for this spec, arriving Tuesday from Ebuyer.

Arctic Cooling Silentium T2 Pro Mid Tower Case - With 550W PSU £42.39
Asus P5B-VM Socket 775 I965G £54.24
Intel E4400 Socket 775 2x2.00GHz 800MHz FSB £70.81
Sapphire X1950Pro 256MB GDDR3 Graphics Card £71.93
Kingston 2GB KIT £41.82

Couple of things which influenced my mind was the comments on PSU i had read on this site; the MB had firewire (i already have a lovely FW based backup drive) and although ugly - the articcooling case case has had some nice reviews. Anyway, as the first machine i have built in nearly 7 years since my monster Tiger Dual Athlon MP monster in a Lian Li case (oh happy days of obscene PC spending) - i am almost excited to see how it goes....

Regards,

Will

[willgar]

Actually, the unit my friend bought was v. nearly a complete PC and came to £210ish, if you ask Yoyotech for a bundle price you should get a similar deal.

EZ Pack Cube Case - 34870 - £46.88
aBit Fatal1ty F-I90HD - 52050 - £71.22
E2160 1.8GHz Processor - 74678 - £54.82
2 GB OCZ Value RAM PC6400 - 14588 - £53.72

Total is 226.64 inc VAT (at site prices)

It gets a reasonable FPS in World of Warcraft (40-60fps @ 1152x864 resolution). If you want to run more recent games, you can always chuck in a GFx card (either now or at a later stage). A popular one at this sort of price range (keeping with ATi to save headaches), is the X1950 PRO, which you're looking at approx £100 to get (depending on brand).

One thing you may find reusing the exsisting HDD is that Windows won't run if you're switching processor type (e.g. from AMD to Intel) and you'll need to wipe everything off.

Was very tempted by this really clever spec - £225 is great price for a budget pc!!

[willgar]

I specced this system from Scan:

LN19292
AMD AM2 Athlon 64 4400+ Windsor Core, Dual Core 2.3GHz, 2x 512KB Cache, Energy Eff'' Retail £47.59 £55.92
LN12201
2Gb (2X1Gb) Corsair Value Select, DDR2 PC5300 (667), 240 Pin, Non-ECC Unbuffered, CAS 5-5-5-15 £43.53 £51.15
LN13627
256Mb XFX 7900GT Mem 1320 MHz, GPU 450 MHz, 24 Pipes, Dual DVI-I £60.99 £71.66
LN18287
Gigabyte GA MA69VM-S2, AMD 690V, AM2, PCI-E (x16), DDR2 400/533/667/800, SATA II, uATX £31.70 £37.25
LN16909
Antec NSK6500 uATX/ATX Super Mid Tower, has Hi-Efficiency 430W ATX12v v2.0 PSU £51.99 £61.09



Net Total £235.80

Carriage £10.66

V.A.T. £43.13

TOTAL £289.59

Thank you - again good spec but am determined to stick to Intel

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

The Intel version using some of the Today Only offers on Scan:

Akasa Zen Case - Black Silent Cool Midi-ATX Computing case w/2 silent 12cm fans w/o PSU + 400W FSP B £51.99 £61.09
1 LN15198 Akasa Zen Case - Black Silent Cool Midi-ATX Computing case w/2 silent 12cm fans w/o PSU
1 LN18832 400W FSP Blue storm II PSU Efficiency >85%
Intel Pentium Dual-Core E2160, S775, 1.8 GHz, 800MHz FSB, Allendale Core, 2x 512KB Cache, Retail + C £45.99 £54.04
1 LN18817 Intel Pentium Dual-Core E2160, S775, 1.8 GHz, 800MHz FSB, Allendale Core, 2x 512KB Cache, Retail
1 LN19369 Call of Duty 2 Game - OEM
2Gb (2X1Gb) Corsair Value Select, DDR2 PC5300 (667), 240 Pin, Non-ECC Unbuffered, CAS 5-5-5-15 £41.50 £48.76
1 LN12201 2Gb (2X1Gb) Corsair Value Select, DDR2 PC5300 (667), 240 Pin, Non-ECC Unbuffered, CAS 5-5-5-15
LN17239
Abit IB9 i965, S775, PCI-E (x16), DDR2 533/667/800, SATA II, ATX £52.75 £61.98
LN13627
256Mb XFX 7900GT Mem 1320 MHz, GPU 450 MHz, 24 Pipes, Dual DVI-I £60.99 £71.66

Net Total £253.22

Carriage £11.01

V.A.T. £46.24

TOTAL £310.47

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

The smaller cache of the E2160 when compared to the E4300 does make a small difference:

http://www.legionhardware.com/document.php?id=651&p=3


The E4300 does cost around 15 quid more though!!

The Abit IB9 also has two IDE connectors on the motherboard which is useful since I assume both your drives are IDE??