Suggested Build, thoughts?

[Montav3r]

Hey guys,
I have built a fair few PC's over the years but not that recently (the last I built was an AMD3400+). My father has asked me to build him a PC for £600 (already have keyboard + mouse + software). The PC will primarily be used for the standard stuff, surfing, e-mail, MSN etc. He is also a keen photographer and likes taking alot of pictures and videos. Below is what I have managed to decipher as a decent build from a days research or so:

Antec NSK4400 Mini Tower Case - 380W SmartPower PSU £46.99 inc VAT

Abit AB9 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £72.84 inc VAT

Intel Core 2 Duo E4500 "LGA775 Allendale" 2.20GHz (800FSB) - Retail £93.99 inc VAT

Crucial 2GB (2x1GB) DDR2 PC2-5300C5 Dual Channel Kit £52.86 inc VAT

Western Digital Caviar SE16 500GB 5000AAKS SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM £66.96 inc VAT

Asus GeForce EN7600GS Silent HTD 256MB DDR2 HDTV/DVI (PCI-Express) £46.99 inc VAT

Samsung SH-183LBEBN 18x18 DVD±RW Dual Layer Serial ATA Lightscribe ReWriter £19.96 inc VAT

Samsung SM-931BW 19" Widescreen LCD Monitor - Silver/Black £164.49 inc VAT

Subtotal £495.92
£562.71 inc VAT

I have a copy of Windows Vista Home Premium already. I know the graphics card isnt great, but its silent and from what I can gather its Directx10 compatible so should have no problems with the Vista GUI. Any thoughts welcome, I have a fairly decent knowledge of overclocking so as long as your not suggesting water cooling or something i'm all ears! Thanks in advance.

Montaver

[Andy3536]

I would be suprised if it was DX10 compatible, i thought it was just 8 series.
Other than that we would need to know what you'll be using it for and any other budget adjustments you can make

[Montav3r]

Yeh, your probably right about the graphics card being DX10 I must have misread. As I said above, the budget is £600 +/- 50, it will be used for the standard email stuff, viewing photos/video's and the occasional editing and watching DVD's.
Thanks

Montaver

[Andy3536]

Yeh, your probably right about the graphics card being DX10 I must have misread. As I said above, the budget is £600 +/- 50, it will be used for the standard email stuff, viewing photos/video's and the occasional editing and watching DVD's.
Thanks

Montaver

If you wont be gamming then a 7600 will be more than enough, dx10 is not imortant really but if did want a compatible card then look at the 8500's similarly priced to the 7600, mabee even a little cheaper.

[Thorsson]

Video use, maybe one of the newer cards might be better. And ATI are strong in this area.

DVD, might as well get the newer SH203 model, it's only pennies more.

Samsung (quiet/cool) or Seagate (5 yr warranty) might be a better bet than WD.

Presuming no OC you'd probably be better going AM2.

[NightshadowUK]

- AMD AM2 Athlon 64 6000+ ~ £105.27

- Abit KN9-S NF550 ~ £46.91

- 2GB Corsair TwinX PC5400 4-4-4-12 ~ £56.98

- 500GB Samsung HD501LJ ~ £66.85

- 256MB Asus 7300GT ~ £36.99

- Antec NSK4000 ~ £28.78

- 380W Seasonic S12II-380 ~ £46.99

- Optiarc (Sony/NEC) AD-7170S-0B ~ £19.85

- 22" LG L226WTQ ~ £208.55

Total ~ £617.17

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Initial thoughts?

[Andy3536]

- AMD AM2 Athlon 64 6000+ ~ £105.27

- Abit KN9-S NF550 ~ £46.91

- 2GB Corsair TwinX PC5400 4-4-4-12 ~ £56.98

- 500GB Samsung HD501LJ ~ £66.85

- 256MB Asus 7300GT ~ £36.99

- Antec NSK4000 ~ £28.78

- 380W Seasonic S12II-380 ~ £46.99

- Optiarc (Sony/NEC) AD-7170S-0B ~ £19.85

- 22" LG L226WTQ ~ £208.55

Total ~ £617.17

--------

Initial thoughts?

Looks good but I would cut the ram down to 1 gig as he wont be gaming and go for an 8500.

Mabee go for a cheaper version of the amd cpu save £20-£30 and bring it into budget.

Would feel more comfortable with the seasonic PSU than the smartpower one that comes with the origional case, the advantage of buying a case without a psu is you can get a good one!

[BUFF]

Looks good but I would cut the ram down to 1 gig as he wont be gaming

but he's a keen photographer which presumably means editing too - PSP/PS etc. all love RAM.

[Mad-Max]

The system NightshadowUK has posted looks good, but I would keep 2gig of ram to as it is cheap nowadays.

You could lower the cpu if you wanted to and you could get a 8400/8500 GFX.

[Biscuit]

i do a lot of photo work and find that sometime i have to close a few programs when working with really big images to free up some ram... definately keep 2GB!

i woudnt boher going for the 6000 though, i agree with andy & max on that one... go down a few models and get a better graphics card. I find that ATI genrally have a sharper more accurate image (although i have been debated upon this many times)

[Thorsson]

I re-iterate what I said earlier about the DVD-RW. The Optiarc is also an old model, and has problems with some media.

I also think that an ATI HD2400 would be better, and cheaper, for the tasks proposed.

[NightshadowUK]

- AMD AM2 Athlon 64 5200+ ~ £81.02

- Abit KN9-S NF550 ~ £46.91

- 2GB Corsair TwinX PC5400 4-4-4-12 ~ £56.98

- 500GB Samsung HD501LJ ~ £66.85

- 256MB Sapphire HD2400XT ~ £46.40

- Antec NSK4000 ~ £28.78

- 380W Seasonic S12II-380 ~ £46.99

- Samsung SH-S203/BEBN ~ £18.79

- 22" LG L226WTQ ~ £208.55

Total ~ £601.27

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Updated, any more for any more?

[Biscuit]

Id say thts pretty spot on theat

[Thorsson]

Yeah that's £600 of computer goodness.

[Montav3r]

Hey guys, really appreciate the input (even if ya did change everything I originally chose ). Ive gone for the revised build Nightshadow posted above, apart from I changed the graphics card to this:

256MB Sapphire HD2600PRO PCI-E(x16) 128Bit 1000MHz GDDR2 GPU 600MHz CrossFire 2xDVI-I/HDTV Retail

Was only a 10er or so more, and seems alot more capable in case the old boy starts playing WoW or something

The ETA is friday (ordered from scan, never used them before but you guys reccomend them), will put it all together then, if I have any problems i'll let you know.

Thanks again

Montaver