Father-in-law wants a 'future-proofed' PC for under £450!
I know the title is kind of a misnomer. However, my father-in-law is looking for something that he'll be able to upgrade two years down the line. He doesn't plan on doing much gaming, although he may be using it for HD, hence why I chose a HD2400XT graphics card.
He also stated that he wants a dual core processor, so I went for the Pentium E2160. I went for a P35 mobo as at least he can upgrade to a Penryn quad core a couple of years down the line. He does a lot of photography so he wanted a 500GB hard drive too!
Here's what I came up with:
Quote:
CPU: Intel Pentium Dual-Core E2160 [£55.80]
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-P35-S3L [£59.91]
RAM: Corsair (2x1GB) DDR2 675MHz/PC2-5400 XMS Memory Non-ECC Unbuffered CL4(4-4-4-12) [£54.99]
Graphics card: 256MB Sapphire HD2400XT PCI-E (x16) [£44.29]
Case: Antec NSK6500 [£58.75]
HDD: 500GB WD5000AAKS [£66.96]
OS: Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium 32Bit [£68.73]
Optical Drive: LG GSAH62N [£19.14]
Media Card Reader: Enlight 26 in 1 Internal 3.5" Card Reader [£8.98]
TOTAL: £437.55
Are there any glaring errors there, or can you guys think of something better for the cost? Or if I can bring the cost down even further, for similar spec, that would be even better! Any help would be gladly appreciated! :)
[PS: I'm only looking for case only, he already has monitor, keyboard, mouse etc.]
Re: Father-in-law wants a 'future-proofed' PC for under £450!
that's pretty decent, i can't see anything you could change there that would make a huge difference without breaking the budget. i'm not sure about the gfx card....although i know nothing about ati tbh.
Re: Father-in-law wants a 'future-proofed' PC for under £450!
What kind of upgrades is he talking about? Cos I can see a potential issue being the PSU and case size but as you say he doesn't plan on much gaming then that shouldn't be an issue.
Re: Father-in-law wants a 'future-proofed' PC for under £450!
I'd go for AM2 as it's cheaper and will be compatible with AMD's new CPU's...
- AMD AM2 Athlon 64 5200+ ~ £82.24
- Abit KN9-S ~ £46.91
Both the memory and graphics card were good choices...
- 2GB Corsair TwinX PC5400 4-4-4-12 ~ £52.33
- 256MB Sapphire HD2400XT ~ £44.29
My personal preference with HDD's is Samsung - they're fast and very quiet...
- 400GB Samsung HD401LJ ~ £53.69
The power supply that the SK6500 comes with is pretty weak, so instead I've gone with a similar but cheaper case and a seperate, quality PSU...
- Antec NSK6000 ~ £37.55
- 380W Tagan TG380-U01 ~ £37.47
- Samsung SH-S203/BEBN ~ £18.79
As I'm using Scan Computers (you'll get free delivery) I've gone for their version of the card reader you chose...
- Scan Black Internal All in 1 (57+) Card Reader ~ £5.86
You're using a 64Bit CPU so why not go for a 64Bit version of Vista...
- Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium 64Bit ~ £69.17
Total ~ £448.30
Re: Father-in-law wants a 'future-proofed' PC for under £450!
Quote:
Originally Posted by
NightshadowUK
I'd go for AM2 as it's cheaper and will be compatible with AMD's new CPU's...
Nah, for multimedia the Intel will be a better bet, even such a low end one, and even if the graphics card is taking the brunt of the work in HD, especially as the C2D (well, 'PentiumDual-Core' to give it its apparent proper name :rolleyes:) is a full £30 cheaper - note too that it's a £5 cheaper at Scan.
Agreed with the PSU though - Antec generally aren't bad, but a dedicated seasoned PSU will be a much better choice, as you (or we if you don't :P) know what you're getting. Personally I'd pay extra on the 380W Seasonic (I would have recommended the 330W Seasonic, but it's disappeared from Scan's website. Cracking little supply too :()
Re: Father-in-law wants a 'future-proofed' PC for under £450!
Intel (sadly) owns AMD at the mo and the potential upgrades will be better long term.
I'd go with exactly what he specced tbh.
Re: Father-in-law wants a 'future-proofed' PC for under £450!
Quote:
Originally Posted by
NightshadowUK
The Antec PSU's that come with the systems are good and will run this system no problem. Why have extra expense of a separate PSU. This money could be spend on other things, or put in the bank!
Re: Father-in-law wants a 'future-proofed' PC for under £450!
I'd be inclined to go for the extra expense of a e4400 (about £20 more)
If you want to save a couple of quid Corsair value select would be fine (£5 less)
Not got a major graphics card so the standard ANtec PSU that comes with the NSK should be fine.
Re: Father-in-law wants a 'future-proofed' PC for under £450!
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Tetras
What kind of upgrades is he talking about? Cos I can see a potential issue being the PSU and case size but as you say he doesn't plan on much gaming then that shouldn't be an issue.
Mainly processor based I imagine. I think he will probably upgrade to a Penryn quadcore in a couple of years time.
The case size and PSU was a concern, but given what he'll be using it for I think it should work - he's not planning on putting any double slot graphics cards in there any time soon!
I did think about an Akasa Zen and Corsair VX450WUK combo, but I figured he doesn't really need that much power so went for the cheaper solution.
Re: Father-in-law wants a 'future-proofed' PC for under £450!
Quote:
Originally Posted by
NightshadowUK
Thanks for the extensive reply NightshadowUK. I personally prefer Intel's dual core chips to AMD's ones, which is why I went for the E2160, I don't mind spending the bit extra for them.
Would I have any compatability issues going with Vista 64-bit rather than 32-bit?
Re: Father-in-law wants a 'future-proofed' PC for under £450!
Quote:
Originally Posted by
this_is_gav
Agreed with the PSU though - Antec generally aren't bad, but a dedicated seasoned PSU will be a much better choice, as you (or we if you don't :P) know what you're getting. Personally I'd pay extra on the 380W Seasonic (I would have recommended the 330W Seasonic, but it's disappeared from Scan's website. Cracking little supply too :()
I have a Seasonic S12-380 in one of my other PC's and I agree it's a cracking little PSU. As I said in another reply I was thinking of going for a Akasa Zen and Corsair VX450WUK combo, but thought that given he proabably wouldn't be stressing the system out too much that the Antec NSK6500 would suffice.
Re: Father-in-law wants a 'future-proofed' PC for under £450!
I'd expend on the vista 64bit, by saying that the intel chips are also 64bit so that might be a good move, although slightly more expensive than vista 32bit.
Re: Father-in-law wants a 'future-proofed' PC for under £450!
No time to dig out hard data right now, but the 2160 has too much cache removed so performance is rubbish. Either buy a proper Intel CPU, or anything AMD. Either will be faster, AMD will be better value for money.
Re: Father-in-law wants a 'future-proofed' PC for under £450!
E21xx are good for the money, esp if you are willing to overclock it a bit.
Then again, AMD 690 boards have the best on-board video you can get (still garbage, but certainly better than the intel 3000), which might be perfectly suitable, at least untill a real video card can be had. It's not like you can really game on an HD2400 either. The AM2 will also have a decent upgrade path, not ideal, but not bad.
Re: Father-in-law wants a 'future-proofed' PC for under £450!
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Pob255
I'd expend on the vista 64bit, by saying that the intel chips are also 64bit so that might be a good move, although slightly more expensive than vista 32bit.
Not if you buy sensibly. Get a Vista Home Premium Upgrade (I won't post yet again how to use this for a clean install because no-one appears to care) and you can get 64 bit as a free option.
Re: Father-in-law wants a 'future-proofed' PC for under £450!
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Thorsson
Not if you buy sensibly. Get a Vista Home Premium Upgrade (I won't post yet again how to use this for a clean install because no-one appears to care) and you can get 64 bit as a free option.
Does this still work, I thought MS might have closed the loophole by now?
I care about the method, so if you could post a link where you've posted it before, it'd be most helpful! :)