New Build Help

[ikix]

Hey all, I'm building a new computer for my brother and i havent built one in a while or kept up with some of the hardware so need some advice on the best stuff i can get within the budget.

Use of PC: Mainly gaming and general use (Internet etc.)
Budget: £300-£400 (preferably the lower end of the budget)
Overclocking: NO!!!!!!!!!

So far i have the CPU as a e6750 as best bang for buck

Cheers for your help guys

[Pob255]

That's rather a tight budget for gameing.
Have you got anything you can recycle? because if you need a complete PC system inc things like keyboard, case and monitor you will have to increase that budget.

CPU if your set on that e6750 good value vs performance but pricey for the budget (£120ish)
Motherboard, atm the p35 chipset is the one everyone will sugest. (£60-75 for a cheap one)
2gb of memory pc5300/5200 will be fine if not overclocking (£50ish)
graphics card, an 8800gts would be good, however probably too pricy on your budget. a 7900GS or x1950Pro will set you back around £90
PSU lots of arguments here, but a good 400-450w (£50ish) with a 7900GS or x1950Pro or 500w (£60ish) with an 8800gts
Case, up to you they are a pritty personal thing. (£30-40 cheap case, no PSU)
Total £430ish and that's without Hard drives, DVD, Keyboard, mouse and monitor

[rysz]

Including Shipping from Scan, Total of £403.92

Optiarc (Sony/NEC) AD-5170A 18x DVD±R, 8x DVD±DL, DVD+RW x8/-RW x6, IDE, Black, OEM £16.57
Intel Core 2 Duo E4400, Socket 775, 2.0 GHz, 800MHz FSB, Allendale Core, 2MB Cache, Retail £76.36
250 Gb Maxtor STM3250820AS DiamondMax 21, SATA300, 7200 rpm, 8MB Cache, 11 ms £35.83

2Gb (2X1GB) Corsair TwinX XMS2, DDR2 PC5400 (667), 240 Pin, Non-ECC Unbuffered, CAS 4-4-4-12 £52.33

Abit IL9 Pro WiFi, i945P, S775, PCI-E (x16), DDR2 667, SATA II, ATX £49.02

430w Seasonic S12II-430 PSU, 12Cm fan, active PFC RoHS +80% £50.51

256MB Sapphire Radeon X1950Pro, PCI-E(x16), Mem 1400MHz GDDR3, GPU 580MHz, 36Pipes, Dual DVI, TV-Out £86.94

Coolermaster RC-330 Elite Black Midi Tower Case w/o PSU £24.66

This is of course assuming that you have a monitor, KB and mouse...

That would be quite a tasty little rig and more than capable for what you say you want to do!

[staffsMike]

Get an AMD machine. More bangs for bucks at that price range if you dont want to overclock

[Pob255]

If building from scratch then a cheap dell Inspiron 530 with a e2130 is £359 and a 7900GS another £90

[Blitzen]

Get an AMD machine. More bangs for bucks at that price range if you dont want to overclock

I agree.
With that budget i dont think you will be successful with a gaming Intel Rig.
With an AMD and the prices for the hardware being so cheap, you should just scrape in.

[NightshadowUK]

- AMD AM2 Athlon 64 3800+ ~ £42.64
- Asus M2N NF430 ~ £41.00
- 2GB Corsair TwinX XMS2 PC5400 4-4-4-12 ~ £52.33
- 160GB Samsung HD160HJ ~ £32.51
- 256MB Asus Radeon X1950Pro ~ £94.69
- Samsung SH-S203/BEBN ~ £18.79
- Antec NSK4000 ~ £28.78
- 380W Tagan TG380-U01 ~ £37.47

Total ~ £348.21

-------

That's assuming you have an O/S, display, keyboard, mouse and speakers?

[s_kinton]

So far i have the CPU as a e6750 as best bang for buck

For the budget you mentioned, the first thing I'd do is forget the e6750. As suggested, look at either an AMD bundle or a low range e4400.

Personally, if you're not gonna overclock the c2d, then I'd go for the AMD as it makes more sense money wise and the performance will be negligible with a stock c2d in your range.

Definately look at the x1950 series cards and a 7900GS as a second choice.

[-N!CK-]

Coolermaster RC-330 Elite Black Midi Tower Case w/o PSU - £23.49


2Gb (2X1GB) Corsair TwinX XMS2, DDR2 PC5400 (667), 240 Pin, Non-ECC Unbuffered, CAS 4-4-4-12 - £52.33

512MB Sapphire RX1950Pro, PCI-E(x16), Mem 1400MHz, GDDR3, GPU 580MHz, 36Pipes CrossFire Master/Slave - £96.81

Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3R, iP35 Express, S 775, PCI-E (x16), DDR2 1066/1333/800, SATA II, SATA RAID, ATX - £70.49

Intel Pentium Dual-Core E2160, S775, 1.8 GHz, 800MHz FSB, Allendale Core, 2x 512KB Cache, Retail - £49.93

430w Seasonic S12II-430 PSU, 12Cm fan, active PFC RoHS +80% - £50.51

250 Gb Western Digital WD2500AAJS Caviar SE, SATA300, 7200 rpm, 8MB Cache, 9 ms - £40.74


Carriage - £9.93

TOTAL - £395.96

[ikix]

Cheers guys, after looking through your suggestions i've come up with this

CPU: AMD AM2 Athlon 64 5200, 2.6GHz, 2MB cache - £82.00
GPU: 512MB Sapphire RX1950Pro, PCI-E(x16), Mem 1400MHz, GDDR3, GPU 580MHz, 36Pipes - £96.81
Memory: 2Gb Corsair TwinX XMS2, DDR2 PC5400, Non-ECC Unbuffered, CAS 4-4-4-12 - £52.33
HDD: 250 GB Western Digital WD2500KS Caviar SE16, SATA300, 7200 rpm, 16MB Cache, 8.9 ms - £42.99
PSU: 430w Seasonic S12II-430 PSU, 12Cm fan, active PFC RoHS +80% - £50.51
DVD: Samsung SH-S203/BEBN 20x DVD±R, 16x DVD±DL, DVD+RW x8/-RW x6, SATA, Black, OEM inc. Nero - £18.79
Mobo: Asus M2A-VM HDMI, AMD 690G, S AM2, PCI-E (x16), DDR2 533/667/800, SATA II, SATA RAID, uATX - £43.46
Case: Akasa Zen Case - Black Silent Cool Midi-ATX Computing case w/2 silent 12cm fans w/o PSU - £27.95

Shipping: £11.33
Total: £428.17

Monitor: 19" HannStar AH191, Silver, Widescreen, 5 ms, DVI/VGA, 1440x900, 700:1, Speakers - £96.34

Total: £527.47

Can any of u suggest any improvements to get the price closer to £400 (monitor not included), the trouble i have found with lowering the CPU is that the cache goes from 2MB to just 1MB and ofcourse the speed also and with the GPU it drops from 512MB to 256MB

Will tht PSU have enough power and are there likely to be any cables needed to be bought due to any OEMs or just as a matter or needed anyways?

Thanks again

[ash_rm]

How about changing PSU + Case for Antec NSK4480 with 380W EarthWatts

380W should be more than enough for the above system.

[crazy]

or you could get the 450W Corsair from scan for £45.83

[Lanky123]

Can any of u suggest any improvements to get the price closer to £400 (monitor not included), the trouble i have found with lowering the CPU is that the cache goes from 2MB to just 1MB and ofcourse the speed also and with the GPU it drops from 512MB to 256MB

Will tht PSU have enough power and are there likely to be any cables needed to be bought due to any OEMs or just as a matter or needed anyways?

Thanks again

256Mb of graphics memory shouldnt be a problem if you are only using a 19" monitor. There doesnt appear to be much choice with whats in stock at the moment anyway - you may want to shop around for the graphics card at different sites - Ebuyer for instance have one for about £85.

Edit - OcUK have one for about £73...not sure how much warranty you get with that one...

The motherboard should come with enough cables for you, its only if you were using several hard drives or DVD drives that you might need to get extra cables. A review of the motherboard says that it comes with 'a single Floppy, one IDE and two SATA cables'. So yes thats fine.

If you really need to shave a few quid off the price then wait for a decent Today Only at Scan - weekends are usually best.

Hexus members with 25 posts or more can get free delivery from Scan, so that could slice the postage off.

[Pob255]

You can knock off £2 getting the 8mb cache 250gb WD harddirve
I don't know what the matrox are like but you could save £7 and lower seak times will not be that bad.

As much as I like Scan here range of graphics cards is not great atm
I agree that 512mb is not needed, 256mb will be fine.
Actually just spotted this on ebuyer http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/131050 XFX 7900GS XXX 256MB £68.75
I've got one of these it's a nice card, things like Prey will play quite happly at max settings on my spec, which is not far off yours.
And it's over £50 so that's free delivery from ebuyer and £30 off your total

EDIT: Also agree with the 450w Corsair although again from ebuyer Seasonic OEM SS401HT 400W PSU £39.99 http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/127688
EDIT: Although looking at the specs from Seasonic it's not there best model only 77% effecent
Better from Ebuyer Antec Earthwatts 430w £36.02 http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/120376 (also made by seasonic)

[master811]

How about changing PSU + Case for Antec NSK4480 with 380W EarthWatts

380W should be more than enough for the above system.

I agree this would be more than good enough I'd have thought, Antec make good PSUs so you would save quite a bit just by getting this and its a good case as well.

Plus its even cheaper at scan : http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...oductID=509820 just £45!