Hi, I would appreciate it if you guys could just have a quick browse over the system spec below. It's for my Dad. He intends to use it for gaming along with general usage. Quite a tight budget of £600 for everything, so I've come up with the follow:
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA P31-DS3L £48.18
Computer hardware and software at amazing prices, available online from Scan Computers UK
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E4500 £70.44 (Was considering the E2180 for £20 cheaper but decided to go for the 2mb cache... I intend to overclock as much as is reasonable)
Computer hardware and software at amazing prices, available online from Scan Computers UK
Cooler: Arctic Cooling Freeser 7 Pro £15.73
Computer hardware and software at amazing prices, available online from Scan Computers UK
PSU: 450 Corsair VX Series £43.35
Computer hardware and software at amazing prices, available online from Scan Computers UK
HDD: 320Gb Western Digital WD32000AAKS Cavair SE16 SATA II £42.89
Computer hardware and software at amazing prices, available online from Scan Computers UK
GFX: 256MB XFX 8800GT PCI-E, 1400Mhz:600Mhz (these are all showing as pre-order from scan, hoping they'll have some in within a couple of weeks (need delivery by 7th December), thoughts? Also, going to be running XP Prof so no need for DX10 but I figure this is still the best card to get?)
Computer hardware and software at amazing prices, available online from Scan Computers UK
RAM: 2GB Corsair TwinX XMS2 DDR2 PC2-6400 (5-5-5-12) £37.01
Computer hardware and software at amazing prices, available online from Scan Computers UK
Monitor: 19" LG 194WT £113.96 (Not really sure about this. The price is right but I don't know if the monitor is...)
Computer hardware and software at amazing prices, available online from Scan Computers UK
Case: Aplus CS-188AF ATX Case (not to keen on the door-front, but Custom PC rates it and it's cheap!)
Computer hardware and software at amazing prices, available online from Scan Computers UK
The rest: Sony FDD (£4.57) , Pionder DVR-212 (£18.97), 120mm AKASA AK-191BL near silent fan (£4.69), Asus WL-138g 54G wireless PCI adapter (£4.69), Logitech Cordless Desktop 1500 rechargeable Mouse and Keyboard (£28.31)
That all rocks in at £606.41, so right on budget. I could downgrade the CPU to a E2180 and put the £20 extra toward a slightly better monitor maybe. I understand the E2180 will overclock quite well, would there be a considerable (£20-like) difference between the E2180 and E4500 once overclocked? Probably a stupid question...
I also want the computer to have upgrade potential. I believe the motherboard will support the quad cores etc, so my dad could buy one a couple of years down the line and give it a little boost.
Any thoughts/comments/advice welcome. A few of these items are on Scan Today only, so will prob order tomorrow evening to take advantage of that.
Thanks!