Building a friend a uATX system powerful enough to run the 3D design software we need for our uni course for around £300. The only basic requirements are a cheap 3D accelerator and is small and tidy.
This is what i came up with at a quick price up
No overclocking will happen & there is already a copy of windows available. Only issue i thought would be with the 300w psu that comes with it, will it be enough?
I specced this off Ebuyer:
Intel Core 2 Duo E4500 2.2GHz Socket 775 800FSB 2MB L2 Cache OEM Processor £69.99 £59.56
Crucial 2GB kit (1GBx2) DDR2 PC2-5300 CL=5 UNBUFFERED NON-ECC DDR2-667 1.8V£26.99 £22.97
Western Digital WD1600AAJS 160GB Hard Drive SATAII 7200rpm 8MB Cache - OEM £30.93 £26.32
Gigabyte GA-73VM-S2 GeForce 7050 Socket 775 Onboard VGA 6 channel audio mATX Motherboard £36.63 £31.17
Optiarc AD-7200S 20X DVD±RW/DL/RAM Internal SATA Bare Black Drive - OEM£16.00 £13.61
Logitech Black Deluxe 660 Cordless Desktop - USB £16.56 £14.09
Antec NSK3480 MATX Micro Tower - With 380W EarthWatts PSU ATX12V 2.2 USB/FireWire/Audio
£57.12 £48.61
Nvidia 7800GTX 256MB DDR3 Dual DVI TV Out PCI-E Graphics Card
£51.05 £59.99
*Free Shipping has been applied to this order
Total:£314.21
A 7900GS will cost the same as a 7800GTX on Ebuyer. You can substitute a 7800GT for £10 less also. Alternatively you can get a X1650pro for £29 instead. The NSK3480 is around the same price as the NSK1300 too.
The NSK3480 is a very small tower:
Antec NSK3480@»•iî•ñ@-@ƒŠƒ“ƒNƒX
Thnx for that cat but we are actually driving up to scan on wednesdayalso the HD capabilities of the ATI cards appeal
Here is what I specced up from Scan:
LN16905 Antec NSK1300 uATX Cube case inc Sound dampening Technology and 300W PSU , Black/Silver £48.25 £56.69
LN12200 2GB (2x1GB) Corsair TwinX XMS2, DDR2 PC2-5400 (667), 240 Pin, Non-ECC Unbuffered, CAS 4-4-4-12 £24.54 £28.83
LN19277 Intel Core 2 Duo E4500, S775, 2.2 GHz, 800MHz FSB, Allendale Core, 2MB Cache, Retail £64.80 £76.14
LN9709 160 GB Samsung HD161HJ Spinpoint T166, SATA II, 7200 rpm, 8MB Cache, 8.9 ms, NCQ £24.59 £28.89
LN19437 LiteON DH-20A1S-18C Black 20x DVD±R, 8x DVD±DL, DVD+RW x8 / -RW x 6, DVD-RAM x12, SATA Black £13.49 £15.85
LN21805 Asrock 4Core1333-GLAN/M, iG31, S775, PCI-E (x16), DDR2 667/800 MHz, SATA II, µATX, On Board VGA £35.26 £41.43
LN21786 Logitech 920-000477 Deluxe 660 Cordless Keyboard and Mouse, USB, Black, OEM £13.25 £15.57
LN21426 512MB Power Color HD3650 PCI-E 2.0(x16) 800MHz GDDR2 GPU 725MHz S-Video/2xDual Link DVI-I £38.37 £45.09
Obviously there is no postage cost
Total with VAT:£308.50
Last edited by CAT-THE-FIFTH; 03-03-2008 at 09:11 PM.
I dont particualy like ASROCK motherboards, would prefer to stick to asus tbh. As for the 3650, without light gamin i dont see the point in going higher than the 3450. May try and squeeze the E4500 in though.
What about the PSU in the case tho, is it going to be powerful enough? the GFX card states 300w minimum but i know this suggested ratings are pretty unreliable.
Get the Samsung sata lighscribe 203
Asrock are part of Asus so they should be Ok as long as you are not into overclocking and stuff like that. I have an Asrock board in a backup pc and it seems fine for most things IMHO. Don't some of the 3D packages use the GPU for certain stuff?? I know things like Blender and deconvolution software do.
As long as the PSU is a decent quality one 300W should be Ok as long as you do not start adding additional things here and there. The 250w in my old Shuttle was fine even with an Athlon XP2800 and a Nvidia 6800 for instance.
Last edited by CAT-THE-FIFTH; 03-03-2008 at 09:46 PM.
Biscuit (03-03-2008)
They do use the GPU which is why we are not going for a onboard but the power a 3450 should be enough for this.
I suppose the HD3650 does use more power than a HD3450 and the latter is passively cooled!!
yeah, much safer bet when power may become an issue
id go with an abit p35 based mobo like the ip35 series. I had an asrock and had no end of issues with it.
needs to be uATX
I'd recommend Samsung for both HDD (for less noise and heat, and you can get 200Gb for the same price) & OD (but I wouldn't get the Lightscribe version as it can cause "coasters").
Computer hardware and software at amazing prices, available online from Scan Computers UK
G33 = P35 + Intel IGP. Apparently, hardly any of the IGP mothersboards overclock very well though. So unless you are happy with a stock clock E2220, I would chose something a little heftier.Originally Posted by Biscuit
yeah probs will go samsung/WD but tbf in the most part a dvd drive is a dvd drive...
yeah bt u cant get uATX P35 boards unless u can point me towards one i missed
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