Base Unit For £400

[Merlin4458]

Hi guys, my m8 has been a victim of Rock Ceasing Trading so he wont be getting his laptop fixed for a few months yet.

- So hes decided to build a gaming/media system for about 400, but knows nothing.

- Ive got a rough idea (i.e i know wots good and bad) but would like some advice on whats the best build.

- Over clocking will be a no no ,so the best out the box speed if possible.


thanks all

Sorry i havent made any suggestions myself, but bit out the loop.

Q6600 or an E?
3850? or 8600?

[Aez]

Ok so there is no case, but if you shop around and minus the carriage you should be able to fit one in.
In all cases i would take the 3850 over the 8600 but a quad is not necessary, if you dropped down to something like a e4500 you could free up a chunk of the budget for bigger hdd/4gb ram/ a case.

[ShadoWolf]

Although Quad core is not utilised by alot of things at the moment, It will in the futre. So If you want a future proof CPU I would get the Q6600. In regards to the GPU I would recomend the 9600GT, however if you ar on a tight budget I would go for 8600GT

[Flewis]

What about an operating system? Thats another £60 that needs to be considered. I would consider some of the AMD cpus as they are pretty good on price/performance if you arent overclocking. The E7200 isnt a bad choice either.
The antec sonata III isnt a bad deal considering it comes with a psu.

I really dont think it is possible to get a £400 system with a Q6600 without buying too cheap components elsewhere.

[Rosaline]

I would recommend against the quad unless they really want their system to last a long time, or if they do anything that especially loves quad cores. The savings you get from keeping to dual core processors allows you more leeway in other items, and as you're not overclocking the extra clock speed is useful

At this price range, you will run into some serious cost issues if you want to maximise performance. Make sure you remember to factor in the cost of an operating system (as if they're a windows user, MS are annoying and pedantic now ) and the cost of a case for the system.

If you both have any existing parts that could be appropriated for the project, then that would be useful Remember to investigate to see if you have access to any cut-price schemes (such as student offers).

[dave87]

If he has an OS on his laptop which has failed, he can use it on the new PC.

Even if it is OEM.

[ShadoWolf]

If you do decide to go down the dual core route and you are on a strict budget take a look at the E2160, its under £50 and its not a bad little processor.

[Merlin4458]

400 is a rough figure but would like keep close to it if possible.

Got OS sorted. Just the case and everything that goes inside it really.

System mentioned above looks good, and im shocked theres a 6600 in there.

Anything i can comprimise to get a case in there aswell for around 400? Im guessing the cpu?

I thought the E2160 were for oclocking enthusiats? cause he isnt one lol

[ShadoWolf]

Yeah its a good overclocker but its also a dual core for under £50. I have recently built my brother in-law a pc on a budget. This is what I got:



LN19135
Coolermaster RC-331 Elite Black/Silver Midi Tower Case w/o PSU £24.66
LN19717
Asus P5KPL iG31, S775, PCI-E (x16), DDR2 667/800, SATA II, ATX £43.35
LN12200
2GB (2x1GB) Corsair TwinX XMS2, DDR2 PC2-5400 (667), 240 Pin, Non-ECC Unbuffered, CAS 4-4-4-12 £31.18
LN22491
256MB EVGA 8600GT, PCI-E, GDDR3, 32 Streams, D-Sub/DVI-I/HDTV, HDCP £57.56
LN15627
500W AKASA Ultra quiet Active PFC ATX 2.2 PSU with Black 12cm Fan £52.75
LN20415
250 GB Samsung HD250HJ Spinpoint, SATA II, 7200 rpm, 8MB Cache, 8.9 ms, NCQ £31.71
LN21399
Toshiba/Samsung TS-H653, 20x DVD±R, 12x DVD±DL, DVD+RW x8/-RW x6, SATA, Black, Lightscribe, OEM £15.85
LN18817
Intel Pentium Dual-Core, E2160, Socket 775, Allendale Core, 2x1.8 GHz, 2x 512KB Cache, Retail £42.99


Net Total £255.37

Carriage £10.33

V.A.T. £46.50

TOTAL £312.20

If you could afford it I would get the Q6600 though

[staffsMike]

I'd go with

Q6600 ~£130
Abit IP-35E - £56
2GB PC6400 ~£30
This case and PSU ~£60
ATi HD3850 pro 512mb ~£80 (ebuyer)
250GB Western Digital AAKS ~£35
DVD Writer ~ £15

Should come out just over £400 but would be nice quiet system. I would also add a half decent HSF to keep the quad nice and cool.

Obviously you could just go pentium dual core which are £50 for the 2.4GHz version. and save £80.

[Cistron]

Although Quad core is not utilised by alot of things at the moment, It will in the futre. So If you want a future proof CPU I would get the Q6600.

In my oppinion that's rubbish. By the time more parallel computing is happening efficiently, you'd want a new computer anyway. Quad-core = more heat, more cooling and therefore often more noise.

My system was ~400£, I'm sure you'd get it cheaper now.

[staffsMike]

Well quads are utilised by various professional programs as well as video encoding software which is becoming more popular all the time.

There is also the multi tasking ability of quad's, where you simply assign a number of cores to certain tasks meaning you can comfortably game and encode video's or 3D work at the same time if you feel the need.

The cooling requirements are fairly similar to highly overclocked duals so it makes little difference.

[Cistron]

The cooling requirements are fairly similar to highly overclocked duals so it makes little difference.

Twice the cores = twice the heat. It's true that most cooler won't struggle with Quad-cores, however it increases the case temperatures, which in turn affects other components or requires higher fan speeds.

[staffsMike]

The tempreatures of G0 quads are pretty similar to any other core 2 as far as I have seen. As long as you don't push them too hard (3.2 - 3.4 is the sweet spot) with a typical scythe or thermalright solution you wouldn't really notice the difference. Might be 5 degree's higher.. but it's hardly going to set the house on fire.

[Blitzen]

Twice the cores = twice the heat. It's true that most cooler won't struggle with Quad-cores, however it increases the case temperatures, which in turn affects other components or requires higher fan speeds.

Sorry but you are wrong.
Its not even close to twice the heat.

I have always used good cooling and my Q6600 @ 3.2GHZ is ONLY 2 degrees hotter running than my E6300 @ 2.8GHZ.

[Dreaming]

In my oppinion that's rubbish. By the time more parallel computing is happening efficiently, you'd want a new computer anyway. Quad-core = more heat, more cooling and therefore often more noise.

My system was ~400£, I'm sure you'd get it cheaper now.

Have to agree (not rubbish the claim) but getting a quad core to future proof your PC is folly. If you need 4 cores now then get a quad core. But if you don't need one immediately, get a dual core - you can always drop in a quad core (inevitably cheaper) in the future. Say quads were the price of cheap dual cores when you upgraded to one, that's a sum of £100 spent on processors over a long time rather than £130 dropped on one now, when you won't see any performance benefits atm...

I'm still on an e6300 and just can't justify (although I want the 3dmark scores ) buying a quad because nothing I do uses 4 cores... (even heavy multitasking, but maybe that's because my 2 cores are clocked quite high - I think some things like converting compressed media to DVDs would be faster with 4 cores but I do it so infrequently...)

I really like staffsmike's build but my opinion is for a gaming build spend the extra £80 on ram and graphics card and just get a dual core. Or even spend it on a quality mouse and keyboard

My suggestion:

Link

comes to £350 (add in ~£10 for shipping), you can get some decent peripherals which will make a big difference in gaming for that money. Headphones (I recommend SteelSeries 5H as I have some), mouse (MX518 ) and keyboard (Saitek Eclipse II) should all be considered! By 'media' PC as well, do you mean watching films or doing heavy media work?