Spec me a £450 max PC please

[Craig321]

Hi,

I have a budget of £450. The computer has to have:

2 gigs ram
q6600+ cpu
500 gig hdd
quiet in general
extremely reliable

The rest is up to you. Any help would be great, thanks.

[Thorsson]

What is included, e.g. do you need a monitor or OS?

What will you use it for?

[staffsMike]

How about

Antec Sonata Plus with 550W modular PSU ~£100
or Antec Solo + corsair 450w VX ~£105 (same case different PSU)
Q6600 +Scythe Mine ~£150
Western Digital 500GB AAKS ~£50
Samsung Optical ~£15
2GB PC6400 ~£30
Abit Ip-35 dark raider ~£60

Leaves £45 for a graphics card, so a passive HD3650 or 8500GT.

If its for gaming though you will want to try a different combination to get the graphics budget up to about £80.

The above, will be extremely quiet and reliable though

[amjedm]

Based on staffsMike spec, you can save a bit of money by opting for a £30ish case such as the Akasa Zen v2, Coolermaster Centurion etc. and a quality PSU for under £50 such as the Corsair 450, FSP 700W (£30ish when on Today Only).

[Eddd]

Prices from scan.co.uk:
LN20735 - 700W FSP700-80GLN SATA/PCI-E 83%+ Eff Green ATX12v 2.01 EPS12v OEM - £28.19 (today only price)
LN19488 - Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 G0 SLACR, Kentsfield Core, Socket 775, 2.40 GHz 1066MHz 8MB Cache, Retail £131.20
LN22871 - Samsung SH-S203P 20x DVD±R, 8x DVD±DL, DVD+RW x8/-RW x6, x12 DVD-RAM SATA Lightscribe Black OEM - £16.69
LN22762 - Antec Three Hundred Case w/o PSU - £35.83
LN21757 - Gigabyte GA-P35-S3G, iP35 Express, S 775, PCI-E (x16), DDR2 1066/667/800 MHz, SATA II, ATX - £50.51
LN21700 - 4GB (2x2GB) Corsair TwinX XMS2, DDR2 PC2-6400 (800), 240 Pins, Non-ECC Unbuffered, CAS 5-5-5-18, DHX - £64.20
LN17252 - 500 GB Western Digital WD5000AAKS Caviar SE16, SATA 300, 7200 rpm, 16MB Cache, 8.9 ms - £52.51
TOTAL £390.90

Which leaves £110 for the graphics card, a HSF (if you feel it necessary) and any other peripherals you require.

If you're not a big fan of the Gigabyte mobos, you could spend an extra £10 on the asus ip-35 dark raider (as staffsMike suggested).

[TheReaFireblade]

You should find this Bit-Tech 'Building a £400 Gaming PC' (dated 11th June 2008) useful


NOTE however: Whilst they really wanted to use an 8800GT, they were tied to building the system with components from Scan only - else they could've used (i.e.) the retail 512MB Club 3D 8800GT Radial Heatpipe Tekheads are selling (for just £97.95).

The article show exactly the sort of system available on your budget though... and it includes the specific makes/models of the respective components they used - with prices

[staffsMike]

Prices from scan.co.uk:
LN20735 - 700W FSP700-80GLN SATA/PCI-E 83%+ Eff Green ATX12v 2.01 EPS12v OEM - £28.19 (today only price)
LN19488 - Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 G0 SLACR, Kentsfield Core, Socket 775, 2.40 GHz 1066MHz 8MB Cache, Retail £131.20
LN22871 - Samsung SH-S203P 20x DVD±R, 8x DVD±DL, DVD+RW x8/-RW x6, x12 DVD-RAM SATA Lightscribe Black OEM - £16.69
LN22762 - Antec Three Hundred Case w/o PSU - £35.83
LN21757 - Gigabyte GA-P35-S3G, iP35 Express, S 775, PCI-E (x16), DDR2 1066/667/800 MHz, SATA II, ATX - £50.51
LN21700 - 4GB (2x2GB) Corsair TwinX XMS2, DDR2 PC2-6400 (800), 240 Pins, Non-ECC Unbuffered, CAS 5-5-5-18, DHX - £64.20
LN17252 - 500 GB Western Digital WD5000AAKS Caviar SE16, SATA 300, 7200 rpm, 16MB Cache, 8.9 ms - £52.51
TOTAL £390.90

Which leaves £110 for the graphics card, a HSF (if you feel it necessary) and any other peripherals you require.

If you're not a big fan of the Gigabyte mobos, you could spend an extra £10 on the asus ip-35 dark raider (as staffsMike suggested).

That leaves £60 for a graphics card lol

But dropping to 2GB of RAM would give £90 which is probably enough for a semi decent card.

Like I said if gaming isn't an issue my build uses some quality and well regarded low noise "silent" components, but the first thing to go if you want to save money is the case as demonstrated with the builds above.

[Eddd]

That leaves £60 for a graphics card lol

Ah, woops. My maths has never been good.
Suggestions to save money:
- But as Mike said: Downgrade to 2GB (you can always upgrade to 4GB if you get the money).
- Consider getting a dual core CPU instead of quad core? That would save you quite a lot of money
- Smaller HDD? Do you really need 500GB? You could always get another if needed...
- Get Linux instead of Windows XP/Vista because it's free...
- Buy 2nd hand?
- Wait a couple of weeks for the new gfx cards to be released. The old ones MAY decrease in price then.