New budget Build

[Maccer101]

How does this look to you?

PSU - Dell 350w out of my 6mnth old Inspiron 530 (runs a 8800gt no problem, 4xSATA 24pin, 4pin, 1xPCIe)
Mobo - http://www.ebuyer.com/product/140066...ctype=extended
CPU - http://www.ebuyer.com/product/132064...specifications
RAM - Corsair PC6400 2x1gb (just won on ebay new for £24!)
DVD - http://www.ebuyer.com/product/129527...roduct_reviews
HDD - http://www.ebuyer.com/product/124735
Case- http://www.ebuyer.com/product/132129...ct_reviewsFans
GPU - Spare ATI Radeon HD2400 pro

Have 2x 92mm fans for this and necessary cables

This is really the max I want to spend so mobo is relatively cheap

Want to overclock once up and running, what could I overclock a E2180 to on a stock cooler? I think the G31 board may limit theoretical OC to 3ghz, but that is already very fast.

Using the Dell PSU as want to put a Corsair VX450w in the Dell as will be adding extra fans and HDD to it after the PSU switch.

Thanks All

[Wills]

Hello,

I dont know about the motherboard, havnt read up on that one but the gigabyte GA-P31-DS3L is supposed to be very good at about £40 (I believe),

How that PSU runs an 8800gt I dont know!

What will you be using this pc for mainly?

[staffsMike]

Why would that PSU not run an 8800GT? It won't pull anywhere near that from the wall I would imagine. Dell genereally use very high quality PSU's.

Looks good to me.G31 is a bit basic but will do the job

I think you will get 2.4GHz on the stock cooler maybe a bit more.

[PeterStoba]

What's the overall price?

And yeah, the psu will be fine, my system draws around 300w under load...

[Maccer101]

total cost should be £170, don't really want to spend much more. This was supposed to be a £120-150 build but I keep upping the quality of the components as its so tempting to spend just another £10 on something you know is another step up the performance ladder.

However saying that the Gigabyte G31 board is £35 would it be worth the extra £5 to get the gigabyte P31 DS3L. Cannot afford to splash out on a new P35 board though.

[staffsMike]

That board is supposed to be a very good overclocker according to customPC but then on an 800MHz chip that really won't come into play.

In your position I'd probably get AMD, well I did actually

Asus M2A-VM -£35 and a 5000+ x2 brisbane ~£45. Good board, nice CPU and you get 2.6GHz out of the box

[Maccer101]

staffsMike, reason for going intel is that I will probably put my Q6600 in it in a year or so as my Dell won't OC.

Apart from onboard VGA what is the difference between the P31 & G31 boards, are the P31s better in general or for clocking? am interested as the P31 is more expensive than the G31 whilst it lacks the onboard video

I've done a google on this but to no avail

[staffsMike]

Well if they are both 1333MHz the overclocking thing is trivial, unless of course the G31 doesn't have the bios options to do it..

Both very basic though and similar performing though I would think, most boards are these days tbh.

[Maccer101]

Right, have being trying to get the best deal to keep the budget down, since I keep on upping the Spec

Planning to Run Ubuntu on system but want to proof the build in case I switch and put XP/Vista on it.

So far managed to get these components off Ebay (costs include postage), these items have not yet arrived but have been sold as working or unused:-

£26 E2180 (no cooler)
£24 New 2x1gb Corsair PC6400 (normally £32, what a deal! Seller on ebay misspelled it as Crosair so it must not have been appearing on buyer’s product searches as all the other ones went for £30+)
£40 Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3 (I was only looking for a P31 board but put a speculative bid on and hey presto!... hope the board works)

However I did something stupid today, I bid on 3 HDDs and so far have won 2!

£15 Maxtor DiamondMax21 80gb 8mb cache
£24 WD 2500Y 250gb 16mb cache

I may aslo win a Seagate 7200 160gb for £19, it ends tonight "You Stupid Boy Pike"

Think I got a good price for them but only want one.

I would like to keep the WD drive and sell the Maxtor as it’s a better brand, but if is used the Maxtor I could keep the WD to use as an external backup drive.

Both drives are SATA II, would there be much of a performance difference between the 2 due to their different platter sizes? i.e. would I be slowing down the machine if I used the 80gb one?

I only plan to use the machine for surfing and practising Overclocking so I’m not going to store an awful lot on it. But at the end of the day I can probably get my money back reselling them.

All I need now is a case, dvd and a few cables and fans and a new PSU for the Dell

[AdvWar]

The WD drive should definitely be faster, but I'm not sure how big the difference would be.

[Maccer101]

Thanks, think I'll keep the WD and sell the 80gb on ebay.