Building a shuttle for a mate

Okay my friend has £450 (absolute max!!! So all systems must be under 450 including delivery costs). He's has made this spec list but he wanted me to see if you think it is okay or if he could do any better. He definately wants a SN45G, 512Mb of Ram and a 200Gb HDD, but makes and graphics card are negotiable!

Product Store Price
Shuttle SN45G OCUK £115.00
AMD Athlon XP2600+ Komplett £64.40
Western Digital 200GB Caviar Komplett £99.01
Sapphire Radeon 9600 w/ 256MB Komplett £74.03
TwinMOS 512MB (2 x 256MB) PC3200 Komplett £56.40
TOTAL (including all delivery) £445.43


Please mention any compatabilty issues or anything like that. He wants a pretty reasonable cheap graphics card with DVI for his very expensive 20" IBM LCD (running at 1600x1200) so it has to be able to cope with those high resolutions for photoshop stuff and for the odd game or relatively strenous 3D task.

Let battle commence!

Pickers

Get a 2500+ Barton, should clock to 3200+ speeds easily. Should save a couple of pennies too. :)

Don't bother about a 256MB 9600 card, it won't be able to use the extra 128MB of RAM. Go for a 9600PRO or XT if ya can. Well worth it! :D

And get 1x512MB instead of 2x256MB. Yeah it'll cost ya a few more quid, but it'll be worth it for saving space in a shuttle!!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Big_Al

Get a 2500+ Barton, should clock to 3200+ speeds easily. Should save a couple of pennies too. :)

Don't bother about a 256MB 9600 card, it won't be able to use the extra 128MB of RAM. Go for a 9600PRO or XT if ya can. Well worth it! :D

And get 1x512MB instead of 2x256MB. Yeah it'll cost ya a few more quid, but it'll be worth it for saving space in a shuttle!!

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yep :)

If your getting a 9600 it HAS to be an xt or a pro. Definately go with barton.

Why does it HAVE to be a Pro or XT, Photoshop doesn't take advantage of a 3D card. Light gaming would be find with a 9600 and would save a bit of money.

If he's thinking of gaming at 1600*1200 then he may want 256Mb VRAM (but then a much better card) as I have a 21" monitor and have run out of VRam for 1600*1200 gaming before. But then in games either 1024 3xFSAA or 1280 is fine.

Why such a big HDD? Will he seriously fill that much as you could pickup a 120Gb for like £60-70 now! (Samsung recommended, just got one and its great - 1502 HDD PCMarks)

I say Seagate 120gb 7200.7 model, sweet and silent, and performs a charm.

the chap that says get just one stick of mem to save space

i am new to shuttles but i thought you needed two sticks to enable the dual channel

correct me if im wrong and i apologise for my lack of knowledge if i am lol

You do, yes. But I think the performance drop (which will be hardly noticable) is less important than the fact that when wanting to upgrade to more memory (and for graphics work he'll need lots) he'll have to sell both sticks and buy 2x512MB sticks.

Shuttle's only have 2 slots you see.

Personally, I'd spend more on a good CPU and/or memory to start. Everything after that is gravy...

Thanks for the input guys. He's informed me that he doesn't really want to game at all, but would still like a reasonable graphics card with good IQ. Oh and as the 256Mb model is only £4 more expensive than the 128Mb it kind of makes sense! He REALLY needs the 200Gb as he has a big collection of films (all legally bought then ripped ;)). I think that one stick of 512 could be the way forwards as he says he is looking to upgrade to 1Gb soon, so I think I'll take your advice on that.

Thanks chaps,

Pickers

Quote:

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Originally Posted by pickers

Thanks for the input guys. He's informed me that he doesn't really want to game at all, but would still like a reasonable graphics card with good IQ. Oh and as the 256Mb model is only £4 more expensive than the 128Mb it kind of makes sense! He REALLY needs the 200Gb as he has a big collection of films (all legally bought then ripped ;)). I think that one stick of 512 could be the way forwards as he says he is looking to upgrade to 1Gb soon, so I think I'll take your advice on that.

Thanks chaps,

Pickers

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256mb = worse than 128 due to manafacturer(any) using slower carp memory. 128 will be better.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by steve threlfall

256mb = worse than 128 due to manafacturer(any) using slower carp memory. 128 will be better.

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Yup, failed to mention that earlier. The memory used on 256MB cards is slower than the memory used on 128MB cards. With sufficient RAM you won't need a 256MB card anyway.

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