£200 budget motherboard, graphics card, processor

[jonathan1986]

Hi all,

I'm looking at building a computer, and after selecting a case, monitor, wireless card, DVDRW and hard disk, I have just shy of £200 left. For this, I want a motherboard (with onboard sound, and support for front and rear panel USB), graphics card, and processor.

I don't want to be able to run all the latest games, but several year old ones would be nice, and watching DVDs and so on. What combinations would you guys recommend? In case it matters, the case I've gone for is LN24181 (Antec NSK-6580B Mid Tower Case inc 430w 80+ PSU, 9 Drive Bays, Front IO USB & IEEE 1394 http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?W...+%26+IEEE+1394), and for monitor I'm either going for LN19203 (22" Neovo H-W22 Widescreen LCD, Thin, 1680x1050, DVI, 2000:1, 300 cd/m2, 3 ms, Speakers, DVI Cable http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?W...s%2c+DVI+Cable) or LN23652 (22" Hyundai BlueH H224W LCD with DVI / HDCP 1000:1 http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?W...HDCP+1000%3a1+).

The graphics card, processor and motherboard I've sort of chosen are: LN24482 (512MB Asus HD 4670, PCI-E 2.0 (x16), 2008MHz GDDR3, GPU 750MHz, 320 Cores, D-Sub/ DL DVI-I/ HDMI http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?W...+DVI-I%2f+HDMI), LN23890 (AMD Athlon 64 X2 5600+ AM2 , Brisbane, Dual Core, 2.9GHz, 2x512KB Cache, Retail http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?W...ache%2c+Retail), LN21665 (Asus M2N-VM HDMI, NF7050 PV, S AM2+, PCI-E (x16), DDR2 1066/533/ 667/800, SATA II, SATA RAID, µATX http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?W...D%2c+%C2%B5ATX), but any opinions on other options would also be much appreciated.

Thanks,
Jonathan

[Webby]

I would go for a cheaper processor and a better graphics card personally.

GPU- 4850 £105 http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/s....html?NOV-4850

That leaves you £95 for CPU and motherboard stick with the motherboard you selected which leaves £55 for the CPU my choices would be either the X2 5000 (2.6GHz) or the 4850e (2.5Ghz but more energy efficient) from Novatech £43 and £46 respectively and from Scan the 4850e is £47.50.

Finally since it isn't in you list above have you remembered to factor in some memory?

[Saracen]

If newer games aren't a concern, I'd be inclined to aim more at £100-ish for the CPU, £50 for the graphics card and £50 for the mobo. The processor should give a fair bit more grunt, and the graphics is easier to upgrade should newer games become an issue. But it does depend what else you'll do with the system.

[jonathan1986]

Hi,

Thanks for the suggestions, I will bear them in mind. Also, yes, I have remembered the memory, but forgot to put it in that list, sorry. I need everything except mouse and keyboard.

Thanks,
Jonathan

[jonathan1986]

Sorry, I didn't see the later reply. I should have said that I don't know exactly what I'll be using the PC for in future (having never had such a high-powered machine, I'll probably decide to do all sorts of new things with it when I suddenly can!). It may be that I want to play new games as well (hadn't really thought about this), but my current plans are just office/web/email and oldish games -- basically easily within the capabilities within any machine, but also I want to be able to upgrade it in future (although preferably not for many years), which is the main reason I'm going for a desktop rather than a laptop, so is it best if I pay more for the processor now (which is obviously more fiddly to upgrade, but from the one I suggested I'd get I believe the motherboard will let me to some extent), and buy a less powerful graphics card, which will be much easier to upgrade, as you say? All opinions welcome!

Thanks,
Jonathan