Good spec PC @ £200

[Mozzer]

I compiled this for a guy i know after a cheap PC, thought i'd share it.

Computer 2 has a CD ROM instead of CDRW.

Oh. And the cheasy reference thing, he doesn't know **** so i put them there to show him what he'd be getting for his money (He has a 133Mhz P2). The hard-drive one i just drew, lol.

[Stoo]

Ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww@pc chips mobo!

[Mozzer]

Gah, nay-sayer... Its a good system for the price.

[Spritzup]

It seems good, with the exception of the motherboard. I wouldn't cheap out and that my friend. Just my 2cents.

[Stoo]

Not a nay-sayer at all.

The rest of the system is fine, but that motherboard is nothing but a flimsy, unreliable, POS.
PC-chips motherboards are cheap for that very reason, nobody but cheap box-shifters ever buy them, and they rarely last very long before falling apart (Usually about a week after the year warrenty runs out, if you're very lucky).

[Ben Rogers]

Originally posted by Stoo
Not a nay-sayer at all.

The rest of the system is fine, but that motherboard is nothing but a flimsy, unreliable, POS.
PC-chips motherboards are cheap for that very reason, nobody but cheap box-shifters ever buy them, and they rarely last very long before falling apart (Usually about a week after the year warrenty runs out, if you're very lucky).

PC Chips mobo's areant that bad, they just require a bit of time and effort to get running properly, sometimes.

With good RAM and a good PSU they're fine, (usually) I've got an old one which has been running 24/7 since 1999 (M741LMRT) the last year or so 100% cpu use too. Also got an M810 like the one in the spec over a year ago which has been flawless again.

Saying that though, I wouldn't use a PC Chips mobo for a PC I was going to sell, especially with a cheap PSU. For that spec I'd try and find an Asus A7N266-VM for the budget system as it can run fine on a generic 300W PSU and generic RAM too, unlike some PC Chips mobo's. I think the problem is that PC Chips quality control sucks, so some boards will run properly with generic RAM and some won't, same goes for the PSU. Luck of the draw with these mobo's.

If you do go with the PC Chips mobo be prepared to spend a lot of time on getting it stable. One of the most annoying things with the M810 is that the IDE devices will not run in UDMA modes without 'ACPI' being turned on in the BIOS before Windows was installed. That's just one of the hassles with the M810.

BTW, the pic of the mobo in the spec is of a version 7.1 A board, which doesn't take DDR RAM, just two DIMM's that take upto a gig of 168 pin SD RAM.

It's the newer ones which takes both DDR RAM and SD RAM, PC Chips call it the M810 'D', it doesn't even use the same chipset as the 7.1 A, although PC Chips doesn't mention this. The M810 'D' uses a SiS 740 chipset and 7.1 A uses the SiS 730 IIRC.

PC Chips - unpredictable.

[Austin]

I'd have to say that's at the bleeding edge of budget buying, still need a monitor too

www.dabs.com

£36.50 XP1700+ (DLT3C shoud be TbredB & o/c to XP2800+ ave)
£8.00 CM XP3200+ HSF (prefer £15 for Volcano 11+)
£35.00 256MB Crucial PC2700
£38.50 SiS746FX (333FSB but no mult adj so XP1700+ only to XP2200+)
£32.50 GF4MX440 (£45 gets FX5200, faster with DX8 & DX9)
£25.00 Case with 300W PSU (Refresh or local shop, £35 for nice Dabs)
£48.50 60GB 7200rpm
£12.50 54x CDROM (£23-26 gets DVD or CDRW)
TOTAL inc P&P £240

There's an nForce2 400 (no DC-DDR) due in in 2 weeks for £40! Currently available mobo alternatives are £45 SiS748 (no mult but 400FSB) or £49 Asus KT400 (333FSB but mult adj so XP2800+ easily possible). Of course if you did want to use 400FSB you need PC3200 extra £5. Refresh (case for £20 +£4ish P&P also do good cheap RAM, 512MB £45 IIRC).

[Stoo]

"pc chips aren't that bad" then lists bunch of reasons why they suck, now there's logic

Seriously, though as austin posted above, there are a hell of a lot better options out there, and it's your rep that will get ruined if you flog him (and possibly others) a box that you constantly have to mess with to get even basic performance out of it.

That bloke might have an ancient p166 or whatever but those things are pretty solid, and he ain't going to be impressed if his new box has an uptime on par with a student at freshers week..

/me nods to Austin, that's a *much* better spec, especially if he waits and goes for the nforce2

[Ben Rogers]

PC Chips arean't THAT bad, they just need to be setup properly like I said. Once setup properly they will run for years, and still be 100% stable..



The point I was making is that they are picky on what components are used in them which don't make it good if the person you sell it to wants to upgrade the graphics card or add more memory.

With Austin's spec, there's no guarantees that the CPU would do XP2800+ speeds, bit of a pain if the pc keeps crashing because of the overclock once it's sold. As Mozzer said the guy doesn't know much about pc's he aint going to have a clue how to sort it out if it keeps crashing.

Also, with a 300W PSU, there's a chance it won't have enough voltage to remain stable in games and processor intensive apps.

[Austin]

I was disappointed I couldn't bring it in closer to £200. I'm not saying your choices weren't wise but simply giving mine.

However even at stock the XP1700+ is way better than a Duron 1.3ghz and thanks to TbredB way cooler (hence quieter). I've never heard of a TbredB which couldn't do 2.10ghz but you can be certain a CPU is 100% stable simply by finding its limits and then backing off a fair bit, XP1700+ tend to run as XP2600+ 333FSB with default voltage. The 0.13mu 9 layer design simply has a lot of potential but the demand is still there for slower AthlonXP, hence why TbredB is used below XP2400+ where there is no need. So basicly the CPU wouldn't be set to XP2800+ speed unless I could be certain it can run 100% stably fully stressed at least at 'XP3000+' speeds and even then XP2700+ would be more likely. BTW a 300W PSU is more than capable of handling a high CPU, single HD, optical drive, low-to-medium gfx card and all the other usual components and more besides.

I don't like to use unbranded PSUs but we are talking seriously cheap cheap here and that's the main reason for going GF4MX, it's DX7 and very slow comparatively but still way better than practically all onboard gfx solutions (excl nForce2 which actually is GF4MX). I also dislike noisy and inefficient HSF like I'm sure that CM is, heck all components on such a cheap PC could do so much more with that little extra cash but again, budget budget budget LOL!