Budget £100~ upgrade advice

[sammorris]

I believe it's the same as a 3700+ which was the 512K model.

[Gazmondo]

Might explain it as I used to have the socket A variant.

Thanks for the list of components, would give rep/thanks but don't see an option for it? Maybe due to my lacklustre post count.

Might be tempted with a second hand dual core atm, drop the PSU and just give away my spare one, and maybe spend the £30 left over on a bigger HDD.

[KidChameleon]

Have a look on http://www.gumtree.com/ for your area. People often sell decent Pentium 4 PCs for under £100. If it's just word processing and the like, the majority of the ones available would be fine. Just get a second opinion on the price if you see an interesting one.

If they don't have Windows installed, a lot will have a licence key sticker on the side that can be used.

[Gazmondo]

http://www.gumtree.com/london/60/37756860.html

What about that one?

What's difference between Pentium 4 and D?

[sammorris]

Pentium 4 is single core. Pentium D is Dual Core.

[scaryjim]

Might explain it as I used to have the socket A variant.

I think you're all being unnecessarily harsh on the Socket A Semprons. I had a 2300+ for many years, coupled with 512MB of DDR-333 (dual channel on an NForce 2 mobo!), and it never had any issues with web browsing, office, iplayer, 4OD, or DVD playback.

Frankly, if that's all the PC will be doing then pretty much anything Socket A or more recent with 512MB RAM will meet the requirements, and you should be able to pick up some dead cheap bundles from Ebay that meet that requirement... otherwise, CATs build will do nicely at the very top end of the budget (and will probably last longer, of course )

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

If the OP is going to donate a PSU then it would make sense to get a new hard disk. If anything this can make a system much smoother running if the existing hard disk is quite old.

Something like this one will do:

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/159613

[Sputnik]

If the OP is going to donate a PSU then it would make sense to get a new hard disk. If anything this can make a system much smoother running if the existing hard disk is quite old.

Something like this one will do:

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/159613

I agree, Older hard drives have much slower transfer speeds than the newer models.

Although, I'd probably spend the extra fiver and get a WD instead of Maxtor.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I agree, Older hard drives have much slower transfer speeds than the newer models.

Although, I'd probably spend the extra fiver and get a WD instead of Maxtor.

I agree but I was trying to keep to the budget. I definitely prefer Samsung and Western Digital for hard disks.

[sammorris]

My grandad's PC has a Sempron 2400+ with 256MB of RAM, and it's very slow, but it still gets the job done. The problem with the Socket A Semprons is they were significantly slower than their older Athlon XP counterparts with the same figure, a Sempron 3000+ compared similarly to an XP 2200+, likewise the bottom 2300 and 2400 Semprons were rather lik the XP 1600+ and 1700+ CPUs, which of course, weren't really any faster than the best of P3s, but were in a market dominated by P4s and better Athlons. I believe by this time the A64 3200+ had appeared for Socket 754.

Cat: Agreed on keeping to budget, but likewise I'd prioritise WD and Samsung over Maxtor. The newest ones (+22) are Seagates but the rest (+11 and before) were still Maxtors, and not especially good.

[Gazmondo]

After being down there for sunday dinner, and explaining her options, she said, if needs be, budget can be stretched to £125 (MAX) as she wasn't really "in the know" as to how much it would cost.

What would be the absolute cheapest PSU I would be able to get? Personally the PSU is something I would never ever budget on, and I'm at home with brands like enermax, pc power and cooling, etc, though I'm not quite sure on the sub £20 ones, are there any reputable brands down that low? Or would I be looking at spending a little more on say an OCZ Hiper at £28?

At the moment the current build looks like this:

Mobo - http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/s...tml?FOX-M61PMV £35
CPU - Undecided atm. Looking at an AM2 3800x2 (2nd hand)
HDD - http://www.ebuyer.com/product/128708 £32
RAM - http://www.ebuyer.com/product/120446 - £10
PSU - http://www.ebuyer.com/product/141597 £28

Case & Monitor I've got spares

Total - £105 exc CPU.

Hmm...

(Postage with ebuyer would be free as I'm spending over £49.99, and also free with novatech as they waive the postage fees once you accomplish 50 posts in their forum).

[sammorris]

If you do get a 3800+ make sure it's AM2 not 939!
To be honest, that PSU is the absolute minimum grade stuff I usually recommend people anyway.

[Gazmondo]

If you do get a 3800+ make sure it's AM2 not 939!
To be honest, that PSU is the absolute minimum grade stuff I usually recommend people anyway.

Haven't been out the hardware side of things for THAT long haha.

Seen a 2nd hand one on eBay, trying to banter him down, but it's OEM. Back in the day the AC7 was the HSF to get, this still the numero 1 choice?

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I would get this RAM instead:

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/91126

It is better to run the RAM in dual channel mode and for 70p extra I think it is worth it. The speed of the RAM will be less important though.

Edit!!

Gazmondo - I saw some good processor deals on Ebay. I sent you a PM with some links. I hope they are useful!

[sammorris]

Yeah Freezer 7's still a good bet, they've revised it recently and it comes with AC's flagship new Thermal paste MX-2 pre-applied,which is really good.
Apologies if I sounded insulting about the 939 remark, I actually meant if you were only accustomed to newer tech and didn't know about old stuff like 939s, a lot of people I know are familiar with old and new but have black spots in the middle. No offense intended.

CAT: Nice find, agreed on two sticks over one, even if for redundancy in fault checking...

[Gazmondo]

Hey don't worry about it, I didn't find it insulting at all!

Yeah was wondering about the 2x512mb, only reason I went for the single 1gb stick is for ease of upgrading in future - it would only be an additional £10 to add another 1gb stick.