Best MB, CPU, RAM & HDD Combo for £250

[jjonesorguk]

Got my case, gonna borrow a graphics card for a while and want it to be upgradable in the future!

How should i spend my £250 to get the guts of my PC going. I'm pretty set on the DFI Infinity Nforce2 @ £60 from Ebuyer after recent post here but want to know what to put around it!

[-mb-]

"I'm pretty set on the DFI Infinity Nforce2 @ £60."

Don't be.

The Abit NF7-S is the one to go for at £66 from Microdirect.

Dunno how MUCH storage, but pair it with a Seagte Barracuda 7200.7 SATA of some capacity. Ebuyer has an 80Gb at £47

Get an Athlon 2500+ with that at £56 from Microdirect.

That leaves you enough (see below) to get a full 1Gb of memory, which IS worth it, especially as you will probably be using Windows Xp and playing games...

1Gb (2x512Mb) of GeiL Value DDR400 can be had for £121 at Microdirect...

DDR400 costs the same as DDR333, but gives you overclocking headroom.

With a good cooler you might get the 2500+ to 3200+ speeds or higher....


This requires a £30 budget stretch, but will give you great performance...

Hope this helps

[serlex]

ok mine is abit diffrent.
nf7-s - 80gb 2mb - athlon 2400+ - 256 3700 OCZ
should be around £250 (i think)

[blockers]

A little difference again...
Abit NF7-S (£70ish)
Maxtor 80gb IDE (£60ish)
Twinmoss 2x512mb pc3200 (£100-£150)

[-mb-]

@ blockers: He needs a processor there too.

[BUFF]

I've got both the DFI Infinity & the NF7-S V2.0.
Go read the DFI forum at amdmb.com - the DFI's have got problems (cold/warm boot, voltage regulation & slow write speed in RAID).
Yes, when they work they are fast but the NF7-S is an altogether easier ride.

I would recommend an NF7-S V2.0, XP-M 2500+ & Tt Volcano 12 from CPU City.
That'll be about £160 incl. carr. but should get you to 2.6GHz (an XP3200+ is 2.2GHz) with a bit of luck.
80GB HDD is about £50 & a 120Gb is about £60 (have you got an OS? another £60 if you don't oem).
512Mb PC3200 should be £50-60.