£350 PC advice

[rijel]

Hi guys!

I'm looking to build a new PC for £350-£400 (not including a monitor) and I'd really value some advice.

I'm planning on dual booting Windows 7 and Ubuntu. I want it to be fine for gaming but it doesn't need to run the latest ones at high detail - I'd rather it ran cool and quiet. I've gone for MATX case as I'll have to move it to and from uni every term.

The plan so far is:

CPU: AMD Phenom II X3 720 2.8GHz Socket AM3 (£89.27)
HDD: Western Digital Caviar 1TB 7200RPM 32MB S300 (£59.13)
Memory: OCZ 4GB (2x2GB) DDR2 1066MHz/PC2-8500 Gold Memory (£43.99)
Case: Antec NSK 3480 MATX Micro Tower - With 380W PSU (£69.00)
Motherboard: Asus M2N68-AM SE2 GeForce 7025 Socket AM2+ onboard VGA 6 channel audio mATX (£33.44)
Graphics card: MSI HD 4670 512MB GDDR3 Dual DVI PCI-E (£61.76)

(those come to about £370 when you include delivery)

Thanks in advance for your help!

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

This is what I would go for:

Phenom II X3 720 ~ £89

http://www.ebuyer.com/search?q=X3+720&x=0&y=0

This a newer architecture than the 9650 and consumes less power too. It will be faster in most cases too even though it is a triple core.

Asus M3A76-CM ~£43

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/161330

4gb PC2-8500 RAM ~ £44

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/148859

HD4670 Ultimate ~ £54

http://www.dabs.com/products/sapphir...ion--5K1H.html

This is passively cooled. Make sure that you have an intake and exhaust cooling fan in the case.

Antec NSK 3480 ~ £69

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/130946

Samsung 1TB hard drive ~ £60

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/143288

If you use free Supersaver postage from Ebuyer and the free postage option from Dabs the total comes to around £360.

You will need to add some cooling fans and an optical drive too.

Also remember Windows 7 maybe available as part of the Ultimate Steal eventually so it would be cheaper to get it this way unless you get it for free through MSDNAA (if you are eligible)

[rijel]

Thanks! I plan to use the free beta of Windows 7 for now and worry about it running out closer to the time. Prefer MSI's HD 4670 card as though not passively cooled, you do get 2 DVI outputs.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Thanks! I plan to use the free beta of Windows 7 for now and worry about it running out closer to the time. Prefer MSI's HD 4670 card as though not passively cooled, you do get 2 DVI outputs.

The MSI card actually comes with one DVI,one HDMI and a VGA connector if you look at the pictures of the card on the internet. An HDMI to DVI connector is not tha expensive though:

http://www.ebuyer.com/search?sort=pr...imit=10&page=1

Also change the motherboard as with a 95w TDP processor like the X3 720 the 760G is a far better choice and a much better chipset.

Edit!

This is the product page for the graphics card:

http://www.msi.com/index.php?func=pr...7&prod_no=1761

The best thing would be to check with Ebuyer first.