Planned system

[Dr-Rogg]

I'm building a pc for my little brother to a £1000 limit, and since he likes glowing and flashing things I was thinking along these lines...

Akasa UV Reactive Transparent Case
Globalwin Super Silent 22dBA 320W ATX Power Supply
DFI Lan Party i875 Motherboard
TwinMOS 512MB (2x256MB) DDR PC3200 Dual Channel Kit
Sapphire ATI Radeon 9600 Pro 128MB
Seagate Barracuda Serial ATA V 80GB
Akasa Serial ATA PSU Converter
Akasa Serial ATA 45cm Silver Data Cable
LiteOn LTC-48161H 48x48x24x16x CDRW/DVD Combo Drive
AOC LM720A 17" TFT Monitor
Intel Pentium 4 'Northwood' 2.4CGHz (800FSB) with HT Technology

Works out as slightly over I think, so cheaper suggestions would be appreciated Thanks...

Rogg

[TiG]

i'd definitely pick up a better PSU than the one listed, plus if your bro likes playing lots of games the AOC LCD may not be the best one to choose.

I'd personally go for the abit or asus canterwood or springdale boards instead of the DFI lan, but otherwise it looks pretty damn excellent.

The asus and abit motherboards come with all the SATA power adapters and converters you'll ever need (well for two drives

TiG

[fondie]

i can't see any problem with the psu you've chosen, and the DFI mobo should be fine too, i dunno about LCD's so i won't comment on that but the rest all looks good to me, looks like your going for quiet as a concern so i'd suggest a Zalman CNPS-7000Cu cooler rather than using the retail one.

you could save a lot of money by going for a CRT screen, a Iiyama 19" CRT Vision Master 1451 costs £117 from Scan, alhough i do realise you've tried getting all you bits from one site but even with the extra postage it saves £160 on the LCD if space isn't a concern!

oh, and you'll also have to consider a keyboard, and mouse, speakers and an O/S if you haven't got these things already.

[catattack]

If I were you, I would save as much money as possible to get a Geforce FX 5900 Ultra. Just to be different! Or at least a Rad9800Pro.

[Austin]

All round a very nice well-balanced system.

I like to shop around for cases 'in the flesh', it can save you a good £50-100 and you know you like what you are getting. Esp good for when the PC is for someone esle, you can ensure it is technically good enough while they can choose the looks!

PSU should be good enough but it makes sense to protect and feed that £1000 investment so I would suggest Antec or Enermax 350W+.

875 are nice but quite pricey. I would look towards an 865 based mobo esp if you can get one with sneaky PAT enabled (they weill call it something else).

TwinMOS is a great choice and PC3200 is certainly a great choice. If you plan to o/c you may want PC3500+ but then you can run the RAM async with relatively minor impact. 512MB (2x256MB) is a great amount, adding another 2x256MB is cheaply and easily done (all 865/875 have 4 slots right?). Try to get double-sided DIMMs (not necessarily chips on both sides), this is meant to give optimal perf in 865/875.

Rad9600PRO is a top choice, GF4TI4200 though almost as fast does lack DX9 and top AA+AF and I'm sure he/you won't want to upgrade sooner than necessary. FX5600ultra are too expensive and even v2 flipchip is not significantly better (despite TomsHW). You could get a good deal on the superior 9500PRO or 9700 series, eg £150 Rad9700 (Grandmars do a search here) way faster esp with an o/c. Rad9800 and the higher FX series are simply too expensive to warrant the purchase TBH.

...

[Austin]

I'd get a 120GB ATA133 7200rpm (pref 8MB) over SATA150 80GB, prices may be similar. SATA is nice but not yet needed, only the Maxtor offers a true increase in perf plus you get a regular IDE power plug to use if you wish. He's unlikely to feel the small speed boost (eg Win loads in 40secs instead of 44secs) but he will feel it when he runs low or out of room (games, dl's, sys restore etc).

LiteOn are tops though I would suggest checking the combi can be made region free like their seperate DVD-ROM drive can. It should rip at full speed too, many drives don't.

I would second a 19" CRT over a 17" TFT. They haven't reached true maturity yet and still have too many downsides. Be sure to scour ms response time, contrast, brightness, native res, colours (16bit=65000 vs 24bit=16million) and finally PRICE! Of course TFT has its merits and they are obvious but will this be a serious Windows PC or more of a gaming and/or multimedia rig?

P4C 800FSB 2.4ghz is a top CPU with plenty of headroom in it too. You should find a faster AMD based system can be had for £100-200 cheaper (CPU, mobo & possibly RAM) esp if you look into o/c'ing them a little.

Finally be sure to leave enough money for decent (not budget) keyboard, mouse, soundcard and speakers ... unless you plan to add them later LOL!

[Axion]

best 350w psu can be had at ocuk - the FSP/Sparkle 350w has the best 12v line of all the 350w - very good price/performance ratio

for a sub-£1000 pc either go amd + tft or p4c + crt

if your planning on oc-ing beyond 3ghz then you really need a good quality 430w-480w psu

i wouldnt get a 9600pro... either get the geforce4ti and save some cash... or spend that little extra and get a 9700

the amd cash savings DO NOT come from ram at all... but cpu/mobo are both cheaper and the integrated sound is very good... p4 mobos really need a good soundcard in them. Also max o/c on an amd can be done on the fsp/sparkle power supply i mentioned... p4c's need truepower 480w's really which cost a fair bit more.

im in pretty much the same boat as you... and have decided to take the plunge with an amd-based system as i couldnt ultimately justify to myself and my wallet the extra expense of a p4 2.4c over a 1700 tbred B D3LTC based system

failing a 1700 the barton costs £70 less... the NF7-S costs £20 less than a ic7 and £60 less than an ic7-g... the audigy 2 costs an extra £60 so soundstorm saved me that too... the difference in psu's was another £35... however ram actually costs more!

the p4c ram to use is the ADTATA pc4000 from ocuk/cpucity as it can reach very impressive fsbs for evry little cost... however it cant do less than cl2.5 at any fsb settings (fine for a p4 bad for an amd)... thus amd's need lower latency stuff... cl2 pc3200 stuff actually costs more/stick than the ADATA

what else? if you get a tft make sure its either the NEC 1760NX or equiv - ie good pic quality, 16ms response etc.

[WoLFe]

Originally posted by Axion
best 350w psu can be had at ocuk - the FSP/Sparkle 350w has the best 12v line of all the 350w - very good price/performance ratio

for a sub-£1000 pc either go amd + tft or p4c + crt

if your planning on oc-ing beyond 3ghz then you really need a good quality 430w-480w psu

i wouldnt get a 9600pro... either get the geforce4ti and save some cash... or spend that little extra and get a 9700

the amd cash savings DO NOT come from ram at all... but cpu/mobo are both cheaper and the integrated sound is very good... p4 mobos really need a good soundcard in them. Also max o/c on an amd can be done on the fsp/sparkle power supply i mentioned... p4c's need truepower 480w's really which cost a fair bit more.

im in pretty much the same boat as you... and have decided to take the plunge with an amd-based system as i couldnt ultimately justify to myself and my wallet the extra expense of a p4 2.4c over a 1700 tbred B D3LTC based system

failing a 1700 the barton costs £70 less... the NF7-S costs £20 less than a ic7 and £60 less than an ic7-g... the audigy 2 costs an extra £60 so soundstorm saved me that too... the difference in psu's was another £35... however ram actually costs more!

the p4c ram to use is the ADTATA pc4000 from ocuk/cpucity as it can reach very impressive fsbs for evry little cost... however it cant do less than cl2.5 at any fsb settings (fine for a p4 bad for an amd)... thus amd's need lower latency stuff... cl2 pc3200 stuff actually costs more/stick than the ADATA

what else? if you get a tft make sure its either the NEC 1760NX or equiv - ie good pic quality, 16ms response etc.

I agree

[Axion]

[Austin]

Yes, Sparkle PSUs are well reknowned for offering great stability/perf at a fairly low price. I would say buy a more generous PSU for the P4 but you should find a good quality 350W PSU isn't limiting.

I would say some of the cash saving associated with AMD can come from RAM. AMD based systems gain little going above 333FSB outside of synthetic benchmarks, so PC2700 isn't overly limiting (unless your mobo lacks high enough multipliers for o/c'ing). It is best to get PC3200 though (esp considering the small price diff). It enables you to o/c 333FSB based mobos without worry and also to utilise 400FSB too. The RAM shouldn't prevent you from upping the FSB above 400FSB (any more than most mobos) but as said true gains will be very small so the only reason (other than bragging) is if your mobo's multiplier is limiting. For P4C 800FSB it is different. PC3200 is what (realisticly) you MUST buy and if you plan to o/c PC3700 is really wise unless you don't mind taking a little perf hit from async FSB/RAM. As for latency, that's WAY overplayed (and overpriced). Diffs between the fastest and slowest timings are usually around 1% so (again excluding synthetic bms) the only real benefit (again bragging aside) is to set higher timings on the lower latency RAM in order to raise the mhz more stably. With nForce2 there's even less point in using lower latency RAM as most of what Dual Channel does there is reduce latency.

AMD CPUs are generally MUCH easier to o/c (esp with a little homework). The primary reason is that ALL P4's use a locked multiplier and even the cheapest P4C's are hardly cheap, unlike the cheap TbredB or Barton based AMD CPUs. So it's easy to keep an AMD based CPU's mobo, FSB, RAM (etc) 100% in spec. For the P4 although gains are nice from huge FSB speeds (eg 1000FSB) there are plenty of factors and complications to stunt the full potential of your kit.

So for cost diffs...

* You will pay a good £100 more for the Intel CPU though it will easily beat the AMD when both are o/c'ed.

* You'll pay a fair bit more for an Intel 800FSB based mobo. In fact the cheap AMD based mobos offer VERY high perf so savings can be pretty big.

* If you want max perf on your o/c'ed P4C then you will want PC3700. BTW Adata PC4000 should certainly do faster timings at lower speeds like PC3200, if not it makes little diff anyway.

* You may be best to get a beefier PSU for the P4.

* nForce2 with MCP-T / Soundstorm mean there's no point at all in getting the likes of an Audigy. Cheaper onboard sound should still be decent though, certainly for AMD based mobos.

[SilentDeath]

heres some fairly obvios things i thought id point out:

there is only point in getting a p4 system if u want to overclock. otherwise u can gnerally get beter performace out of an amd one unless u can afford the best p4 stuff.

amd mobos have loads of features, will save u money on sound card and other stuff.

ive got a lot in my amd and only a 350w unbranded psu, plenty.

setting up a pc now is alot like overclocking it! its so easy to do now and theres only risk of damage if ur careless. imo a comp aint set up properly till its 100% stable, and overclocked as far as it can go, stabily.

faster ram dont make a h000ge difference. my pc2700 has been running at ddr400 fora while, not really noticable, butit doesnt cost much extra...

9600pro is good, overclocks very well.

get a dvdrw instead of cdrw +dvd rom/combo drives. overall it doesnt cost much more, as the pioneer 105 is only £90 now.

from all the unbranded psus ive owned (about 5 inc my brothers and dads) none of them have been loud. newer psus, liek the qtec ones are loud. try to find a decent unbranded one if possible, often they are oem, decent branded ones.

i wouldnt say any savings on amd come with ram, with p4 ur paying for the ability to overclock (using fsb) with amd uve already ot that.having a fsb of 230 instead of 200 makes little difference in games, imo. the money would be spent better for other stuff

[fondie]

Originally posted by Axion
if your planning on oc-ing beyond 3ghz then you really need a good quality 430w-480w psu

i disagree, the globalwin 320W PSU should be more than adequate for his system specs.

Originally posted by |SilentDeath|
amd mobos have loads of features, will save u money on sound card and other stuff.

so do intel boards?

Originally posted by |SilentDeath|
9600pro is good, overclocks very well.

agreed

Originally posted by catattack
If I were you, I would save as much money as possible to get a Geforce FX 5900 Ultra.

that's one hell of a lot of money to put into a graphics card in a £1000 system

Originally posted by Axion
the p4c ram to use is the ADTATA pc4000 from ocuk/cpucity as it can reach very impressive fsbs for evry little cost... however it cant do less than cl2.5 at any fsb settings (fine for a p4 bad for an amd)... thus amd's need lower latency stuff... cl2 pc3200 stuff actually costs more/stick than the ADATA.

agreed, that a-data ddr500 is top value for money for intel systems.

Originally posted by Austin
AMD CPUs are generally MUCH easier to o/c (esp with a little homework). The primary reason is that ALL P4's use a locked multiplier and even the cheapest P4C's are hardly cheap, unlike the cheap TbredB or Barton based AMD CPUs. So it's easy to keep an AMD based CPU's mobo, FSB, RAM (etc) 100% in spec. For the P4 although gains are nice from huge FSB speeds (eg 1000FSB) there are plenty of factors and complications to stunt the full potential of your kit.

i'd not exactly rocket science.

[Tom]

id reccomend a ThermalTake 420w PSU its running my rig in my sig. in fact id reccomend my cpu motherboard ram and psu

[Austin]

fondie the quote you gave about Adata is NOT me but was Axion (the p4c ram to use is the ADTATA pc4000 from ocuk/cpucity as it can reach ...). Could you amend it firstly to give credit where it's due and secondly as I think otherwise regarding latency and AMD vs Intel for Adata RAM.

Tom I've been hearing good things about ThermalTake's PSU's esp with their quietness. I take it you can vouch for them?

fondie Intel do tend to come with great onboard goodies but there is currently no match for nForce2's excellent sound (MCP-T / Soundstorm). Plus the LAN is very good and the onboard gfx even though GF4MX way surpass the rival offerings. Another big bonus is that AMD systems seem to be more consistent with what you get. There are a few companies noted who produce newish mobos with ancient ICH2 or simple things like LAN missing or only 2 DIMM slots. ICH2 means USB1.1, AGP4x etc. Just saying Intel are herdly the holy grail really.

As for the 9600PRO, it is good and preferable to FX5600ultra certainly in price. But the 9500PRO & 9700nonPRO are certainly better buys if you can get a good deal. Of course a GF4TI can still keep up with Rad9600PRO but it is 'only' DX9 and has inferior AA+AF ... it will fall back the newer the game is. So I suppose it comes down to costs and prefs ... as ever!

[TiG]

Originally posted by fondie
i disagree, the globalwin 320W PSU should be more than adequate for his system specs.

I disagree, believe me when i say i know, my generic 350W that came with my scorpio case was fine for my 2000xp rig, but when i went to the 2.4gig P4C running at 3gig i got instability from the PSU which cause me no end of issues.

If you intend to overclock I can't stress how important the PSU is and i'm talking from experience here not what i think is right what I know is.

Sometimes you just need to trust someone who has done it.
I've no doubt that the AMD systems are fine with a 350w psu but my p4c rig needed the extra power.

Thanks
TiG

[fondie]

Originally posted by Austin
fondie the quote you gave about Adata is NOT me but was Axion

apologies Austin, i did double check i'd put all the right name for the quotes and i still got it wrong edited accordingly.

on the mobo front, it does depend what board you get, but i see 'amd board have loads of features', ok, soundstorm is regarded as better quality than other onboard sound solutions, but intel board still have onboard sound if you want i. i've no idea about onboard graphics on amd or intel boards but it isn't going to be of value to the user we're trying to help. lots of intel boards now have gigabit lan, so i think the features score is pretty even.

TiG, i may not own a P4C system but i can see that the system spec listed does not use more than 320W. The Globalwin isn't a generic PSU, if it performs within it's specification, which if it doesn't you should take it back, it will be fine. It's a power supply, they aren't complicated devices, there's no black art involved, if it provides steady voltages under a 320W load then there is no way you can blame any instability in your system on it.