Build me a work PC

[DaBeeeenster]

Right. My company is moving into proper offices, so we need to buy a couple of PCs for development (Java, JSP, SQL etc). Not really needed for gaming tho there might be a couple of games of CS in the evening

Anyway, does anyone want to price up a couple of machines along the following lines (Preferably from the 1 supplier, as we need all the bits by next monday, and I dont have time to chase up 8 different online firms when something is missing!)

- 19" TFT (Iiyama 481s?)
- AMD (processor speed not hugely important really)
- Decent mobo (Nf7-S?)
- Well performing but most importantly reliable HD
- Halfway decent gfx with DVI (tho really dont need anything much more poweful than a Rad 8500 tbh)
- 1GB Ram
- Cheap case (will live under a desk)
- Halfway decent, reliable PSU. Doesn't need to be a 550W monster really, as the machines will be pretty stripped down in terms of components.

Ta!

Oh, I'm looking for a good price/performance mix here - eg. I'm not interested in uber ram - just something that will do DDR and be reliable. Want to aim for around 600/700 per machine, EXCLUDING VAT.

[Howard]

http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/produ...duct_uid=53894 - Monitor

http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/produ...duct_uid=58198 - Asus A7N8X-E Deluxe

http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/produ...duct_uid=46513 - XP2500

http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/produ...duct_uid=52159 - Seagate 120GB 8MB HDD

http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/produ...duct_uid=42149 - Crucial PC2700 DDR x 2

http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/produ...duct_uid=51532 - Sapphire ATi Radeon 9600

http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/produ...duct_uid=43172 - 350Watt Antec PSU

http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/produ...duct_uid=50991 - Bog Standard case

En totale? £794.27

Edit: £675.94 excluding VAT

[Zathras]

From Scan's Today Only page.
LCDs are overrated, 1600x1200 resolution on a CRT too, and this machine'd play CS:Source at 100+ fps. Not sure how much work would get done.

1 LN5262 19" LG F900P Studioworks Flatron Monitor 0.24dp 111KHz 1600x1200 £171.54

Athlon XP3200 Upgrade Combo £569.00 £668.58
comprising
1 LN5552 Gigabyte GA-7VT600 VIA KT600, ATX, 10/100 Lan, USB 2.0, 1394, AC'97 Audio, SATA
1 LN5913 AMD *OEM* Athlon XP 3200+ *400 FSB* Barton (2.20GHz)
1 LN7918 Akasa AK-825 Heatsink/Fan (Socket A - Up to XP3400)
2 LN4296 512Mb PC3200 (PC400) DDR Memory (Major) Retail
1 LN8020 256MB GALAXY GF 6800GT DDR 256BIT TV/DVI
1 LN8009 NEC 3500 Ivory x16 DUAL LAYER DVD-Writer, OEM UK
1 LN6644 160Gb IBM/HGST (Hitachi) Deskstar 7K250 (7200rpm,8Mb)
1 LN5846 Handspring Treo 90 Colour PDA 16Mb Ram Palm OS 4.1 SD Card Expansion

LN7599 Scan C43 Case Black/Silver Kit 400W PSU Inc Keyboard+Mouse+Speakers £29.00 £34.08

Total £743.99 exc. but I'd swap my old Geforce 2 GTS with DVI for the 6800GT and knock £50 off for you. Sound okay?

[0iD]

In a work environment I've found Intel boards hard to beat for reliability & stability (ours run 24/7 365 days/year). For std CAD workstations they have become prettymuch std, with a few IC7's. Couple that with P4 2.8's 3.0's & 3.2's (sound performers) & better with most business apps imo.

[kushtibari]

Prefer Aria to ebuyer
can't do links to individual items but system for £693 before VAT
Chieftec Dragon midi tower in black
Enermax noisetaker 370w
200gb Maxtor with 8mb buffer
ATI 9200 with DVI and VIVO (might be useful)
1gb generic ram - decent tackle from aria.
NF7S
XP2500
Iiyama 481 in black

The case isn't as cheap as some and neither is the psu, but you get what you pay for.

[Zathras]

Sorry to be butting into Ben's thread (well, it is kinda related ) but could anyone recommend a CRT at about £380? I love my Sony G400 but I can't find anywhere doing Sony CRTs any more and they're a bit overpriced. Does anyone do SuperTrinitron screens, and what's the Iiyama 506 like? There's a gorgeous Lacie Electron22blue for £480 here: http://www.dabs.com/uk/productview?quicklinx=29WW but that's a bit out of the price range unfortunately

[nichomach]

All from Dabs, and I'll give Quicklinx codes:

2NF4WS 19" DabsValue TFT £285 - this IS a DVI screen, double checked it, and appears to be the AOC LM 919

2Z7NWS Corsair 2x512MB PC3200 CL2.5 £92.76

2ZDQWS 120GB Samsung SpinPoint P80 SATA £48.50

30N4WS DabsValue GeForce FX5700 128MB DVI/VO £64.67

33S5WS Sony DVD+/-RW Internal OEM Black £36.59

359VWS Abit K8T800 Pro S754 AGP8x AGP DDR ATX Audio, LAN, RAID £57.01

36T1WS AMD Athlon 64 3000+ S754 512Kb Box (includes retail H/Sink) £95.31

381RWS Antec SLK2650BQE UK 350W 12v ATX £45.10 NB: This case is shown as 1 on order. You might want to check availability. All the other parts have multiple units in stock.

Total £730.14 ex VAT

Yes, I realise it's £30 over, but still....

[nimbu]

For stability go Intel. I'd never use AMD on a work PC. Also for bog standard machines a Celeron would do fine, for the more demanding machines a 2.8c seems best value. Got a bit bored so here u go

Epox P4 2.67 Upgrade Combo £199.00 £233.83

1 LN6493 Epox 4PLAi i848P, ATX, DDR400, 10/100 Lan, USB 2.0, 6Ch Audio, SATA

1 LN3714 512Mb PC2700 (PC333) DDR Memory (Major) Retail

1 LN4440 2.67GHz (PE-533FSB) Intel Pentium® 4 CPU 512k Cache *OEM*

1 LN6587 128Mb ABIT FX5700-E (D-Sub, DVI, Tv-out)

1 LN7911 Akasa AK-670P Heatsink/Fan (Socket 478 - up to 2.8Ghz)

40Gb Seagate Barracuda ATA-100 (7200rpm,2MB)<br>+ Panda PLATINUM Antivirus 7.0 *oem (Total Virus/Fi £33.25 £39.07

1 LN6520 40Gb Seagate Barracuda ATA-100 (7200rpm,2MB)

1 LN7806 Panda PLATINUM Antivirus 7.0 *oem (Total Virus/Firewall Protection for your PC) +1year of upgrades

Plextor Black 52x CD-RW Retail (Inc. Media/Software) £27.99 £32.89

1 LN5273 Plextor Black 52x CD-RW Retail (Inc. Media/Software)

LN6716 Scan n4ce Montana Black / Silver Front Midi Tower Case with 350W PFC PSU £23.95 £28.14

LN4491 1.44Mb Sony Ivory Floppy Disk Drive £3.69 £4.34

If you change any quantities, please re-calculate your basket
Pay in full by May 2005 and pay no interest!
9 months No Interest Finance Option,
pay only £12.61 per month.

Scan Finance - More Sense Than Money


Net Total £287.88

Carriage £15.00

V.A.T. £53.00

TOTAL £355.88

[nichomach]

For stability go Intel. I'd never use AMD on a work PC.

Your loss; I use a dual Athlon here and it's steady as a rock. This idea that PCs based on Intel processors are more stable is a myth.

Also for bog standard machines a Celeron would do fine, for the more demanding machines a 2.8c seems best value.

But an AthlonXP would provide better performance than the Celeron and if supported by a decent motherboard at least as good stability for less money. The 2.8C is a better option, but again I think the Athlon64 has it cold, and gives away nothing in terms of stability, while being cheaper.

Again if u guys are in an office enviroment, will u have a server (presume so u mentioned SQL)

*cough* SQL Server Developer Edition *cough* MySQL *cough*

[Rave]

Your loss; I use a dual Athlon here and it's steady as a rock. This idea that PCs based on Intel processors are more stable is a myth.

A complete myth, in fact. I've seen 30+ days uptime at 100% CPU load on some of my AMD boxes, they crunch FAD as well as the usual websurfing, word processing etc. I only rebooted after 30 days because I needed to to install a program/bit of hardware (I forget which).

Rich :¬)

[Howard]

Exactly. My server runs on an Athlon and it's been up for months at a time

[oyster]

The original VIA chipset for Athlon Socket A (KT400/KT400A) had some stability issues with the early 4-in-one drivers on Windows. The current AMD chipsets are as stable as Intel.

In fact, I have two machines at home, an old Athlon 850 on a KT400A mobo running Linux, and a P4 on an Intel 815 chipset running Windows. The Intel/Windows machine needs to be rebooted at least once a week, the AMD-Via/Linux one only ever gets rebooted if I decide to turn it off to save electricity, or I upgrade my kernel. This suggests to me that there wasn't actually anything wrong with the KT400 chipset. In fact, it even has an SBLive sound card in it, which, if I remember correctly, was always suspected as being the culprit when KT400's misbehaved.

Nothing wrong with buying Intel kit - they've made some great products, but choosing Intel over AMD on the basis of out-dated rumours about better stability would not be a good reason to do so.

[nimbu]

The Intel vs AMD, debate begin's.......................................

Remember guys I was just stating my opinion in order to help.... Yes Iam biased i'll admit that. But im open to suggestion. I do have an AMD rig (XP2800+), which I'm toying around with, but personally I like my P4 rig better.

/me strokes my cheque that intel sent me for the plug, .

[nichomach]

Nah, mate it was over a couple of years ago. AMD have never been unreliable, but some of the supporting chipsets (step up Via, I DO mean you) used to be fairly ropey. Add in users' propensity to buy motherboards from no-name suppliers and then blame AMD when it went horribly wonky, and you get an unfortunate reputation for unreliability. I have to say, I think nVidia should take a LOT of credit for raising the bar in terms of the quality of chipsets designed to support AMD processors, but in reality, nVidia, Via and SiS all produce highly stable chipset platforms for AMD CPUs these days.

[Rave]

If you're biased then you shouldn't be offering people buying advice without openly stating that it's biased (and hence IMO largely worthless). Happily beeny is smart enough to realise that AMD are perfectly stable and have been for a very long time, but somebody with less experience might read your post and make a buying decision on information that is, not to put too fine a point on it, incorrect. You may have a personal preference for Intel processors and that's perfectly fine, but to extrapolate that out to a misleading statement like 'for stability go Intel' is stupid and you shouldn't be surprised when people attack you for it.

If this idea that AMD are unstable comes from the first Via chipsets for the Athlon, then that's a bit daft too. I mean, it's not like Intel had any stability issues with the MTH on the 820 chipset now is it?

Rich :¬)

[Rave]

Nah, mate it was over a couple of years ago. AMD have never been unreliable, but some of the supporting chipsets (step up Via, I DO mean you) used to be fairly ropey. Add in users' propensity to buy motherboards from no-name suppliers and then blame AMD when it went horribly wonky, and you get an unfortunate reputation for unreliability. I have to say, I think nVidia should take a LOT of credit for raising the bar in terms of the quality of chipsets designed to support AMD processors, but in reality, nVidia, Via and SiS all produce highly stable chipset platforms for AMD CPUs these days.

FWIW, the computer that stayed up for 30+ days was an Abit KT7A- I.E. Via KT133A chipset. Via have been sorted for a long time.

Rich :¬)