Help build me a new pc please!

[Punto]

Hi guys, hope this is in the right section. My apologies if it isn't!

I'm starting university this september and am looking to put together a system for ~£1000 to take to my halls with me, only real specifications I've got are a 17" TFT that's good for gaming/working, a large amount of HDD space and a system based around the Athlon 64 3200/3400. I do like to play games so I was thinking a standard 6800 for the graphics card? I'd also like the capabilities to write and play dvds and cdrs so I'd assume a dvd-rw would be fine for that?

Just wondering if any of you guys that have the time to spare, could put together a list of good recommendations for monitor/hdd/ram/mobo/cpu/sound/gfx that'd work to my £1000 budget.

Was thinking about the Antec Sonata with 380W Truepower PSU for the case?

Many thanks for anyone who takes the time out to post or even just read this, thanks again.

[Allen]

You say you want it for gaming/working, but you don't specify what work you're gonna be doing. For instance, a graphic designer will want a totally different setup to someone wanting to write up essays etc. Can you be more specific for a better response?

Also, do you need software for this budget? MS Office? Or can you settle for Open Office?

And you have stated you were thinking about a 6800 for the graphics, so I presume you prefer nVidia to ATi, so do you have a preference between Intel and AMD?

[Bunjiweb]

Just a quick quote I have done for you...

This is all off ebuyer.com and I have gone for the small yet stylish (and well performing) option.. So an alround pleaser really.

The chassis is tiny so easy to carry around, although it packs a punch with the Athlon 64, 1gb ram, 160GB hdd and ATI X800 Graphics. The screen is a 17" with 14MS response time so great for DVDs... which can be watches using a black Sony CDRW/DVD combo drive

All this and more could be won if the price is right!!!.......



Ben

p.s. welcome to the forums

[Punto]

You say you want it for gaming/working, but you don't specify what work you're gonna be doing. For instance, a graphic designer will want a totally different setup to someone wanting to write up essays etc. Can you be more specific for a better response?

Also, do you need software for this budget? MS Office? Or can you settle for Open Office?

And you have stated you were thinking about a 6800 for the graphics, so I presume you prefer nVidia to ATi, so do you have a preference between Intel and AMD?

Apologies for the lack of specifications! As far as works concerned it's a non-thinker, just word processing and normal day to day stuff. And I can provide all the software I need so just hardware as far as the budget is concerned, sorry again hope u can help Also I prefer nvidia and amd!

[Punto]

cheers for the list and thanks for the welcome I'll compare it to what others come up with Never had a SFF pc before, shall go do some reading.

[Furton]

All from overclockers.co.uk, has the best DVD-RW in it as well.

Asus K8N-E Deluxe nForce3 (Socket 754) Motherboard (MB-065-AS)
£74.25 £74.25
GeIL 1GB (2x512MB) PC3200 Value Dual Channel Kit CAS2.5 (GE1GB3200BDC) (MY-005-GL)
£99.95 £99.95
NEC ND3500 16x DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM (CD-021-NE)
£52.60 £52.60
Gainward Ultra 2400 (6046) GeForce 6800 GT 256MB DDR3 TV-Out/DVI (AGP) - Retail (GX-012-GW)
£249.95 £249.95
Samsung SpinPoint P SP1614C 160GB SATA 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-012-SA)
£60.50 £60.50
LG Flatron L1710B 17" TFT Monitor (MO-003-LG)
£228.00 £228.00
Antec Sonata Piano Black Quiet Case - 380W TruePower Silent PSU (CA-003-AT)
£69.95 £69.95
AMD Athlon 64 3000 (Socket 754) - Retail (CP-070-AM)
£99.95 £99.95
Subtotal £935.15
VAT £163.66
Total £1,098.81

[Punto]

All from overclockers.co.uk, has the best DVD-RW in it as well.

Asus K8N-E Deluxe nForce3 (Socket 754) Motherboard (MB-065-AS)
£74.25 £74.25
GeIL 1GB (2x512MB) PC3200 Value Dual Channel Kit CAS2.5 (GE1GB3200BDC) (MY-005-GL)
£99.95 £99.95
NEC ND3500 16x DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM (CD-021-NE)
£52.60 £52.60
Gainward Ultra 2400 (6046) GeForce 6800 GT 256MB DDR3 TV-Out/DVI (AGP) - Retail (GX-012-GW)
£249.95 £249.95
Samsung SpinPoint P SP1614C 160GB SATA 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-012-SA)
£60.50 £60.50
LG Flatron L1710B 17" TFT Monitor (MO-003-LG)
£228.00 £228.00
Antec Sonata Piano Black Quiet Case - 380W TruePower Silent PSU (CA-003-AT)
£69.95 £69.95
AMD Athlon 64 3000 (Socket 754) - Retail (CP-070-AM)
£99.95 £99.95
Subtotal £935.15
VAT £163.66
Total £1,098.81

thanks for the list, looks good on the whole, would think about saving ~50 quid by buying a normal 6800 and getting a 3200 athlon. Just trying to find out what the best socket 754 motherboard out at the moment is.

[MAS]

I wouldnt go for a standard 6800. I don't think they're very good value, in terms of the price/power trade off. If you can stretch to it, another £40 would get you a GT and it will last you longer. It depends how much gaming you do I suppose and how bothered you are about having all the eye candy. I certainly think that (with the exception of the Rad 9800 pro) Nvidia cards offer better value at the moment.

When do you start uni? Nothing wrong with the 754 socket mobos, but a socket 939 will give you more options for upgrading in the future. They're worth a look, although the platform hasnt fully settled yet.

[Punto]

I'm starting uni a couple of weeks into september, wanna really be ordering in the first week of september so i've enough time to sort out any problems that arise when building the pc.

Thanks for the advice on the 6800GT

As far as socket939s concerned is the £50 quid price difference between the 3400(s754) to the 3500(s939) really justified? What s939 mobo would you recommend?

[MAS]

It's not necessarily justified. All I'm thinking of is the future upgrade potential. A lot of new technology has just been implemented; socket 939, pci express, etc. I think that if you buy a decent mobo now it should last you at least 2-3 years. When buying a mobo now you obviously need to ask yourself whether you're likely to be upgrading the processor or graphics card in those 2-3 years, and if so, if your mobo is going to be able to accommodate those future components. Generally I find that you have to change your graphics and processor halfway through your mobo's life.

If you get a 754 processor it will be a beast. But if, in the future, you want to upgrade it, you're going to be limited in the processors you can choose, because AMD have made it clear that s754 is going to be the budget end of the market, so most of the faster/higher end processors are going to be s939.

So you might end up buying a s939 mobo anyway. It really depends on how often you see yourself changing your setup.

Exactly the same reasoning applies to pci-express. I dont think pci-express cards are in circulation yet, but if they are I'd go with a pci-e rather than AGP mobo.

£50 is quite a lot of money I dont think going s754 should give you anything to worry about. I just dont think it will last more than about 2 years, if you want to be able to play the latest games at good settings.

I mean does this PC have to last you all the way through uni (with the odd upgrade)? Or will you be able to afford a system overhaul in a couple of years? How into your computer are you and are you willing to keep spending?

Btw - will you be overclocking your system at all? Or are you happy just to have it running at stock speeds?

Otherwise I think Furton's spec looks really good. Personally I love the nforce boards. The rest of the components are top notch. However, if PCW have the BFG 6800 GTs in stock by the time you come to build your system (www.pcwcomponentcentre.com), I'd go for one of those; the cheapest GT on the market at £250 inc VAT, a lifetime warranty, and they're overclocked out of the box. Fantastic pieces of kit.

[Punto]

cheers mas you've been a big help, yea i was figuring that I'm gonna end up upgrading in a coupla years cos of pci-e anyways so might as well stick with a 754 mobo at the moment? Do you recommend the mobo furton stated as the best for a 754 processer?

[MAS]

Yeah, £50 is a reasonable amount of money you'll save. Like I say, nothing wrong the s754 boards, ultimately you can always put off buying parts because something bigger and better is coming along. It looks like the price of s939 mobos and processors wont drop enough by the time you want to build your system. You're probably better off saving the money, like you suggest, and then using it to upgrade your mobo later. The spec you're looking at should happily last you at least 2 years and, with the way the PC market is, that's about the best you can hope for!

The mobo Furton's suggested looks good. I'm a big fan of the Nforce chipsets, they usually tend to be very fast, and you have the build in Soundstorm audio which is good. I also like Asus - on the whole they tend to make good quality stuff.

Just have a shop around; I don't know if Overclockers are the cheapest for everything.

[BUFF]

I wouldnt go for a standard 6800. I don't think they're very good value, in terms of the price/power trade off. If you can stretch to it, another £40 would get you a GT and it will last you longer.

Unfortunately a new GT is going to cost an extra £75 over a new vanilla 6800

& nForce3 boards don't have SoundStorm.

[MAS]

Well, the 6800s are starting to fall a bit now but the one's I've seen it's around £50-60, which still isnt worth the saving, IMO.

Nforce 3 boards have 8 channel audio, similar sort of thing.

[BUFF]

Well, the 6800s are starting to fall a bit now but the one's I've seen it's around £50-60, which still isnt worth the saving, IMO.

Nforce 3 boards have 8 channel audio, similar sort of thing.

6800 from ~£175
6800GT from~ £250

& there is quite a difference between Soundstorm (hardware accelerated, realtime digital encoding) & the onboard sound on virtually all nForce3 boards (done in software by a codec).

[Allen]

Personally, on board sound is good enough for me. I love my music, listen to it a lot at high volume's or loudly on headphones so quality is important to me. Ranging from CD's to mp3's, I have many different types of music and have never needed to buy a soundcard.

I've heard both SoundStorm and the AC97 codec and I can't see that there's much of a difference really. Totally depends on what you want. If you're doing music creation, would you wanna use onboard sound? If not, I don't think it really matters.

I'd like to know if anyone has good enough ears to tell the difference between the two! If they did, they'd be the next Beethoven probably!