Recomendations for cheap Barton rig?

[Devilman]

Well, Im looking to build up a cheap barton rig, mainly for work but with a little bit of gaming in mind, so the main importance here is stability and economy.

Unfortunatly I dont normally "do" the more budget end of things and have no clue whats good and whats not.

Im kinda looking for recomendations on mobos and gfx cards. I Figure the rest I can go with this:-
2 x 256mb PC3200 ram (probly Geil value or similar)
Barton 2500+ / 2600+ (Probly go retail, since its only a few ££ more and dont need to buy a cooler)
WD (or Seagate) 160gb HDD (May consider SATA if the mobo supports it, but seems slightly more expensive)
DVD-RW Drive (not sure what make or model so far, LG or Lite-on is probly the cheapest option)

So basically what Im looking for is your recomendations for motherboards and gfx cards (or entire systems if you think you know of a configuration that will be good and cheap (budget here is about £400 max lol)

Not sure on SATA drives since the drives themselves seem more expensive and mobos with SATA ports also seem more expensive, since this is a budget rig, I figure plain old IDE might be best.

The rough idea I had in my mind was something along the lines of "Barton 2500+, 2 x 256 DDR400, Radeon 9600SE, 160GB HDD, DVD-RW Drive"

But im very much open to suggestions

Cheers all.

[Rave]

Don't buy a Radeon SE of any flavour, they use a 64 bit memory bus and as a result are tragically slow. I'll have a little bit of a look round for some good value kit later.

Rich :¬)

[mike_w]

Motherboard for Socket A - I would recommend an NF7-S (as always!) - decent onboard sound, SATA, stable, etc. It's also excellent for overclocking - are you considering overclocking? If so, you might also want to consider a Mobile Barton (2400+/2500+). These run at a lower voltage at the same speeds, giving you more headroom to increase the voltage and increase the overclock, providing a pretty good boost in performance.

[Devilman]

This system is unlikely to be overclocked so the mobile is not really needed.

Im more looking for a cheap system (as I said, budget of around £400) that will be stable, reliable and capable of playing games "fairly well". That is to say, Im not expecting something that will handle Doom3 @ 1280x960 on ultra settings lol.

Unfortunatly I am greatly out of touch with the budget end of the things and have no idea what to be looking for. Last computer I built for myself was my Athlon 64 rig, where I just went for the best of everything that was available at the time.

Any recomendations are greatly apreciated

[BUFF]

It's hard to beat an NF7-S V2.0 for value - sure you could save £15 & get an NF7 V2.0 but you would lose SATA, firewire & SoundStorm & probably end up buying a soundcard which would cost you at least that £15 anyway.

Barton 2500+ - I know that you say that it's unlikely that you will overclock but it is just so easy to run these as 3200+

I would probably go for 1x512Mb - you won't lose much performance (~5%) compared to 2x256Mb but you will want 1Gb at some point (Far Cry for example uses~780Mb if you have it) & whilst you can run 2x256Mb + 1 x512Mb it's easier to run 2x512Mb.

Hard to go past a 9800 Pro - new ~£130 second hand~£90-£100

DVD-R/RW - NEC 2510 ~£45 or for another £10 a 3500

[skattrd]

Is £400 to include monitor?

Heres a quickly done shuttle for £400 from ebuyer:

Shuttle XPC SN45G Socket A Barebone System 052947 117 £119.00 £119.00
OCZ Premier 512MB DDR400 PC3200 CL 2.5-3-3-7 (LIFETIME WARRANTY) (OCZ400512P) 064768 2 £52.86 £52.86
NEC Double Layer 8x DVD Dual R/RW DVD Writer - OEM 062725 264 £36.55 £36.55
Seagate ST3120026A 120GB 7200rpm 8mb Cache Barracuda 7200.7 Plus - OEM 052159 1 £46.07 £46.07
Connect3d ATI Radeon 9550 128MB DDR TV-Out DVI 128 Bit Retail Box 063692 15 £36.75 £36.75
AMD Sempron 2500 (sda2500box) Processor 256Cache 333FSB Retail box with 3 year warranty 065076 46 £44.21 £44.21
Cart Total: £335.44

Shipping Band: £4.99

SubTotal: £340.43
VAT: £59.62
Total: £400.05

Alternately remove the shuttle and add:
Abit NF7 V2.0 nForce2 Socket A 8xAGP LAN USB2 6 ch Sound DDR400 Memory Retail Box 063166 307 £38.25 £38.25
Casecom Kg-999 Silver Atx Case With LCD Display Usb/au/1394 056975 53 £18.99 £18.99
LG Electronics SW700S Studioworks CRT 17ins 0.27dpi 1280x1024 69khz 042832 1289 £57.49 £57.49

SubTotal: £338.96
VAT: £59.38
Total: £398.34

edit: They didn't have prices for a retail Barton 2500+ so I substituted it for the Sempron, similar, but less cache.

Keyboard/mouse/speakers will push it slightly over £400.

If you don't want a monitor then you can use the NF7 one and change gfx for something better.

You might be able to do better on prices, that was all quickly done from ebuyer ...

[Rave]

He'd be better off buying a Barton from CPU city, you don't need a retail CPU if you've got a Shuttle.

Rich :¬)

[menthel]

I can highly recommend the shuttle, for a small gaming/general work rig you can't beat it really. If your first post is all you want to put in it, then a full sized rig may be pointless.

[Devilman]

The £400 budget is just for the tower, no monitor.

Shuttle is an option, but I would prefer a "normal" ATX mobo etc.. for this.

Only reason I considered retail cpu was for the included cooler, since retail bartons are usually only a couple of ££ extra and you dont have to worry about getting a cooler