Please help with pc spec!

[wannabgeek]

Hi

Can you lovely people please have a look at this and tell me your opinion! I wanted a PC built for about £1000 (cash)! It needed to be for Gaming, Music & Watching & burning DVD's.This is the spec i got from a well known Co. Do you think i could get them to lower the price or get them to add something else to the package. Also are the component prices are ok,and also should i go for one of those future proof pci-e Mobo's? Any other suggestions would be welcome!


Antec SLK1650 Case Black £49.00
Asus A8V Deluxe Motherboard (Rev2.0 / 1007) £83.00
AMD Athlon64 3000+ CPU Retail (90nm) S939 £113.00
Crucial PC3200 DIMM 512mb £49.34
Crucial PC3200 DIMM 512mb £49.34
Sapphire Radeon 9800 Pro 128mb £144.00
Western Digital 200gb Caviar SE IDE £74.00
Samsung 552B Black DVD-RW £48.49
Windows XP Home OEM £64.00
Acer AL1731M Silver 17" Multimedia £263.00
Trust Slimline Keyboard Black &
Trust 250S Ami Mouse Optical £20.99

Total Inc Build cost,del & vat; £1113

[skuzgib]

Sounds good, though I would get a pci-e mobo (such as the ASUS A8N or one of the new DFI boards), and a 6600gt (can be had for less htan a 9800pro and is a better performer).
Also, you haven't specified a PSU - I would reccomend a tagan 480w.

Where are you getting this from? Seems a tad pricey...

[-mb-]

Trust are rubbish, get anything but them. Budget Logitech or Microsoft would be a good alternative. (e.g. Microsoft Wireless Optical Desktop v2.0 for £28 at OcUK)

LiteON or NEC are better value than Samsung for optical drives. (NEC 3520 is the latest and greatest, OcUK have it for £45 (no software))

That Monitor doesn't seem the right choice for you either.

A gamer wants fast reponse time (at least <16ms and 12ms 10ms and 8ms are available). That Acer is 20ms.
This Viewsonic VP171S-2 is £286 from OcUK with 8ms response time 500:1 contrast ratio and DVI connection.

OcUK: www.overclockers.co.uk

[skuzgib]

Trust are rubbish, get anything but them. Budget Logitech or Microsoft would be a good alternative. (e.g. Microsoft Wireless Optical Desktop v2.0 for £28 at OcUK)

LiteON or NEC are better value than Samsung for optical drives. (NEC 3520 is the latest and greatest, OcUK have it for £45 (no software))

That Monitor doesn't seem the right choice for you either.

A gamer wants fast reponse time (at least <16ms and 12ms 10ms and 8ms are available). That Acer is 20ms.
This Viewsonic VP171S-2 is £286 from OcUK with 8ms response time 500:1 contrast ratio and DVI connection.

OcUK: www.overclockers.co.uk

Agreed, though response times don't say a great deal TBH...

And I wouldn't buy from OCUK - they have terrible customer service and now they don't even have phone or email!

[wannabgeek]

Hi Guys thanks for your help!

This is actually a spec that Kustom pc done for me this morning with a £1000 CASH budget!! Do you think they will budge on the price as i have got the "Spondooles"!

Re skuzgip; And I wouldn't buy from OCUK - they have terrible customer service and now they don't even have phone or email!

I am glad i know another who's had trouble with 'OCUK'! It's soo true "No email support or a phone thats ever awnsered"! I brought a...Nec 3500 DVD/RW & a 9800se AIW off them and the TV tuner did not work and when i tried to set the region on the Burner,instead of seeing 5 changes left, there was only 1 change left! I could'nt beleive my Luck "it said OEM not 2nd Hand"! Tried for over a week to contact them by email,phone and even Letter. But no response! I did however managed to join there Forum. And put some posts about my ordeal with them,and "Hey presto"! They dissapeared within the hour!

So if you want good, cheap Products with a good after sales. You know where NOT to go!

[johnnr892]

You can have the OEM xp for 50 of e-buyer

[Lu-tze]

agree with the above, plus suggest a seagate baracudda 200gb SATA drive over the caviar. is that ram dual channel? if not, you should be able to get some at that price. if that case dosent come with any fans, then you should get at least one. finally, decide is you really need a TFT, good quality 17" CRTs can be had for £100 nowadays.

[speedy_s]

Get a sonata instead of that case. You will love it and its only £30 more on e-buyer! Aparantly u can buy mforce 4 ultra neo 4 diamond/platinum @ £57.5 ex VAt @ ebuyer too but they are not in stock. Might be worth waiting though !

[mike_w]

I agree Skuzgib - the 6600GT is, on the whole, a better performer than a 9800 Pro, and only struggles once the resolution and AA are turned up. Also, a Tagan 480W is a decent choice for a PSU - from what I've seen on these forums and on the web, it's the best PSU around for sensible money.

[nvening]

the best tft for yo is the 17" Sharp LL-172GB 16ms DVI Black MultiMedia TFT Monitor (3yr onsite) £0257.27 - micro direct. Wonderfull monitor, highly ratted by every mag i have seen and by other people. and get and nforce4 mobo and an msi 6600GT £130 from scan The ram is not great stuff but is ok for no overclocking. The scan stuff is supposed to be good for £80. Oh and bulid it urself. Its not hard (kinda)

[nvening]

This is what i plan to get:

Case: ThermalTake Tsunami Black Aluminum (VA3000BWA) +Window c/w 3x case fans +USB2 +Firewire NO PSU
£0073.97 - micro direct

PSU : 480W Tagan Whisper quiet 21db Also support 12v EPS/SATA/XEON 3 Years Warranty ATX/BTX
£0067.55 - scan

Motherboard: Asus A8N-SLi Deluxe (Raid5, extra SATA, extra GBit Lan) Socket 939 nForce 4 ( this is very very likely to change)
£0112.14 - micro direct

CPU: AMD Athlon 64 3500 32/64Bit CPU S939 Winchester 90nm Retail inc Heat Sink Fan & 3 Years Warranty
£0185.64 - micro direct

RAM: 1 Gb (2 x 512 Mb) Corsair TwinX, DDR, PC3200C2PT, Cas 2, Lifetime Warranty £0103.39 - scan

HDD: Maxtor DiamondMax Plus10 160GB/SATA 8MB Cache £0059.33 - scan ( thinking about changing this any thoughts)

GPU: 128MB MSI PCI-E NX6600GT £0128.08 - scan (maybe an x800xl soon, the price goes up)

Optical drive2: nec ND3500A Dual Layer Int IDE Black 16x DVDRW +/- OEM £0039.29 - scan
Optical drive2: LG 16x Black DVD-ROM + 52x CD-ROM IDE £0016.91 - scan

Floppy: 1.44Mb Sony Black Floppy Disk Drive £0004.29 - scan

Monitor: 17" Sharp LL-172GB 16ms DVI Black MultiMedia TFT Monitor (3yr onsite)
£0257.27 - micro direct

Total: £1100-1200 i think can be bother for exact, as i will be changing soon

[wannabgeek]

WOW! Thanks for yor Exellent response guys,you've given me a lot to choose from here.I have been thinking maybe i should try and build it myself.."It can't be that hard". And its amazing how much you can really save by looking around at different shops! What advantages does a self build have over a shop built PC, apart from the obvious cost & self satisfaction?

Re NEC 3500; That region change thing i mentioned earlier! As soon as i set region 2 it now has strangely gone up to "4 changes remaining"...weird!

[aidanjt]

some DVD players don't store the region changes, i think the NEC does thou.. did you flash the firmware? that probibly blanked it.

[nvening]

I think you need to look at this: http://homepage.ntlworld.com/ashen1/...uild/intro.htm lolol
Seriously though, u will get exactlly what you want with ur pc, u will get good parts not dogy generic ones and you will no exactlly howto fix ur pc and upgrade it. But you will need alot of planing to get the pc for u.

[mrpete]

Agreed, though response times don't say a great deal TBH...

And I wouldn't buy from OCUK - they have terrible customer service and now they don't even have phone or email!

They do have great forums though

[wannabgeek]

POSTED TWICE!!