Building PC for a friend for £500 - suggestions

[starbuck]

A friend has asked me to build him a pc for about £500(ideally max or very slightly over). He already has an old pc(pentium 3) and wants me to upgrade it. Prob only the DVD writer and maybe the hard drive will survive from the old PC(he has an 80gig drive but would prob like an upgrade).

Poss looking at socket 939 to allow future upgrade possiblilties.
Wants it for internet surfing and some games.

Requirements:

Mobo
PSU
Ram(1gig ideally)
Graphics Card
on board sound ok(as long as good)
maybe hard drive.

Suggestions?

[tom deloford]

Have you read this thread?

[exAndrzej]

...PC for about £500...

Not really enough info

Does he already have an OS ?

Will he need a monitor ?

Does the £500 include VAT and Delivery ?

Are you charging for labour ?

Is a warranty important to him ?

If the answer to these is 'no' - then he is going to end up with a pretty powerful box !

For a laugh..

...this clicking here

If that sounds interesting - then give them a call and see how much more power you can get in the graphics department instead of the 17" TFT

Would be interesting if they could take teh TFT out and supply an X800XL for the same price

[starbuck]

Not really enough info

Does he already have an OS ?

Will he need a monitor ?

Does the £500 include VAT and Delivery ?

Are you charging for labour ?

Is a warranty important to him ?

If the answer to these is 'no' - then he is going to end up with a pretty powerful box !

he already has a monitor(although he'd prefer a TFT but I think the system is more important to get right and he can always upgrade to a tft later). He has XP and I am not charging for labour and as I am building it, warranty is no prob(as there will be no warranty).

[exAndrzej]

It is your call...

...but I would seriously consider getting this system 'pre-built'

The economies of scale are massive for bigger system builders and they very often buy products at much lower prices than 'normal folk'

You can end up with a situation where buying a pre-built system with support/OS etc can end up cheaper than getting one from a friend + you never get that 'mate on the phone for hours' support call that we all know and hate !

As long as the system has a 3000+ (or better) with 512MB (or better) and an X800XL card (or better) then he will be in for some pretty serious gaming action

[owen1978]

Poss looking at socket 939 to allow future upgrade possiblilties.

If this is one of his requirements then it has to be a custom built pc, as it would allow you to keep upto date. I would start off with a good solid mobo & psu, these are the foundations which are laid down for the future.

Go with a DFI NForce 4 Mobo & and at least a 420Watt Enermax

[Nick F]

Have you read the article in the latest Custom PC about putting together a top spec machine for £500

[Jonny]

Looking at your own rig in your sig, thats' a good rig at about £500 worth (for the parts you need) isn't it?
Will he need a hard drive or not? Do you know?

[exAndrzej]

...Custom...

I had a chat with the guy who wrote it and he agreed that if the 128MB X800 had been available in that time frame - then he definitely would have considered it

[nvening]

I thought i saw your name flashup in that mag

[exAndrzej]

...name...

(in)famous at last !