Please help!

[NightshadowUK]

I've been given a budget of around £325 to make someone a PC that'll play today's games. I'm not talking full specs here, just games such as Black and White 2 running smoothly on low to medium.

I've come up with the following:
- AMD Sempron 64Bit 2800+ S754 (1.6Ghz) 90nm 256K L2 ~ £53.20
- Abit KU8 S754 ULIM1689 ~ £40.17
- 1GB 2x512Mb Corsair, DDR400/PC3200 ~ £69.33
- 160Gb Maxtor Diamondmax Plus 10 ~ £55.21
- 128MB Gigabyte Radeon 9600 PRO ~ £48.63
- Asus TA-250 Black/Silver Midi Tower Case with 360W PSU ~ £33.95
- Sony Black Combo 52x32x52 CD-RW + 16x DVD-ROM ~ £21.03
- 1.44Mb Sony Black Floppy Disk Drive OEM ~ £4.34

The total here (all from Scan) comes to £326...

The list looks pretty mis-matched and I'm not even sure the 9600 Pro will cut it.

Can anyone offer any help?

[Edit: Prices added / Could save around £30 if I cut back to 512MB RAM.]

[zulander]

Have u already got a graphics card to use?

[Flibb]

Any chance you could add the prices in for the bits, might be able to make a better judgment of any alternatives.

[zulander]

o well i had worked out a system but its gone and lost my post for some reason - damm. Ignore my earlier post i had edited it but dont seem to have worked. Anway i was thinking of using a 9800 pro instead on the 9600 but after making a few cuts to memory (leave at 512 untill more funds arrive) and only a 120gb hdd. I was still getting figures of around 377 and 353.

[Thorsson]

Cut the floppy? Smaller HDD. Presuming that you are going for value RAM you might want to check out the MicroDirect Geil deals. Second hand 9800 pro? (I wouldn't want to play games with anything less).

[NightshadowUK]

I've now added the prices.

120GB Hard Drives seem to cost the same, if not more than 160GB... I could cut back to 80GB but I'm not sure it that's a tad too small.

I checked MicroDirect, their Geil Value RAM appears to cost more than Corsair's Value Select on Scan.

I could cut back to 512MB, 80GB and no floppy drive so as to spend more on the GFX card but I still can't find anywhere that sells a reasonable 9800Pro.

[BUFF]

9700 Pro? £44 + carr.
http://www.retekdirect.co.uk/acatalog/Video_Cards.html

& I know that it's a few more £ but the NF8 is a better board - if they aren't enthusiasts I don't suppose it matters though.

[NightshadowUK]

Many many thanks for the link BUFF, that 9800Pro is perfect.

And the guy I'm doing it for is most definitely not an enthusiast!

Off topic a little but y'all wouldn't happen to know of any other sites like that for other refurbished/stupidly cheap parts?

[Starburn]

Don't buy RAM from Microdirect, thats my only input ..
actually.. don't buy anything from MD stick to Scan.

[sawyen]

Yea.. get it from Scan or just stick with Kustom PCs... they're by far the best retailers I've ever dealt with..

Burnt my cathode inverter the other day... thought I might send it back 4 RMA, turns out Kustom just send a new inverter to me free of cost, without even the need to check thru RMA dept.. thenn again, thats another story..

9800Pro should be fine.. AIW if u can mind any at a good price..

[menthel]

My usual comment, don't forget your OS! XP home comes in at about £55 oem.

[NightshadowUK]

Cheers Menthel, I think his Mum's supplying it though... along with the TFT.

[Hans Voralberg]

Ebuyer is always stupidly cheap but then it's slow and seems not to be very reliable (never had a problem though). And the 9600 is daft, try to find somthing else

[Workaholic]

Don't buy RAM from Microdirect, thats my only input ..
actually.. don't buy anything from MD stick to Scan.

Same input here.

When building my computer 2 years ago I used internal removable caddies for my hard drives; I took my existing one so that I could get a correctly sized one to use. The sales said "they're all the same" and I found out 2 hours later they weren't. Back the next day and after an hour of queuing and 'testing' was I given a refund.

Ha to their customer service....

[Thorsson]

RAM price is actually the same: http://www.microdirect.co.uk/Product...608&GroupID=57 but yesterday it was cheaper (special offer).

But if the user is not an expert, and based on the CustomPC test on value RAM, why not get the Scan OEM stuff? http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...roductID=37454

Actually it's on today only and you can pick up a gig for £51.41. And they also have the Maxtor HD on offer. Must be your lucky day. Get in there my son! You might also want to take a peek at the Scan cases and gigabyte motherboards. Maybe you'll be able to stretch to the Scan 6600GT...

[nvening]

this OEm stuff may be diff stuff to what custompc tested