£700 Build

[Nick F]

I need to build a computer for my girlfriend's sister. She has got about £700 to spend but she already has a monitor.

She is doing a graphic design course at uni so loads of Ram would be great. She does not play games so a uber expensive graphics card is not needed.

Since getting my Mac I have not followed computer technology so please fill me in.

[ultim8um]

Try this little lot out from Microdirect...

Asrock 939 NF4G-SATA2 nVidea 6100 Dual core +on board VGA PCI-E SATA2 RAID +LAN +USB2.0 +8 ch. Audio micro ATX (MOTASR939NF4G) £41.45
Geil Value 2Gb £109.80
AMD Athlon 64 3700+ San Diego Core 64 bit 1MB L2 Cache Skt 939 oem (CPUFXSD3700939*) £119.99
2 x 160 GB Seagate Barracuda SATA2 7200rpm 8MB cache HDD (Manufacturer's 5yr Warranty) (HAR160SEASA72AS) £95.40
LG GSA-4167BA Beige DVD +/-R/RW 16x16x8x6x5 Dual layer IDE OEM (DVDLG.4167BA*) £22.95
Antec Super LANBOY Aluminium Super Mini Tower Case (No PSU) (Front access USB & Audio, 9 Drive Bays, ATX) (CASATCLBSUPLAN) £50.45
FSP 400W version2.0 Intel ATX12V +12cm fan 24pin Molex ATX FSP400-60THN-P (PSUFSP4060THN) £36.70
Cherry Beige Non-click PS/2 G83-6105LPQGB-0 (KEYCHYWIN95PS2) £11.20
Genius Ergo 525 Gaming Laser mouse PS/2- USB (MOUGENERG525) £19.20


RAID 1 the two 160Gb SATA's for redundancy
The whole system should be reasonably light to move around (short of going SFF) comes in at under £600 including the taxmans bill...
That leaves room for any extra's such as a graphics tablet, floppy drive etc.

[davethechamp]

Micro case at e-buyer - £76.71 (inc shipping)
from scan (free shipping)
AMD Athlon 64 3700 32/64Bit CPU S939 "San Diego" OEM - £148
Arctic Cooling Freezer 64 Pro - S754/939/940 - £17.50
2Gb (2x1Gb) Corsair Value Select PC3200 DDR Unbuffered CL3 Lifetime Warranty - £117.36
NEC ND-4550A Black 16x16 DVD±RW Dual Layer DVD-Writer OEM UK - £30
Foxconn 6150K8MA-8EKRS uATX nVidia 6150/430MCP OnBoard VGA DDR400 SATAII Raid, 1394, USB2, Lan Audio - £53.66
160Gb SATA300 Hitachi (IBM/HGST) Deskstar T7K250 (7200rpm,8Mb) - NCQ - £58.41
1.44Mb Sony Black Floppy Disk Drive OEM - £4.69

scan total - £428.62
E-buyer - £76.71
Total - £505.33

Plenty of budget left for peripherals:
Mouse
Keyboard
Printer etc

If not using above case a decent PSU is always a good idea such as:
420W Tagan Whisper aPFC UltraQuiet 21db 12v EPS/SATA/XEON 3 Years Warranty ATX/BTX - £48.18
Pretty much any case she fancies!!

[Nick F]

Wow thanks for you help guys

[herulach]

Or just to throw a spanner in the works, how about a pink SFF?

LN9511 Panasonic UJ-845-BPN Slot Notebook/Slim DVDRW Drive £63.49 £74.60
LN11132 Hoojum Cubit 5 chassis Designer Series Shell Pink (No PSU or Front Plate) £125.00 £146.88
LN9028 Hoojum Cubit 5 Intel P4 775 Small Form Factor M/B+ PS0U (must be purchased with a chassis) £150.27 £176.57
LN11665 630 Intel Pentium® 4 LGA775 CPU (3.0 Ghz 800FSB) HT 2MB Cache with Intel® EM64T *OEM* £94.30 £110.80
LN11146 Hoojum Cubit 5 Front Plate1 in Shell Pink with 5 ports see details for compatibility £19.00 £22.33
LN7297 1Gb Corsair Value Select PC3200 DDR non ECC Lifetime Warranty £52.47 £123.30
LN9709 160Gb SATA300 Samsung SpinPoint™ HD160JJ (7200rpm,8mb) - NCQ £48.79 £57.33

Its slightly over budget, but you can always put a celeron in there to save 50 quid, she prob wont notice the difference.


As an aside though, check if shes wanting to do any cad/cam stuff, in which case she will need a good graphics card.

[nvening]

try and get the beentech igloo case from misco for £10 - see bargans section

[cptwhite_uk]

Case/PSU = £50 (ultra quiet and excellent brand power supply, 350W will be plenty for a system without a major graphics card)
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...oductID=140362

Processor = £240 (I would get the best within the budget for a graphics PC)
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...oductID=210108

Motherboard = £42 (This gives you option of either AGP or PCI-E graphics, and got great reviews, and it's dirty cheap!)
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...oductID=291356

RAM = £175 (3Gb! 2x1024 + 2x512, I work with big graphics, the more RAM the better, trust me)
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...oductID=217959
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...oductID=237278

Graphics = £65 (I've always been lead to believe ATI is the king of 2D so I selected a budget card from there newest core)
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...oductID=296945

DVD Writer and Hard-drive = £100 approx (I'm a convert to Samgsung hard drives, they're quiet and excellent)
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...oductID=260257

Not sure about DVD writers, but my samsung drive has also been fantastic, I've used sony too and they were good.

Total = £675 approximately

Athlon 64 4000
3Gb RAM
200Gb Hard Drive
Excellent case and PSU (I've bought one, they're amazing)
DVD Writer
ATI 256Mb X1300 vid card

[aphex]

I would have thought a mac would be better for graphic design etc since the industry uses macs mostly.

[kasavien]

See what you think of this, slightly over budget so sorry for that, includes os which you may or may not need though.

from ebuyer.co.uk
Case - Antec Sonata II Piano Black Quiet Midi Tower - With 450W SmartPower2.0 PSU - £76.89 inc VAT

everything else from scan so you should be able to get free P&P

LN10762 2Gb (2x1Gb) Corsair Value Select PC3200 DDR Unbuffered CL3 Lifetime Warranty £117.36
LN11816 Asus A8N5X PCI-E S939 NF4 DDR400 SATA Raid Gbit Lan USB2 8Ch Audio £55.38
LN10608 AMD Athlon 64 3700 32/64Bit CPU S939 "San Diego" Retail inc Heat Sink Fan & 3 Years Warranty £164.93
LN11813 NEC ND-4550A Black 16x16 DVD±RW Dual Layer DVD-Writer OEM UK £29.36
LN12746 256Mb ScanFX PCI-E 6800GS SLi Extreme Edition GDDR3 Tv Out DVI/VGA HDTV £139.23
LN6558 160Gb SATA150 Western Digital Caviar SE 1600JD (7200rpm,8MB) £56.29
LN5291 1.44Mb Sony Black Floppy Disk Drive OEM £4.69
LN8089 Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition SP2 OEM Single £60.42

total = £704.55

there may be some P&P to add to this from ebuyer but you'll qualify for free P&P from scan, wasn't sure what peripherals you would need so i've left them off.

Edit: just found this LN10713 Scan 3 in 1 Desk Manager 2 Black - Office Keyboard Optical Mouse 280W Speakers £14.68 cheap and chearful if you need it

hope this helps

Andy

[Nick F]

Intel Pentium D 920 Socket775 , Presler Core, 2x2.8 GHz , 4MB Cache, Retail £178.84
Abit LG-81 S775 PCI-E i945G uATX Intel 950 VGA DDR2 Gbit Lan SATA 7.1Ch Audio£71.75
250 GB HGST (IBM/Hitachi) Deskstar T7K250 , SATA II , 7200 rpm , 8MB Cache, £66.85
1Gb DDR2 PC2-4200 533MHz non-ECC 240 DIMM unbuffered CL4 Infinion Retail £54.04
Sony DWG120AB Black 16x16x4 DVD±RW Dual Layer DVD Writer OEM UK £26.97
Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro - P4 up to 4.4GHz - S775 Dual Core Ready £14.68
460W Akasa Ultra quiet aPFC PSU with Blue LED 12cm Fan ( 24Pin connector ) £53.45
1.44Mb Sony Black Floppy Disk Drive OEM £4.69
50cm 3XS Round Floppy Drive Cable Certified £0.99
90cm 3XS Round ATA133 Certified IDE Cable £1.94
Microsoft Wireless Desktop Comfort Curve Design Keyboard Mouse V3 £33.66
Antec P180-EU Super Mid Tower Case, Silver (no PSU) £110

Total - £617.80

How does this system sound?

[herulach]

Not bad, although youre spening a lot on a case that she wont appreciate, you cna get much cheaper ones that look just as nice, id be tempted to drop to something in the 50 quid region and spend the extra on 2GB of ram

[Nick F]

Not bad, although youre spening a lot on a case that she wont appreciate, you cna get much cheaper ones that look just as nice, id be tempted to drop to something in the 50 quid region and spend the extra on 2GB of ram

I did try that one but she was not keen. It's a good little system, got it out of the latest Custom PC. She will never play games and only uses photoshops and office apps really so the intergrated gfx card should be cool. At least she has the option to upgrade.