building a new baseunit for £600 help needed

**mt50** · 28-05-2006, 07:56 PM

hi, i'm posting this for a mate as he is moving from a laptop to a desktop so is going to build himself a new pc(been at uni for 3years so lappy was best thing back then for him)
now i don't really know much about todays PC's as i ain't upgraded/looked at new hardware for a year or so now, so i'm asking for your help please.

he's had a quick look on ebuyer and put this list together seems ok to me apart from the CPU seems a little old now and graphics card i think a X850pro would be better?

he will be using it to play PC games@(we only play Toca atm but GTR etc are what he will want to play)

the monitor isn't included in the £600 just baseunit.

here is the list-

what do you think where can it be improved etc(the ram is 2gig he wants btw)

thanks

**Dark Horse** · 28-05-2006, 08:37 PM

Graphics card would be much better with a 7600gt or x1800gto. Little bit more but far far better value and more modern - sm3 instead of sm2.

Mobo and processor look fine although a faster cpu might be an idea. X2 3800+ if he can stretch to it, 3700+ sd if not.

I would think about getting something like an artic freezer 64 pro for cooling as its much quieter and more efficient than the stock cooler.

There is a psu in the case, doesn't seem a bad deal although it won't be the best psu in the world. May not be a massive issue as the parts aren't high spec.

I would simply get 2 x 1gb sticks of the cheapest ram possible, it won't affect performance and the money is better spent elsewhere.

The wireless card seems pretty pricey but I can't suggest anything for it I'm afraid.

**chazt** · 28-05-2006, 11:12 PM

i wouldn't have any worries about the psu supplied with the case, antec use their own smartpower 450W psu which is very high quality and quiet, and unless he ends up going down the sli route or gets an absolute raft of hard drives, 450w should be more than enough.
I would suggest an opteron 144 or 146 cpu, (http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...oductID=311094) as they can be overclocked fairly easily to much higher speeds. I personally wouldn't opt for dual core right now, as i don't think the advantages are very clear.
Don't bother with the raptor, I'd go for a quieter hitachi or samsung sata2 drive like this one (http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...oductID=226863)

For top gaming performance go for this x1800xt for £195 on ebuyer, which outperforms the 7900gt and is cheaper too http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/106035
plus the antec case the grand total is £613.27 plus p&p, which is free with scan if you are a member on these forums.

Hope this helps

**chazt** · 28-05-2006, 11:37 PM

also, the monitor you're looking at has a pretty slow response time, try this one instead http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...oductID=239683

**mt50** · 29-05-2006, 12:13 AM

Originally Posted by chazt

also, the monitor you're looking at has a pretty slow response time, try this one instead http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...oductID=239683

cheers the monitor shouldn't be there that was what he was looking at ages ago.

he wants to get something like a 80GB HDD for windows and then a 250GB ish one for storage. which is how i use mine now so thats cool

**MantisCSS** · 29-05-2006, 12:19 AM

some good recomendations there from chazt!!! take it in.

**-ChEM-** · 29-05-2006, 01:13 PM

if you plan on unlocking and overclocking the gto2 it will beat the x1800gto, otherwise its not a good card and you can get a standard gto for less that should be clocked the same and wont be unlockable

**Dark Horse** · 29-05-2006, 01:16 PM

Originally Posted by -ChEM-

if you plan on unlocking and overclocking the gto2 it will beat the x1800gto, otherwise its not a good card and you can get a standard gto for less that should be clocked the same and wont be unlockable

The X1800GTO at stock will beat or be equal to an unlocked and overclocked gto2. When you overclock the X1800GTO it will then pull away and also be far better at high res and IQ levels. It also has sm3 as opposed to sm2 so is a much better deal.

**Matt KB** · 29-05-2006, 06:43 PM

Originally Posted by mt50

hi, i'm posting this for a mate as he is moving from a laptop to a desktop so is going to build himself a new pc(been at uni for 3years so lappy was best thing back then for him)

I am that mate! Thanks for the help so far guys. A chap on another forum posted this and I wondered what you thought of this setup instead of the one that mt50 posted originally:

Matt,
The cpu you have chosen are been phased out along with the mb towards the end of the year. I have never had to install sata drivers on any MSI MB.
Here is a quick suggestion of a system that will be upgrading in the future at it uses the newer cpu, mb & ram. Price wise they work out about the same with delivery included. All prices include vat.

Novatech
CPU £74.03
Processor

MB £57.58
motherboard

HD £57.45
hard drive

DVD Writer £28.74
DVD Writer

Ebuyer
Case £61.90
case

Wireless Card £33.99
card

Graphics Card £129.95
graphics card

Crucial Memory 2 x 1gig £146.86

memory

Obviously he's missing another hard drive there that I want but add that in and they're about the same price, yet his processor seem to be slightly slower?

How would both systems compare? How would they cope with running fairly recent games?

Thanks for the help

**latrosicarius** · 29-05-2006, 07:38 PM

nvidia is better than ati

**mt50** · 29-05-2006, 07:45 PM

Originally Posted by latrosicarius

nvidia is better than ati

got any sites/info to back that up?

**Tobeman** · 29-05-2006, 08:25 PM

Originally Posted by mt50

got any sites/info to back that up?

On the whole, the NVIDIA drivers are much better than ATi's offerings. NVIDIA cards have lower power consumption, like-for-like, but ATi's flagship X1900XTX is quicker than a NVIDIA-based 7900GTX. Hope that sums it up a bit better for you

**mt50** · 29-05-2006, 08:28 PM

Originally Posted by Tobeman

On the whole, the NVIDIA drivers are much better than ATi's offerings. NVIDIA cards have lower power consumption, like-for-like, but ATi's flagship X1900XTX is quicker than a NVIDIA-based 7900GTX. Hope that sums it up a bit better for you

thanks

much better that just saying one is better than the other IMO.

**chazt** · 29-05-2006, 09:17 PM

with an x1800gto or 7600gt you will most probably be able to play modern games like NFS: most wanted and quake 4 at 1280x1024 with low levels of AA and AF, which would suit you fine as that is the max resolution of the monitor you're looking at. If you want higher levels of AA and AF, which will make the games look slightly better, you would need a higher spec card like the x1800xt that i pointed you to earlier in the thread.

When looking at CPUs you must realise that gaming is much more dependent on your gpu than your cpu. That doesn't mean you should go out and get the cheapest possible, but you need to find a good balance. I haven't heard great things about the new am2 boards and CPUs, but they were only released last week and i'm sure the technology will mature quickly. I still reckon you're better off with an opteron 144 as overclocking is not as hard as it sounds and you will get great value for money with that processor.

**Matt KB** · 29-05-2006, 10:33 PM

Originally Posted by chazt

with an x1800gto or 7600gt you will most probably be able to play modern games like NFS: most wanted and quake 4 at 1280x1024 with low levels of AA and AF, which would suit you fine as that is the max resolution of the monitor you're looking at. If you want higher levels of AA and AF, which will make the games look slightly better, you would need a higher spec card like the x1800xt that i pointed you to earlier in the thread.

When looking at CPUs you must realise that gaming is much more dependent on your gpu than your cpu. That doesn't mean you should go out and get the cheapest possible, but you need to find a good balance. I haven't heard great things about the new am2 boards and CPUs, but they were only released last week and i'm sure the technology will mature quickly. I still reckon you're better off with an opteron 144 as overclocking is not as hard as it sounds and you will get great value for money with that processor.

So you mean I'm better off with that first setup posted?

**Matt KB** · 03-06-2006, 09:06 PM

Originally Posted by Matt KB

So you mean I'm better off with that first setup posted?

?

Thread: building a new baseunit for £600 help needed

LinkBack

Thread Tools

building a new baseunit for £600 help needed

Thread Information

Users Browsing this Thread

Similar Threads

building a system with some parts and 300£

Building a new PC, piece by piece - advice needed

For all you Warriors - Tanking - A how to guide

Building My First PC - Tips needed!

Radeon 8500 linux driver install problems

Posting Permissions