Building a new computer

[Chemical_Ali]

hi guys, im planning on building new computer for someone else, the budgets £500 on just the base unit. dunno wat components to get its for someone whos only gonna be browsing the web downloading mp3s burning cd's photo editing etc

what components would u get if u had a 500quid budget? any suggestions?
thanks!

[sawyen]

£500 for a complete base unit (no monitor)

hmn.. pretty easy one..

1. 3800+ X2 £117
2. KN8 Ultra £55
3. 2x1GB Corsair VS £110
4. Seasonic S12-430 £46
5. POV 7600GT £121 (if there's little point for a GT, a GS can be used as well for £70 odd)
6. 250GB Samsung £49
7. Some cheapo DVD-RW £20
8. Cheapest case you can find here.. £20 odd

= £530ish..

All inclusive if you're with the Hexus Scan thingy..

[johnny02004976]

mate check this thread out:

http://forums.hexus.net/showthread.php?t=81165

aptly named the £500 quid thread

[MantisCSS]

i agree with sawyen, thats all u really need and also a good spec!

[DanceswithUnix]

I would say that is too much money for a surfing machine.

Either get a cheap Dell (I always hate saying that, but sometimes it is true) or go for something jaw droppingly beautiful. I like shuttles myself:

like this

Add a cheap s939 CPU, Samsung hard drive, 1GB of DDR ram, DVD burner and an OEM copy of windows and you have a small, cute & very quiet system. Built in graphics should be more than good enough for what you describe.

[Chemical_Ali]

yeah those specs look good, i was also thinking of getting a dell machine to its only for my younger sister. i got two hours to think about what im gonna do!

thanks for the replies guys.

[DanceswithUnix]

Does that mean it has to be up to playing The Sims-2? Make sure you get plenty of memory!

[Chemical_Ali]

lol nah she dont play games, one more question, will i need to update the motherboard bios using a single core cpu in order for the X2 3800+ to work on it?,

[DanceswithUnix]

Lots of people say they don't play games, then along comes Christmas and some git supplies them with a copy of the Sims

Anyway, I would have thought that any motherboard you buy these days would already ship with a compatible BIOS.

OTOH, if you went for socket AM2 with DDR2 memory, then it _must_ be compatible with an AM2 dual core chip as they have always been available for that platform.

[Chemical_Ali]

nah im going for the skt 939, i heard theres not much difference between the two is there.

[DanceswithUnix]

The only difference is that S939 should dry up at the end of this year, whereas not only should AM2 stll be around in a few years time but AMD have stated that their DDR3 processors will be DDR2 compatible and fit into an AM2 motherboard.

If you want an upgrade path the AMDs quad core K8L chip, you need AM2.

Oh, you can also get a Sempron for 30 quid on AM2 and still have that future quad core upgrade path.

All rather academic in your case, I suspect your sister will be delighted with any modern CPU given the needs you posted

[Chemical_Ali]

she wont be upgrading thats for sure. she doesnt know wat a processor is anyway lol.

i bought all the components btw this is what i got.

X2 3800+ for £117.44 from overclockers (could of bought a X2 4200+ komplett for only 8quid more but she wasnt bothered to wait a couple of days cuz they were outta stock)

Abit KN8 Ultra nForce4 Ultra £60
Corsair VS 1GB £61
3.5" Floppy Disk Drive 1.44MB for £5
CD-R/RW Drive Internal Black £12
Sony Dual Layer Black 16X DVD +/-R/RW Ram £22
Seasonic 430W PSU £43
NVIDIA Geforce 7600GS £55
Caviar SE 250GB 16MB SATA II 7200rpm £55
Akasa AK-ZEN-01-BK Zen Black Case £30

should be okay for her needs. thanks for the help guys .

[Chemical_Ali]

AMD AM2 Athlon 64 X2 4200+
MSI nForce550,
2048MB Corsair v.select
gf 7600GS
cd-rw, dvd-rw, fdd
250 gig wd hdd.

i got one question guys. could the seasonic s-12 430 watt handle all of the above mentioned without any problems?

thanks

[MSIC]

Yes.