General Use Computer

Building a light gaming/allround use computer for my brother (he plays cs + dod). I was hoping to put one of these in it but it looks like that might have to come later as its a bit out of budget.

This is the spec so far:

LN14244 AMD AM2 Athlon 64 3200 Orleans Core, 2.0GHz, 512KB Cache, Retail £45.10 £52.99

LN11238 200 Gb Western Digital WD2000JS Caviar SE, SATA300, 7200 rpm, 8MB Cache, 8.9 ms £42.87 £50.37

LN8599 120mm Coolermaster Internal Case Fan with BLUE LED S12-EB £3.69 £8.67

LN13268 1Gb DDR2 PC2-5300 667MHz non-ECC 240 DIMM Unbuffered Major Retail £60.99 £71.66

LN14339 ASUS M2N-E, NF570, Socket AM2, PCI-E (x16), DDR2 800, SATA II, SATA RAID, ATX £53.19 £62.50

LN13695 500W Xclio X12S4P2 SLI Goodpower 12cm Fan Dual 12v EPS SATA PCI-E with Anti-Vibration 24x7 Use Ready £28.95 £34.02

Is there anything you think I should add?

-You can get a 250gb, 16mb cache WD drive for £52.23, would be worth the extra pennies:

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...roductID=25689

-Have you got a case, os or optical drive to go with it?

-If you can't get the graphics now you'll need a motherboard with onboard vga.

[QUOTE=Dark Horse;867757]-You can get a 250gb, 16mb cache WD drive for £52.23, would be worth the extra pennies:

I second that.. Until the 250gb WD came out, I had been putting the 80gb Special Edition by WD in all my cases.. but the price for the gb and quality is just too good to pass up. Amazing HD.

-Underhill

Nice find with the hd. I have a case which I'm gonna cut up with a jigsaw and add perspex and fans. Same with the optical and os (clearly not the jigsaw bit).
Does that mobo not have onboard? I presumed that all motherboards did.

Edit: If I do decide to get a graphics card now, is that one dodgy? It seems a bit cheap.

:embarrassed: sry double post

Not all motherboards have onboard VGA so be careful, for what i saw your model doesnt have but u can check it here.

Scan is a great but like all stores their specs can be wrong, always check the models info in their manufactures page u will often find known incompatibilities and other useful stuff.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by BlindMelon7

Edit: If I do decide to get a graphics card now, is that one dodgy? It seems a bit cheap.

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Humm... coulnt find any reference to a graphics card which one are u speaking about?

For light gaming the 7600GS you linked would be fine. It's normally the minimum I'd suggest, but so long as you're not intending to play latest games at anything more than medium graphics, then it'll be OK.

I dont think DOD is very demanding anyway. I'll get him to upgrade soon anyway. Do you know how long it will take to finish? I imagine it will take quite a bit of tweeking before it is fully stable/running. The problem is that it has to be very safe as my brother can destroy computers pretty quickly and he is very impatient.

I've got a mate who is selling his old 6600 for £40. do you think its worth getting an agp motherboard with pci express as well? That way he can use the 6600 for now then he can upgrade later.

Turns out we now have about £450. Can anyone think of anything else to add?

E6300 and conroe motherboard instead of the amd64.

Better quality psu, 400-500w fsp, tagan or hiper.

Better graphics card, a 7900gs or x1900gt.

He said he had £450! Don't forget to factor in XP if you don't own a full version already. OEM's are non transferrable.

I think mines a full version (I've put on 2 computers with the same serial).
as for conroe, I'd love to but I would have to sacrifice ram, graphics and hard drive just to fit it in the budget. this is what I am thinking now:

LN14244 AMD AM2 Athlon 64 3200 Orleans Core, 2.0GHz, 512KB Cache, Retail
£45.10 £52.99

LN14339 ASUS M2N-E, NF570, Socket AM2, PCI-E (x16), DDR2 800, SATA II, SATA RAID, ATX
£53.19 £62.50

LN13695 500W Xclio X12S4P2 SLI Goodpower 12cm Fan Dual 12v EPS SATA PCI-E with Anti-Vibration 24x7 Use Ready
£28.95 £34.02

LN11571 250 Gb Western Digital WD2500KS Caviar SE16, SATA300, 7200 rpm, 16MB Cache, 8.9 ms, NCQ
£44.45 £52.23

LN9089 80mm Enermax Blue Neon Case FAN with Manual/Auto Fan Control
£4.99 £11.73

LN8049 1GB Corsair XMS2, DDR2 PC5400 (667), 240 Pin, Non-ECC Unbuffered, CAS 4-4-4-12
£78.95 £92.77

LN15716 256MB XFX 7600GT XT, PCI-E (x16), Mem 1500MHz, GPU 580MHz, Dual DVI/HDTV
£85.76 £100.77

TOTAL £421.43