Want advice on £650 Core duo 2 System

[shackahn]

Want core duo 2 any speed
power supply decent stability and able to run high end graphics cards
1Gb DDR2 Ram preferrably well known brand
7900GT or something very similar
200Gb SATA II HDD

Any suggestions?
I have keyboard monitor and case etc just need the above

[Clunk]

you are possibly going to need 2gb of ram if you are going for a gaming system. do you already have a motherboard?

[shackahn]

No I need a motherboard as well, sorry forgot to put it on. I am thinking its best to keep the ram at 1Gb until I have some more money then upgrade

[gOdman]

okies here goes:

giabyte ds3/ds4
c2d e6300
corsair value select 533mhz cas 3
ocz modstream series, 400w
artic cooling freezer 7 pro
GET A 1900XT 256mb (from overclockers.co.uk around £160/170)

1gb ram is fine on a budget, however what requirements do you have for the computer?

Also what is your currect system? (e6300 might not give you enough a performance boost for the price, unless you are overclockng).

[shackahn]

my current system is a 3Ghz p4 Prescott with a 7800GS AGP so I am guessing the performance increase will be quite noticeable, I will be using the system for gaming but really cant afford a very hgih end system

[gOdman]

oh and will you overclock? If so get the e6300, if not then perhaps spend a little more on a e6400, a little bost in performance.
anyhow, either would bring a nice increase in performance.

[shackahn]

I am quite willing to overclock yup. Thanks for your advice most helpful.

[gOdman]

go along the lines of what i sugested abouve, gigabyte ds3 motherboards overclock like a treat, though you are somewhat hard pressed to find decent overclockable ram, at a fair price at the moment... Anyway 1 gb will still serve you well, an frezer 7 pro is a good hsf for the price oh nd 400w of psu is enough. For now anyway, its modular as well

[cougarslam]

there is an agp mobo out there i have it. (can be unstable various incompatibility problems). also not as fast and not nearly as ocable as the likes of the ds3.

but its cheap (£37) and supports ddr1 too so you may be able to use your current gfx/memory.

just don't come back to me if you have probs with the mobo as it is a pain (onboard sound causes freezes, audigy 2 zs causes freezes, netgear wireless card again frezzes) got it running stable now using a x-fi and on board wired lan instead of wireless.

[shackahn]

I would prefer the stability thanks for the effort though much appreciated

[Robbie G]

You'll be able to do very well for £650 as already demonstrated by godman. Just bear in mind that 2Gb will give you 2 matched pairs but if you go for 1Gb now when you upgrade to 2Gb (and you will cause it'll make a big difference esp when Vista gaming comes through) you'll have four sticks filling all your Ram banks if you want to run in dual channel mode.

[abeacock]

I was able to get my system (see my profile for details) for £700 inc. VAT (excluding the monitor & DVD burner). That was when the ram was a little cheaper though! As you don't need a case take £50 off the price above.

Most of the bits were from Scan, graphics card from CCLOnline, memory from YoYoTech, case from PCWorld, heatsink from Aria.
The DS3 is meant to be one of the best O/Cing boards for the E6300.

[simonf7]

I've just spent £700+VAT on a complete E6300 + DS3 system with 2Gb RAM

Admittedly it's in a crappy case with smallish hard drive, but I did manage to squeeze a 20.1" monitor in there

Si

[shackahn]

I found this system for £714 which I thought was well worth it

* Intel® Core™ 2 Duo E6400 Dual Core Processor(2.13GHz,2MB Cache,1066MHz)
* Genuine Windows® XP Home Edition
* Midi-Tower ATX Case +550W PSU -Black/Silver
* ASUS P5NSLI NVIDIA nForce 570 SLI Mainboard - Pentium® D/Core™ 2 Duo - ATX
* 2048MB DDR2 533MHz Memory - (2x 1024MB)
* 250GB Serial ATA Hard Drive with 16MB Buffer
* Super Format SONY 18x Dual Layer DVD Writer +R/-R/RW/RAM
* 256MB nVIDIA GeForce 7950 GT - Dual DVI,HDTV & TV-Out + DVI - PCI-Express
* 5.1 High Definition 6 Channel Audio Codec (on-board)
* Free Microsoft® Works® 8.5 + 60 Days Microsoft Office Trial
* Classic Plus Warranty - 1 Year On-site + 2 Years BTB -T&C
from mesh Anyone got any problems with this spec?

[SiM]

Wow, that does look cheap! There must be a catch... the individual parts probably cost more!

[kalniel]

Just built my gf a whole system inc. nice TFT monitor and keyboard with an E6300 and 2gb ram for around 650 inc vat. Definately doable, and that was a SFF as well

If you're looking to save pennies then consider the ASRock Conroe 945G DVI motherboard. Look for PCWorld PNY DDR2 533 RAM at 55quid a 1gb stick.