Final Pc specification

[johnnr892]

My friend is about to buy this specification for a new PC, just wondering if everything was compatible before buying it:

Processor-Intel core 2 duo E6300
Motherboard-Msi p965NEO - Fi965 socket 775
Graphics card- X1950 pro
Ram- 1gb stick of DDR2 pc4200 (533) Corsair
PSu- Hiper 580w
Hardrive - Seagate 80gb SATA 2
DVD- Liteon dvdrw
Windows xp home
Case- Antec SLK3000B Black

This all comes to about £600 including delivery...Thanks for any help. john

[cotswoldcs]

80Gb is a bit small for a computer these days. I know you're going to tell me he's currently got a 30Gb drive and it's only 20% full.... ...but the future will demand even more hdd space. New cameras, MP3 players, software, etc etc all eat hard drives. A 160Gb drive would only be a few £ extra and would operate faster as well.

Check with someone else but if I'm right having only 1 stick of memory will affect performance. Either go for 2 x 512 or 1 x 1gb. Can someone corroborate this for me?

[Mossy]

1GB(2x512mm) would be the better faster option for running in dual channel mode, also if one stick becomes faulty then you always have the other until you replace it. A single stick would only run single channel self explanitory really

[Rack]

Looks good, but as above would recommend a 200-300G hard drive (best bang for buck) and 2 x 1G of ram. Maybe just 1 x 1G for now and get another later? Vista is out next year and is supposed to be RAM hungry.

[johnnr892]

Ah cheers, will probably go with a 160gb hard drive and 2 x 512 sticks. Also, the last computer i put together was an old athlon xp, and i haven't really been keeping up since, especially with intel, is there anything to watch out for when setting up this core 2 duo system? Also will there be a need for a floppy disk drive to install sata drivers?Thanks John

[jackvdbuk]

just my thought of a 600 pound pc, altohugh it is 30 quid over... :/

[johnnr892]

Is the gigabyte board simply better for overclocking, hence the extra £30 than the msi board i suggested which is £60?

[CrazyMonkey]

just my thought of a 600 pound pc, altohugh it is 30 quid over... :/

You have priced up a E6300 OEM, but havent included a heatsink in the buy.. so he will be stuck. You may have added it but at a quick glance i cant see it.

OEM - NO HEATSINK so you will need to get one.. probly £17 for an Artic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro is the best way to go for a budget.

[jackvdbuk]

oh sorry about that! well the d3 is alot more popular and (imo) more overclockable

(edit) add 3 quid for the RETAIL e6300 which was 113.96 on scan on today only/ shop offers

[cotswoldcs]

You don't need a floppy drive. Ever.

Also Scan have been out of stock of the S12-430 for ages now. I think Seasonic aren't making them anymore. Probably best to go for the 500W model.

[Rack]

Looks good otherwise. I have the DS3, it's a good board generally, can recommend it.
Arctic Cooling Freezer is good value for money for a heatsink, and will be better than the stock cooler - worth the extra £6.

[Darkling]

I would put an image but only just started posting here.

I am looking to upgrade my PC from the dark ages soon.

I idealy was looking to spend about 600-800 quid... but as you can see from the list below I'm stuggling this is all I am after I have all the other odds and sods it is just my core I am upgrading.

Can any one advise me on what if anything I could "skimp" a bit more on with out losing the ability to play things like Oblivion in high resolutions with sensible frame rates.

====== Shopping list ======================================
Intel Core 2 Duo E6600, Socket 775, 2.4 GHz, 1066MHz FSB, Conroe Core, 4MB Cache, Retail £207.14

MSI 975X Platinum P.U Edition i975X, S775, PCI-E (x16), DDR2 667/800, SATA II, SATA/IDE RAID, ATX £121.25

512MB HighTech Radeon X1950XTX, PCI-E(x16), Mem 2000MHz GDDR4, GPU 650MHz, 48Pipes, VIVO £281.99

Zalman CNPS9500-AT Intel LGA775 Aero Flower Cooler £32.30

2Gb (2X1Gb) CorsairTwinX XMS2, DDR2 PC6400 (800), 240 Pins, Non-ECC Unbuffered, CAS 4-4-4-12, EPP £199.74

400 Gb Seagate ST3400620AS Barracuda 7200.10, SATA300, 7200 rpm, 16MB Cache, 8.5 ms, NCQ £101.39
=============================================

Thanks,
chris