PC on a tight budget

[Lucio]

My mate's PC has got an intermittant fault on his IDE controller, leading to many many failures to load the data. I've already replaced the HDD with a brand new Seagate 7200.10 but to no avail and it often has trouble reading from DVD's as well.

Anyhow, to try and solve the problem we decided to try and get him a new system but his budget's only £200 at the moment.

Can reuse the HDD, DVD drive, soundcard and graphics card (think it was an ATI 9200SE) and possibly the case, though he likes the idea of a cube mATX case in the future.

What parts do people suggest that are reasonable quality but without spending a fortune? All he's primiarily concerned with is running World of Warcraft.

Hoping to get down on Sunday, if I'm not still stuck installing the new server, so nothing that's out of stock!

[Steve B]

on a £200 budget, theres not alot you can do.
whats the current specs of his machine at the moment?

[Lucio]

It's a Semipro 3600, with 512mb RAM (which I think is SDRAM, maybe DDR), the PSU is a 400w silverpower that's fairly new.

Hoping to get a mobo, CPU and RAM and re-use the rest of the stuff....

[weegie.geek]

a hundred quid would get you the motherboard and cpu i have, a dual core e2160 and a nifty asrock motherboard that allows ddr and ddr2, agp and pci-express. It's a nice stepping-stone upgrade, and you'll definitely notice the difference.

My e2160 is sitting happily at 2.5GHZ, which (according to some googling and benchmarking) should have about 4 times the grunt of your current system.

If it's just the ide channel that's knackered though, have you considered just buying a pci ide controller?

Not that i'd want to talk anyone out of going for dual core, it's lovely.

If you go for the solution i've outlined, you can keep everything else, just replacing the motherboard and processor, leaving you £100 for either a stack of new ram.

[Lucio]

Thanks, I forgot about the e2160, might get though an Abit Fata1ty mobo though for it's intergrated GFX instead of re-using the AGP card.

[YOYOtech - Nav]

Thanks, I forgot about the e2160, might get though an Abit Fata1ty mobo though for it's intergrated GFX instead of re-using the AGP card.

Mate, there are actually several options for around £200 for Mobo+CPU+Memory. For example:

Abit AN-M2 (YOYO CODE: 94046) = £46.81 0R ASUS M2A-VM HDMI (YOYO CODE: 85636) = £45.07
AMD X2 4800+ BRISBANE 2.5GHZ 1MB CACHE(YOYO CODE: 74543) = £81.70
CORSAIR XMS2 6400 C5 2GB KIT (YOYO CODE: 8062) = £72.46 OR YOU CAN ALSO CONSIDER OCZ GOLD or PLATINUM 6400 2GB KIT AS THEY ARE SIMILARLY PRICED
TOTAL = £209.96 OR £208.22 (WITH ASUS MOBO) INC. VAT AND SHIPPING & HANDLING

ABIT FATAL1TY F-I90HD (YOYO CODE: 52050) = £71.22
INTEL CORE 2 DUO 2160 1.8GHZ 1MB CACHE(YOYO CODE: 56.76) = £56.76
CORSAIR XMS2 6400 C5 2GB KIT (YOYO CODE: 8062) = £72.46 OR YOU CAN ALSO CONSIDER OCZ GOLD or PLATINUM 6400 2GB KIT AS THEY ARE SIMILARLY PRICED
TOTAL = £209.43 INC. VAT AND SHIPPING & HANDLING

Please note that all the motherboards mentioned here only support 1 IDE channel and therefore can support only 2 IDE devices at the max.
Secondly, Although this would give you a complete solution as a working PC however i believe any of the above mentioned solutions are not sufficient enough for playing games like World of Warcraft. You would need a decent dedicated graphics card to play that game. So for that reason you can consider this one as well:

ASUS P5L-VM 1394 (YOYO CODE: 34502) = £44.09
INTEL CORE 2 DUO 2160 (YOYO CODE: 56.76) = £56.76
CORSAIR XMS2 5400 C4 2GB KIT (YOYO CODE: 4780) = £51.65
PALIT 7600GT 256MB DDR3 PCI-E GRAPHICS CARD (YOYO CODE: 8088) = £60.40
TOTAL = £221.89 INC. VAT AND SHIPPING & HANDLING

I hope this would be of some help.
CHEERZ

[Lucio]

Sounds good Nav, since I got stuck at work last weekend with an extremely stressful server install, hopefully my mate and I can make it into the store this weekend.

Hmmm, strange though what you say about the onboard Gfx chip, a review over on OCUK has it as being semi-capable of playing games, getting an avg 33 FPS on CounterStrike: Source (which I think demands similar resources to WoW) and even managing 17 FPS on F.E.A.R, though admitedly that is with them throwing an e6700 behind it.


Worst case scenario is we get the board and I have to get him a late b/day present of a GFx card.

[Andrzej]

Hi Lucio,

You might want to have a look at the EQS RS690 mainboards

They have a (limited) ATI X700 graphic adaptor built in which - while not playing Crysis at 2560x1600...

...will probably represent an INCREASE in performance over your 9200

YOYOTech have it here... http://www.yoyotech.co.uk/product_in...91341f38f4a0c4

...and HEXUS Labs gave it 'two thumbs up' here...

...http://www.hexus.net/content/item.ph...=10&search=eqs

If you are going to save money anywhere - do it with the memory, because that is the EASIEST thing to add later

[TRDeal]

Just get a cheap 7300GT off eBay as a stopgap for a few ten quids.

[Lucio]

Hi Lucio,

You might want to have a look at the EQS RS690 mainboards

If you are going to save money anywhere - do it with the memory, because that is the EASIEST thing to add later

Thanks but I don't think that AMD is the way to go here, sure they're cheaper, but I don't feel AMD offers the same value for money that an Intel CPU does. Too right about the RAM though, probably try to get the very cheapest RAM available and make the motherboard the most expensive item on the list.

[Pob255]

If you want to upgrade in stages then I can thourghly recogment the ASRock 4CoreDual-VSTA, it's a lovely little board with loads of up grade potential, although it's pritty lousy for overclocking.

However, as you've not got much DDR and the 9200SE is pritty rubish, you really want to do something about them as well

I'd say Nav's 3 option is pritty damb good
ASUS P5L-VM 1394 (YOYO CODE: 34502) = £44.09
INTEL CORE 2 DUO 2160 (YOYO CODE: 56.76) = £56.76
CORSAIR XMS2 5400 C4 2GB KIT (YOYO CODE: 4780) = £51.65
PALIT 7600GT 256MB DDR3 PCI-E GRAPHICS CARD (YOYO CODE: 8088) = £60.40
TOTAL = £221.89 INC. VAT AND SHIPPING & HANDLING

Only other things I could add are
ATi alternative: Sapphire 11090-02-20R X1650 PRO (YOYO Code : 8763) = £64.95
Or if you need to get in closer to the £200 mark
Palit 7300GT 256MB ( YOYO Code : 34264) = £40.00
the 7300GT is not as good as the 7600GT but a good step up from the 9200SE

[Lucio]

Well, got it all sorted in the end, popped in yesterday and ended up with a reasonable selection at a price you definately cannot complain about

abit Fatal1ty F-I90HD
Intel Core Duo E2160
2 GB of OCZ value ram, PC5400

and because they helpfully pointed out the PSU he had wouldn't be reuseable because it'd be a 20pin connector, an EZ Cube case wth 550w PSU


Gotta say the whole experience was a pleasure, very easy to find stuff in the store and we got help and advice even without having to ask Whomever served us (sorry, lousy with names), was really polite and helpful, despite the fact I must have seem slightly unhinged at the speed I was going over various options for my friend. Definately knew what he was doing and made sure that WE knew what we were doing as well, checking off that we had everything we needed to actually build a working PC at the end of it.

[Andrzej]

Share Lucio, share... http://www.demographix.com/surveys/TWHI-SO67/9SD9JWAA/

(and if you have had unhappy experiences - share them too!)

.

[Lucio]

Just to report back in general

Not too bad, there's been a weird window's driver issue with the onboard sound (it stops working with SP2, no fix found to date but it's definately a Windows issue)

Ended up getting a case as well as there was doubt as to whether the old PSU worked or not, downside was the new PSU blew up! My mate said he'd report it, but given that his old PSU was compatable I doubt he'll worry over a £15 PSU as we've got everything wired into the case and wouldn't want to return the case.


Other than that, the board is amazing! For such a low price the performace is really really good, getting between 30 and 60FPS in Warcraft, averaging around 40 at 1152 x 864 pixels, which is more than playable and the onboard sound quality is good, even compensating for some distinctly crappy speakers.

Sure, you can't call the machine a proper gaming rig, but for the price Yoyotech were able to do, it really did the job

[YOYOtech - Mark]

thanks for your comments....

in reagrds to the power supply - if it's your new one blown, it would be covered under warranty, bring it in and we'll test it and if faulty be able to exchange it for a new one....

mark

[Lucio]

Thanks Mark, I'll let my friend know as he's the one who actually lives in London.

Guess it does go to show though why it's always worth spending out on a PSU