16 replies to this topic

[jammy316]

Ok I have £850 to spend on a new PC, I will be using this to game (Call of duty 2, HL2, BF2 etc).







Im not 100% sure on what to get since people keep changing my mind.







So I'll post here, what do u think I should get?

[Militaris]

You can get a very good pc for £850. You do not even have to spend that much if you do not require a monitor.







The below system is what I consider would be best value for money,







CPU: AMD Athlon 64 3200+ £112.00



* Best model of CPU for gaming and most tasks. A faster CPU would preform better but I do not consider enough to justiy the price.



If dual core if required look at AMD Opteron 165.











Motherboard: Epox EP-9NPA+ Ultra nForce4 £82.19







Video Card: 6800GS £143.29



* Good preformance at a decent price, probably the best place to spend more money. A reccomended faster card would be the 7800 GS (Dunno if they have been released(, a cheap alternative would be the 6600GT.











Ram: Corsair Value 1GB 3200+ (2x512mb) £58.69



*1GB is all that is really required, can be upgraded at later date if needed.







HardDrive: Maxtor 160GB £56.11



*Depends on how much storage you require. Brand does not really matter.







PSU: Enermax Noisetaker 485W £70.44



* A robust, silent and efficient PSU.







Case: Something that looks good: £70







Total: £593 (inc vat)























Extras like Monitor, Mouse, kieyboard, speakers add to the price.







Mouse



Logitech MX310 Optical Mouse £24.62



* The high end mouses are nice, but not needed. This is a nice mid point, although a cheapie should be fine.







keyboard



Logitech Value Keyboard £5.82



*High end are nice, but not needed.







Speakers: £20



I like logitech, but most speakers give decent sound quality.











General



It might even be possible to get a Case, Keyboard, Mouse, and keyboard pack... they are all cheapies but get the job done. These bundles are often excellent value.







Monitor: £????



* Currently CRT are cheap, and a 19" should be looked at, or a 17" LCD display. Again I do not consider buying high end is worth the extra expense.







Total: £50 + Monitor











Grand Total: £643 + monitor.

[jammy316]

Ok I decided to go through it with a friend. Due need to check if its all comptable, its Here ::







PC







Ebuyer Extra Value Dracula S-313BB Black ATX Case With Side Window PSU Not Included



http://www.ebuyer.co... ... _uid=65295







£35.24 inc VAT







Ebuyer Extra Value 600w Power Supply Silver With Tri Colour Dual







http://www.ebuyer.co... ... _uid=61302







£18.79 inc VAT







Gigabyte GA-K8N Ultra-9 SKT939 NFORCE4 PCI-E DDR400 RETAIL BOX



http://www.ebuyer.co... ... _uid=87026







£93.96 inc VAT







AMD (Venice) Athlon 64 3500+ 939pin 512Kb L2 Cache 90nm Retail Boxed Processor With 3 Year Warranty and Fan Included.



http://www.ebuyer.co... ... _uid=88107







£143.81 inc VAT







Corsair (VS512MB400) 512MB, DDR400 / PC3200, non-ECC, 184 DIMM, unbuffered, C...







http://www.ebuyer.co... ... d=3&stid=2







£28.99 inc VAT (Times 2)







NEC ND3550A 16x DVD±RW Dual Layer Internal IDE (Black) - OEM



http://www.ebuyer.co... ... _uid=98443







£29.51 inc VAT







Sony CRX320E 52x32x52x16 CD-RW/DVD-ROM COMBO Internal IDE (Black) - OEM



http://www.ebuyer.co... ... _uid=59332







£22.32 inc VAT







PNY GEFORCE 7800GT 256MB DDR3 PCI-E DUAL DVI/HDTV-out



http://www.ebuyer.co... ... _uid=96312







£224.98 inc VAT







Seagate ST3160827AS 160GB 7200RPM SATA/150 8MB Cache - OEM



http://www.ebuyer.co... ... _uid=78426



£60.56 inc VAT







Seagate ST380011A Barracuda 80GB 7200RPM ATA/100 2MB Cache - OEM



http://www.ebuyer.co... ... _uid=36369



£36.02 inc VAT











Ebuyer Extra Value 8cm Case Fan With Red/Green/Blue LED's



http://www.ebuyer.co... ... _uid=43009



£0.93 inc VAT x2







Labtec Pulse 485 28w RMS 2.1 Subwoofer - Retail Box



http://www.ebuyer.co... ... _uid=74746







£18.41 inc VAT







Modware Hellfire Red Mesh ATA133 36" Round IDE Cable



http://www.ebuyer.co... ... _uid=87303







£2.61 inc VAT x2











Cost : 720







Good enough?

[Militaris]

Looking down...







- The powersupply is generic, so could be dodgey and would probably be inefficient. Although should be accurate, and with a bit of luck should be problem free. (I have used heaps of generic ones without any problems, although my brother and mum had several die). A PSU from the likes of Fortron, Enermax, Antec, Silverstone, OCZ would be the safe option.











- The Gigabyte GA-K8N is widely considered a average board, probably worth looking at Epox 9PNA, Chaintech VNF4 or the DFI INFINITY if they are in the same price range.







A breif justifcation for my reccomendation of boards:



Epox 9PNA: Good preforming, feature risk board.



Chaintech: Good preformance, good features, cheap.



DFI Infinity: Good preformance, amazing set of features. No.1 choice of overclockers on a budget.







-With regards to memory, probably would be worthwhile to get 1gb. Pratically if you want to multitask, also BF2 is likely to benefit significantly from it.







- Do you really need the Sony CRX320E... I suspect the NEC ND3550 would do all that the Sony can. (I also would not buy Sony, lately many of their products have been of low quality and not worthy of the Sony brand reputation)







- The GEFORCE 7800GT is a nice card.







- Probably would not need another fan. Although it costs next to nothing.

[jammy316]

Theres 2 x's 512 DDR Ram there .







Yeah I usually use two disk-drives. I'll check up on the Mobos you posted.

[Militaris]

Theres 2 x's 512 DDR Ram there .







Yeah I usually use two disk-drives. I'll check up on the Mobos you posted.

K sorry, I did not look closely enough.... (I Just looked at the product name and description).







The only other change you could make would be a trade off, and I am not certain which one would give the better preformance. You could swap the memory you selected with Corsair 2x512mb CL3 . The benefit is the ability to run dual channel, the downside is a slightly higher latency. Both are priced the same.[/url]

[Pyro]

Seriously, stay away from generic stuff aswell as Labtec. They are cheap for a reason, and getting a cheap generic PSU which is specced at a high voltage is a fantastically bad idea.

[jammy316]

the PSU has some very good reviews, if you could, could you check ebuyer for better PSU's then?







I like Labtec, I use there headsets for gaming and there good quality.

[jammy316]

Ok its changed a little, heres the new one ::







PC







PC







Ebuyer V-313s Silver Atx Case With No Psu



http://www.ebuyer.co... ... _uid=72993



£35.24 inc VAT







Ebuyer Extra Value 600w Power Supply Silver With Tri Colour Dual







http://www.ebuyer.co... ... _uid=61302







£18.79 inc VAT







Gigabyte GA-K8N Ultra-9 SKT939 NFORCE4 PCI-E DDR400 RETAIL BOX



http://www.ebuyer.co... ... _uid=87026







£93.96 inc VAT







AMD (Venice) Athlon 64 3500+ 939pin 512Kb L2 Cache 90nm Retail Boxed Processor With 3 Year Warranty and Fan Included.



http://www.ebuyer.co... ... _uid=88107







£143.81 inc VAT







Corsair (VS512MB400) 512MB, DDR400 / PC3200, non-ECC, 184 DIMM, unbuffered, C...







http://www.ebuyer.co... ... d=3&stid=2







£28.99 inc VAT (Times 2)







Pioneer DVR-110D 16x DVD±RW Dual Layer Internal IDE (Silver) - OEM



http://www.ebuyer.co... ... _uid=95879











£29.51 inc VAT







Sony CRX320E 52x32x52x16 CD-RW/DVD-ROM COMBO Internal IDE (silver) - OEM







http://www.ebuyer.co... ... _uid=59692



£22.32 inc VAT







PNY GEFORCE 7800GT 256MB DDR3 PCI-E DUAL DVI/HDTV-out



http://www.ebuyer.co... ... _uid=96312







£224.98 inc VAT







Western Digital WD1600JB Caviar SE 160GB 7200RPM ATA/100 8MB Cache - OEM



http://www.ebuyer.co... ... _uid=47654



£55.17 inc VAT







Seagate ST380011A Barracuda 80GB 7200RPM ATA/100 2MB Cache - OEM



http://www.ebuyer.co... ... _uid=36369



£36.02 inc VAT











Ebuyer Extra Value 8cm Case Fan With Red/Green/Blue LED's



http://www.ebuyer.co... ... _uid=43009



£0.93 inc VAT x2







Labtec Pulse 485 28w RMS 2.1 Subwoofer - Retail Box



http://www.ebuyer.co... ... _uid=74746







£18.41 inc VAT







Ebuyer Extra Value High Quality Round Idecable Ata133 90cm In Blue



http://www.ebuyer.co... ... _uid=52438



£4.11 inc VAT x2

[Pyro]

I like Labtec, I use there headsets for gaming and there good quality.

Labtec is the label that Logitech puts on products that aren't good enough for the mother company. You may have been lucky with your headphones, but I assure you, Labtec is not a quality brand. They even profile themselves as value on their website. That is usually a bad sign. When it comes to hardware, I'm a big fan of the "buy cheap, buy twice" moto.











As for the PSU, I'd go with the cheapest Antec over that generic one any day. If I'm to pay a major amount of cash for a computer, I'm not going to be cheap when it comes to the one component that has the potential to mess every single one of the others up. I'm not saying it will detonate your computer and sell your soul to the devil, but what I am saying is that my experience from generic PSU's is unstable systems. I am deeply in love with Forton, but they don't seem to have their PSU's at your store, so meh.







http://www.ebuyer.co... ... _uid=90608







Also, is it just me or did you pick P-ATA drives in this day and age?

[Kane]

another one that vouches against generic psus (especially ebuyer ones)







they are way louder than normal ones and have a wierd ticking which DOES get annoying and you run a HIGH risk of it blowing which will take with it most of your computer. Decent ones are quieter and by the off chance they blow (which is unlikely compared to something like antec) they wont take all your components with them







in this case prevention IS cheaper than the cure.

[jammy316]

Yeah I chose ATA over the SATA due to the motherboard board not being SATA friendly.







350PSU for the stuff I have? I'd need a higher one surely?

[Pyro]

350PSU for the stuff I have? I'd need a higher one surely?

I'd be willing to bet a fair amount of money that the 350 watt PSU will be able to provide more power in average than the 600 watt would. The reasoning is simple, different brands use different ways to measure wattage. The value brands use the peak wattage to determine the specifications, and the brands who market themselves as slightly more exclusive use average wattage and similar marks. Hence a 600 watt PSU can easily be less effective than a 350 watt PSU.







It should also be said that I have a system that uses more power than yours would per default, and I have also overclocked this system. I use a 300 watt PSU. This system has been 100% stable.











Not SATA-friendly? How so?

[jammy316]

Pryo get on MSN







I'm changing mobo, thinking this :: http://www.ebuyer.co... ... _uid=95458

[Militaris]

A few alternatives to the Antec PSU would be the Enermax Noisetaker 370W for £41.99, or the Enermax FMA Series 460W for £48.98.







http://www.ebuyer.co... ... _uid=98386







http://www.ebuyer.co... ... _uid=98387







I have not used any Antec power supplies I have heard they have (or atleast had) relatively low efficiency which means they tend to run quite hot compared with what Enermax offerings (although they are good compared with generic and many other brands).







(I am personally going to purchase a Enermax 485w Noisetaker PSU soon to replace my 300W Hyena, although Enermax is the only reasonably priced quality brand where I live)

[jammy316]

Ok I'm replacing so I'm thinking these ::







New mobo::







http://www.ebuyer.co... ... _uid=95458







New HDDS::







http://www.ebuyer.co... ... EgodiT_pCw







http://www.ebuyer.co... ... _uid=80963



New PSU::











http://www.ebuyer.co... ... _uid=98387











They think will be ok?







Just need someone to pick 2 SATA cables that are good value







http://www.ebuyer.co... ... at_uid=102







Thinking these?



http://www.ebuyer.co...ucts ... x0cw==







I'm quit esure this is all compatible.

[Militaris]

On paper the Asus A8N-E does look like a nice board, and during my recent research into upgrading my computer I did consider it for a while. The thing which put me off it was the negative comments often directed towards it on tech forums.... Although these problems probably would have been fixed in newer models, plus it suffers the problem of being a common board so chances are more problems would arrive. The Asus A8N-E So should be fine.







(Shame the shop does not stock the epox 9NPA+ Ultra, such a nice board for a good price although almost impossible to find in my part of the world)