Hi, I am going to be making a new PC for general home use (not gaming), mainly gonna be used for office/internet/some video encoding. I will be using XP on the system for a while, then switching to Windows7 hopefully. I am on a tight budget (under £400) so have opted for a motherboard with onboard graphics, but if it's not gonna be enough for ocassional video encoding, can add a 512Mb graphics card for about £30. I have the following requirements for the system; 1. Intel Quadcore 2. 4GB RAM 3. 2 HDs (small one for OS/ big one for storage) 4. DVD-RW drive I have had a look on ebuyer.com and made the following list: Column 1 0 CPU Intel Core 2 Quad Q8200 2.33GHz Socket 775 1333FSB 4MB Cache £139.98 1 Motherboard ASUS P5N-EM HDMI GeForce 7100 Socket 775 onboard graphics 8 channel audio mAT £51.58 2 RAM OCZ 4GB (2x2GB) DDR2 800MHz/PC6400 Titanium Memory CL4(4-4-4-15) £44.99 3 PSU Arctic Power 700W PSU - With PCI-E, 4x SATA, 20+4, ATX12V, 8pin +12V Connectors £41.66 4 Case Coolermaster Elite 335 Case - No PSU £28.98 5 DVD Drive Optiarc AD-7200S 20X DVD±RW/DL/RAM Internal SATA £16.00 6 Hard Drive 1 Seagate ST380815AS 80GB Hard Drive SATAII 7200rpm 8MB Cache £26.98 7 Hard Drive 2 Hitachi DeskStar 1TB Hard Drive SATAII 7200rpm 16MB Cache £67.49 8 TOTAL £417.66 I would appreciate your opinions on whether; 1. there are any problems with the parts I've chosen 2. you can recommend a better system meeting the requirements (preferably reducing the price) Thanks for any help.
Hi The list looks OK. The PSU seems a bit of a heavyweight for the system but thats OK. IMO a seperate graphics card would be better. On-board graphics takes a large chunk of your RAM allocation and slows things down. Alan
I was thinking that XP wouldn't tax the cpu that much, but windows7 64bit would make full use of the quad core, and hence need more power, maybe I'm wrong in thinking this? But changing the PSU to a 600w one and adding a graphics card takes the price upto £437.82 (all parts from ebuyer.com); Column 1 0 CPU Intel Core 2 Quad Q8200 2.33GHz Socket 775 1333FSB 4MB Cache £139.98 1 Motherboard ASUS P5N-EM HDMI GeForce 7100 Socket 775 onboard graphics 8 channel audio mAT £51.58 2 RAM OCZ 4GB (2x2GB) DDR2 800MHz/PC6400 Titanium Memory CL4(4-4-4-15) £44.99 3 VGA Zotac 8400GS 512MB DDR2 VGA DVI TV Out PCI-E Graphics Card £26.83 4 PSU Arctic Power 600W PSU - With PCI-E, 3x SATA, 20+4, ATX12V, 8pin +12V Connectors £34.99 5 Case Coolermaster Elite 335 Case - No PSU £28.98 6 DVD Drive Optiarc AD-7200S 20X DVD±RW/DL/RAM Internal SATA £16.00 7 Hard Drive 1 Seagate ST380815AS 80GB Hard Drive SATAII 7200rpm 8MB Cache £26.98 8 Hard Drive 2 Hitachi DeskStar 1TB Hard Drive SATAII 7200rpm 16MB Cache £67.49 9 TOTAL £437.82 Is 600w too much power for it? And what do you think of the graphics card? Any suggestions for refining the system, see anything unnecessary? Do you know any place to buy the parts for cheaper than ebuyer.com? Could you suggest a similar system, but cheaper? Sorry about all the questions, but it's been years since I last dabbled in building a system and have lost touch. Plus I really need to lower the price, my budget being under £400, the lower the better.
Hi The system seems to be better balanced. YOYOtech are selling the processor at £130. Chech out SCAN as well. Best if you do a search and check out the prices. That's the fun bit! Alan