Making a PC

[Turkey Finger]

A friend of mine wants to build his own PC.

His budget is about £370 NOT including Graphics Card or keyboard, mouse, CD/DVD Drive or Monitor.

He needs:

Mobo
CPU
Case
RAM
HDD
PSU

Can anyone make any suggestions as to good, decent priced pieces of kit and where they may be. He sends his thanks in advance.

[PAYNEY]

Not including graphics card? Does that mean he already as one? If so is it pci-e or agp dood?

[PAYNEY]

Mobo- Asus A8V Deluxe 939 8xAGP £80.73 Inc VAT
This is for the Socket 939 AMD 64's. Which are the better ones!
http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/spec ... l?ASU-A8VD

CPU- Retail Boxed AMD Athlon 64 3000 Winchester £99.88 Inc VAT
http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/spec ... AMD-64930B

Case- Your pick! Get a nice sexy one with a nice window and a PSU included (ATX 2.0)

RAM- GeIL 1GB (2x512MB) PC3200 Dual £88.07
Decent Ram which nice blue heatspreaders. Bargain for 88 quid (second one down) http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/GeIL_Value.html

HDD- To many to choose from. If he wants a big dirty one then defiantely An IDE Maxtor 250gb for £50 from everywere
Or for performance: the Wester digital Raptor 36.7 SATA is amazing! Both from www.overclockers.co.uk

PSU- hopefully case will include it

[Turkey Finger]

He already has an AGP Graphics Card.

[PAYNEY]

Jackpot

[DE-G@vnor]

Mobo- Asus A8V Deluxe 939 8xAGP £80.73 Inc VAT
This is for the Socket 939 AMD 64's. Which are the better ones!
http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/spec ... l?ASU-A8VD

CPU- Retail Boxed AMD Athlon 64 3000 Winchester £99.88 Inc VAT
http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/spec ... AMD-64930B

Case- Your pick! Get a nice sexy one with a nice window and a PSU included (ATX 2.0)

RAM- GeIL 1GB (2x512MB) PC3200 Dual £88.07
Decent Ram which nice blue heatspreaders. Bargain for 88 quid (second one down) http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/GeIL_Value.html

HDD- To many to choose from. If he wants a big dirty one then defiantely An IDE Maxtor 250gb for £50 from everywere
Or for performance: the Wester digital Raptor 36.7 SATA is amazing! Both from www.overclockers.co.uk

PSU- hopefully case will include it

Its been a while since i ripped the living hell out of someones post - but here goes

I've been in the IT hardware "scene" for aroun1 15 years.

Firstly NEVER SHOP WITH OVERCLOCKERS! (anyone on the motherforums, or any other supplier ratings forum will stand by this).

Everything is overpriced and customer service is appalling.

Buy a 939 Motherboard if you NEED to , make huge savings with marginal performance loss (at current standards) by buying 787 (or whatever).
NEVER buy a "Deluxe" motherboard - you simply dont want that amount of stuff onboard (uses MORE hardware resources for stuff u just dont use, like onboard sound, onboard video, onboard lan etc etc.

RAM- GeIL 1GB (2x512MB) PC3200 Dual £88.07

Really, really look at how you use your computer - Branded RAM by these fasionable "Overclocking" manufacturers is horrendously overpriced. Get two sticks of branded samsung or something if u are going branded at all - for the effective 33mhz extra you may get - its a rip. Additionally timings are much more important than pure clock speed - look at corsairs PC3500 Platinum - its 4-4-4-8 at PC3500. Unbranded ram running 2-3-3-6 at PC2700 will perform better at most REAL WORLD situations (not on your synthetic "shift 1GB of data in 1 go" bandwith tests.

RAM is not at all as important in an AMD system either - especially on 778 (or whatever it is) - as the processor does not need the memory bandwith like a P4 does. RDRAM and DDR development of recent years is really down to the huge demand a P4 has on bandwith, rather than anything else needing it.


Look at every component in terms of performance per pound - early adopters ALWAYS get stung.

Look for 2x smaller capacity hard drives as opposed to 1 big huge one - allows for less loss if it fails and also big performance gains in windows if u move the virtual memory file, internet cache, temporary Environment variable etc to your second drive.

The above post is , for me, a fanboy machine thats cost about 40% more for 10% more performance and will be troublesome to keep stable as you struggle with the overlclock, over time.

What opinionated ? Me?

All this hardware is just a new craze of "geek snobbery" , lets get the most expensive kit becuase its marketted to me so well and the community that has an appaling amount of poor knowledge but achieves great 3dmarks scores - will educate me.

Geil, my arse.

[PAYNEY]

Its been a while since i ripped the living hell out of someones post - but here goes

I've been in the IT hardware "scene" for aroun1 15 years.

Firstly NEVER SHOP WITH OVERCLOCKERS! (anyone on the motherforums, or any other supplier ratings forum will stand by this).

Everything is overpriced and customer service is appalling.

Buy a 939 Motherboard if you NEED to , make huge savings with marginal performance loss (at current standards) by buying 787 (or whatever).
NEVER buy a "Deluxe" motherboard - you simply dont want that amount of stuff onboard (uses MORE hardware resources for stuff u just dont use, like onboard sound, onboard video, onboard lan etc etc.

RAM- GeIL 1GB (2x512MB) PC3200 Dual £88.07

Really, really look at how you use your computer - Branded RAM by these fasionable "Overclocking" manufacturers is horrendously overpriced. Get two sticks of branded samsung or something if u are going branded at all - for the effective 33mhz extra you may get - its a rip.

Look at every component in terms of performance per pound - early adopters ALWAYS get stung.

Look for 2x smaller capacity hard drives as opposed to 1 big huge one - allows for less loss if it fails and also big performance gains in windows if u move the virtual memory file, internet cache, temporary Environment variable etc to your second drive.

The above post is , for me, a fanboy machine thats cost about 40% more for 10% more performance and will be troublesome to keep stable as you struggle with the overlclock, over time.

What opinionated ? Me?

All this hardware is just a new craze of "geek snobbery" , lets get the most expensive kit becuase its marketted to me so well and the community that has an appaling amount of poor knowledge but achieves great 3dmarks scores - will educate me.

Geil, my arse.

Firstly, dont get mouthy with out your proof! Give us some links, help him ffs! Thats what he asked!
The Asus A8V is a Value board, Perfect for the socket 939. He dosnt have a sound card- hence on board sound! He might have a laptop and wants a little lan? If not- he can easily disbale it in bios and gain the extra bandwith.

The RAM, once again its "value".

The ONLY one thing I do agree with you on is the ABSOLUTLY CRAP customer service from overclockers!.... and micro direct..... and ebuyer!

So please gov! Please post a system which will work out at £370 and which will be a competitive machine!
Cant wait....

[DE-G@vnor]

Ok get the Abit Kv8Pro for guaranteed less than 60 quid (still got onboard gig lan and sound)

Get a S747 at3000+ spec for 80 quid or lower (theres another 20 quid saved)

Get a single stick of 1GB ram for.. oh.. that is actually quite cheap.

Non the less the system abouve will cost a good 50 quid less and allow you to get an audigy 2 OEM or even audigy and still have 20 quid or so left over.

The system above will also perform just as well as your "bells n whistles" machine - maybe even a fraction better when you start stacking stuff in the PCI slots. - But will it score higher in 3dmark?

I came from the giel ram thing as I remembered you were the guy who put the brand of thermal paste you used, in your signature.

[PAYNEY]

So, its a slag payney thread. Not help Turkey?

Reason for socket 939: Very future compatable, as the dual thingy for running dual ram. Most are 90ns compared to the sister 130ns. Also, the main thing is- if you buy a AMD 64 3000 now, then in 10months time you want to upgrade, you can just pop an FX-55 or 4000 clawhammer in.

Socket 768 are bin phased out I believe

[Turkey Finger]

It's a help Turkey thread - help much appreciated - arguments really not helping me or my mate.

[PAYNEY]

sorry, will stop

[EagleEye]

at the end of the day it boils down to persnol preffrence and the suppliers pick up on this to sell their products

[PAYNEY]

at the end of the day it boils down to persnol preffrence and the suppliers pick up on this to sell their products

Aye!

Also, for superb customer service (my opinoin) I have just started using novatech.co.uk

When I say superb, I mean, they answer the phone strait away and tell u how long the cue is

[[PHI] Freddy152]

Nothing wrong with overclockers in all fairness Gav, there stuff isnt the cheapest but it is by no means expensive and ive never had a problem with them ever.

[[PHI] Freddy152]

And definetly agreed on a socket 939, future proofed and marginally better performance with not a huge price increase. Oh and whats a socket 747? Thought that was a plane.

[Little Funk]

[subdude2k]

cba

[DE-G@vnor]

by 10 months time when you want to change, there will be another reason to change your motherboard - the days of buying a socket motherboard and it being future proofed are long gone and have been for over 2 years. By buying 939 because chips of 747 or whatever are being phased out is just silly - every piece of hardware you get is being "Phased out" unless its super top of the range, for which there is no need.

Early adopters and "Overclocking guru's" just spend way more cash then upgrade again as the next thing comes out for way more cash the next year. I just hate to see people who know little about computers fed this commercial BS about "overclocking ram" getting the best overclocker MB etc etc.

Overclocking is an ENTHUSIAST hobby, its not cost effective to chase the dragon forever.

PCI-E anyone? Memory with EEC? etc etc.


Im just trying to say - if u are on a limited budget you can buy a PC that will perform equally as well (if not marginally worse) than a top of the range "die hard hardware enthusiast". Its just a pet hate of mine to see all this "Use arctic paste" "theres nothing wrong with overclockers" etc etc - All these hardware "brainiacs" who actually know nothing about how it actually works or how to build a GOOD PC. By that I mean one that is cost effective , does the job well and is stable.

PCW component centre offers some bargains and some not so. But just typing the model number of the hardware into something like kelkoo will usually get good results.

The older AMD chips are still being produced and will be for a while, operating systems are only just getting up to 64bit anyway - so the advantage of dual channel Ram is negligable to say the least. etc etc

[PAYNEY]

by 10 months time when you want to change, there will be another reason to change your motherboard - the days of buying a socket motherboard and it being future proofed are long gone and have been for over 2 years. By buying 939 because chips of 747 or whatever are being phased out is just silly - every piece of hardware you get is being "Phased out" unless its super top of the range, for which there is no need.

Early adopters and "Overclocking guru's" just spend way more cash then upgrade again as the next thing comes out for way more cash the next year. I just hate to see people who know little about computers fed this commercial BS about "overclocking ram" getting the best overclocker MB etc etc.

Overclocking is an ENTHUSIAST hobby, its not cost effective to chase the dragon forever.

PCI-E anyone? Memory with EEC? etc etc.


Im just trying to say - if u are on a limited budget you can buy a PC that will perform equally as well (if not marginally worse) than a top of the range "die hard hardware enthusiast". Its just a pet hate of mine to see all this "Use arctic paste" "theres nothing wrong with overclockers" etc etc - All these hardware "brainiacs" who actually know nothing about how it actually works or how to build a GOOD PC. By that I mean one that is cost effective , does the job well and is stable.

PCW component centre offers some bargains and some not so. But just typing the model number of the hardware into something like kelkoo will usually get good results.

The older AMD chips are still being produced and will be for a while, operating systems are only just getting up to 64bit anyway - so the advantage of dual channel Ram is negligable to say the least. etc etc

Start a new Thread? Titled, I hate people who buy newer Stuff then me!

[DE-G@vnor]

nah, I have a lot of new stuff.

Call it a "hate recommending expensive "specialist" kit for computer newbies who don't realise how much more it costs them" - thread.