Friends Computer Build

[SwanseaCity]

Ok, i am building a computer for my friend, and so I have drawn up the following components for the computer, i was wondering if these parts are any good and whether they can be put together so then they form a computer that can do anything from going on the internet to playing games like Sims 3 (and others). Also if the components are out dated and not worth the money.

 

BX80580Q8300 -- Intel Core 2 Quad (Q8300) 2.5GHz Processor -- £100.51

GA-EP31-DS3L -- Gigabyte EP31-DS3L 775 ATX -- £43.06

KVR667D2N5/1G -- 1GB DDR2-667 CL5 Non ECC (2)--£17.04 (£34.08)

PV-T95G-YAR2 -- XFX GeForce (with CUDA) 9500 GT 512MB -- £40.20

0761345-02000-8 -- Antec computer case -- £28.65

BP500U GB -- Antec BP500U 500 Watt Power Supply Unit -- £40.87

STM3160813AS -- MAXTOR DIAMONDMAX22 160GB SATA (Seagate) -- £26.17

AD7240S-0B -- DVD+-R/RW/DL AD-7240S-0B SATA -- £15.41

 

Overall total = £328.96

Budget = £350

 

My friend hasn't specified an operating system yet, most probably Win7

EDIT>>All items in Bold is changes.

Thanks in advance

Edited November 23, 2009 by SwanseaCity

[dalsoth]

Tell us how much they cost and how much you have to spend. I am sure there are loads of peeps on here who could give you some good specs with a price range in mind.

[IanT]

Budget ?

[tmcd35]

As others have said, if you give us an idea of budget we may be able to taylor our advice to fit. However I will give you my gut instinct on some of these parts... ( )

 

BX80571E5300 -- Intel Pentium Dual Core (E5300) 2.6GHz Processor

Not the best choice of processors. If you can't afford to go up to a proper Core2 then perhaps look at the Athlon X2 or maybe even the Athlon X3's as better budget processors.

 

A Celeron by any other name is still a Celeron.

 

KVR800D2N6/2G -- DDR2 2GB PC800 NON-ECC CL6 DIMM

Personally I'd go for 2x1Gb sticks over 1x2Gb stick. Basically if one stick goes fualty you still have 1Gb Ram and a usable computer until you get the faulty one replaced. Also most motherboards have dual band memory so 2 sticks in the right slots will give you a little bit of a performance boost over 1 stick.

 

GH8400SN1E24Y-SB -- PNY GEFORCE 8400 GS PCI-E 256MB

Is SIMS 3 the only game being played? What type of games are being played and whats the likelyhood of future games purchases? The 8000's series are showing their age abit now. DX9 parts I believe. Win7 (I think) is up to DX11. Also 256mb seems a bit megre. I'm sure, as a compremise, you can get 9000's series cards with 512MB ram at a reasonable price these days.

[Haptic]

Not the best choice of processors. If you can't afford to go up to a proper Core2 then perhaps look at the Athlon X2 or maybe even the Athlon X3's as better budget processors.

 

A Celeron by any other name is still a Celeron.

.

 

A Pentium Dual Core isnt a Celeron ... is it ? I was under the impression the PDC chips were just two pentium 4 chips on one die but no a celeron:confused:

[synaesthesia]

You can get stonking performance with very little money with appropriate hardware choices.

For instance, a 500gb Samsung F3 will cost about £15 more than the 160 drive you bought - not only is it much more spacious, it will be STONKINGLY quick as well - in fact the fastest "consumer" level "normal" drives on the market.

As above, always try and stick with pairs for your memory.

 

Graphics card wise there's also plenty around that will serve you much better for not much more money. Ebay is a great source for this because there's lots of gamers who like to upgrade to the latest and greatest, meaning you can often pick up a very good card for very little money indeed. And if you get certain brands - BFG for example, with registration you get lifetime warranty which makes buying second hand a little less trouble/risk.

[mikedoubleu]

A Pentium Dual Core isnt a Celeron ... is it ? I was under the impression the PDC chips were just two pentium 4 chips on one die but no a celeron:confused:

 

The Pentium Dual Core is a Core2Duo processor. The only difference will be either lower bus speed or smaller cache memory size.

 

The current Celeron processors are either Core2Duo or Core2Solo with lots of the features locked out and very small cache memory.

 

I previously benchmarked my Core2Duo 2.13 against a freinds Pentium Dual Core 2.2 and the difference was very small in day to day use.

[morganw]

Under a heavy load (i.e. booting as a CC3 workstation) i've found that the standard Pentium dual cores are nowhere near as fast as the Core2Duo

[tmcd35]

A Pentium Dual Core isnt a Celeron ... is it ?

Officially, no. To all intents and purposes it may as well be (IMHO). I've long given up trying to work out Intels marketing strategy. It get's ever more confusing each year.

 

The Pentium Dual Core is a Core2Duo processor. The only difference will be either lower bus speed or smaller cache memory size.

This is in essance what I was getting at. For £42(ish) you can't ask a lot for an Intel processor.

 

E5300 - 2.6Ghz, no virtualisation support, 800mhz bus

 

AMD X2 245 - 2.9Ghz, virtualisation support, 2ghz bus

 

Same price. I just think this end of the market you get more bang for your buck from AMD. At the other end of the scale - Core2Duo, Core2Quads - Intel leave AMD for dust.

[synaesthesia]

Agreed. But it does also pay to be thrifty

 

You can also pick up processors on ebay such as the e6600 for £40 - which would eat all of the basic ones for breakfast, as well as providing full VT support etc. They might be aging a bit but for this platform they're still great performers.

 

Not trying to detract from the value of new kit by any means, I'm a huge fan of AMD's hardware for budget offerings plus of course the warranty thing, but it's always worth a look

[morganw]

I think the AMD PhenomII was meant to be pretty good, there is a tri-core version if you can't afford the quad-core.

[SwanseaCity]

ok, following most of the comments i have changed some of the components, i have also added prices and a budget set. Anything else that looks drastically out of date or just bad in itself?

[t_h]

Can't see any real clangers, although do they need a Quad?

 

Also, what about an operating system?

[farmeunit]

I would get at least 2GB of RAM or whatever you're budget will allow. I would actually drop processor a little before going with just 1GB of RAM. Depending on what you want to do, you can get faster Dual-Cores for cheaper than the Quads. Quads are really better for video/audio processing and editing and things of that nature. I know Windows 7 has better memory management than Vista, but I'd still go with 2GB minimum.

[tmcd35]

I would get at least 2GB of RAM or whatever you're budget will allow. I know Windows 7 has better memory management than Vista, but I'd still go with 2GB minimum.

 

I think he's gone for two sticks of 1Gb.

 

This graphics card looks interesting...

 

XFX GeForce G210 1GB Turbo Cache (512MB) PCI-Expre - Misco.co.uk

 

Be interested to know how it stacks up against the 9500GT.

 

Also, I'd question the Quad Core. Maybe a cheaper Core 2 Duo or a Phenom II X3 and spend the difference getting up to 4Gb ram?

[synaesthesia]

Honestly, spend another tenner and get a 500gb Samsung F3 hard drive. Will decrease loading times and give you 3 times more storage for next to nothing.

[Haptic]

Honestly, spend another tenner and get a 500gb Samsung F3 hard drive. Will decrease loading times and give you 3 times more storage for next to nothing.

 

I always heard bad things about samsung hard drives and there reliability saying that I wouldnt go for a maxtor drive either even if its be rebadged with seagate on it, personally i stick to Western Digital and havent has a drive fail as of yet

[Potato-Peeler]

Do you really want old ram? Go for newer DDR2 if you must, though id take the ddr3 route?

Also why not get an ATI radeon 49 series?

[tmcd35]

This thread is getting a little interesting. "Build a computer by committee". I wonder what type of frankenstein monstroisity we'll end up with?

[apoth0r]

Thumbs up for the Samsung F3, putting in a load of other decent components and being held back by the slowest part even more so will be just darn frustrating!

£15 is nothing in the context of things.

 

That and if using Windows 7, try your hardest to get 4 gig ram! You know it makes sense

[mac_shinobi]

Thumbs up for the Samsung F3, putting in a load of other decent components and being held back by the slowest part even more so will be just darn frustrating!

£15 is nothing in the context of things.

 

That and if using Windows 7, try your hardest to get 4 gig ram! You know it makes sense

 

Read around about a lot of forums ref the samsung drives and although they are fast and pretty silent they don't last as long and also the firmware on the drives themselves helps to a degree.

 

If you are after speed and have the cash then an SSD would be in order along with DDR 3 ram and personally I would go with an nvidia but the ATI's seem pretty good for bang for the buck ie value and performance ie the 5970

Edited November 24, 2009 by mac_shinobi

[OutToLunch]

Is it really worth building PCs these days? Especially for friends! I used to build them back when you could still save a few hundred quid by DIYing it, but the amount of support, problems with individual components that turn out to not quite like each other and other randomness is a real PITA.

 

For £229 you could pick up Extra Value Desktop PC, Pentium Dual Core E6300 2.8GHz, 4GB RAM, 500GB HDD, DVDRW, No OS PC - pre built so warranty issues and support covered. I bought one of these, threw a 500w PSU in and an ATI 4830 and ended up with a lovely little budget games machine for £300. Has a nice shiny case too if you have magpie tendencies. Alternatively, save an extra £50 then get AMD Phenom 9850 2.5GHz, 4GB RAM, 1TB HDD, DVDRW, ATI HD4870, NO OS - wish they'd had that one when I set mine up a few months ago!

Edited November 24, 2009 by OutToLunch

[Potato-Peeler]

Is it really worth building PCs these days? Especially for friends! I used to build them back when you could still save a few hundred quid by DIYing it, but the amount of support, problems with individual components that turn out to not quite like each other and other randomness is a real PITA.

 

For £229 you could pick up Zoostorm Desktop PC - Desktops at Ebuyer - pre built so warranty issues and support covered. I bought one of these, threw a 500w PSU in and an ATI 4830 and ended up with a lovely little budget games machine for £300. Alternatively, save an extra £50 then get Ebuyer Extra Value Advanced Gaming Desktop PC - Desktops at Ebuyer - wish they'd had that one when I set mine up a few months ago!

 

Old RAM, Old GFX, Good but not great CPU and no OS? Hardly a brilliant Advanced Gaming machine? Is better then my current one though.

[Guest Guest]

I agree its not any cheaper at the lower end of the market, but what you do get is quality componants rather than the cheapest (and generally 1 or 2 generations out of date) tthe manufacturer could find. Once you start getting to teh higher end, or you want something like a decent gfx card thats where you can still save £100s. Most proper gaming PCs start at around £1500 where as you can build one for around £800.

[OutToLunch]

Old RAM, Old GFX, Good but not great CPU and no OS? Hardly a brilliant Advanced Gaming machine? Is better then my current one though.

 

Don't want much for your money do you? I couldn't build the super budget one for less, maybe you could scrape £20-40 off the advanced one but then you have your friend ringing you up every weekend to ask you inane questions or moan that it won't play the latest game on silly resolutions, he changed the drivers and now everything crashes etc etc. The OPs original list had no OS included in the price either.