New rig

[Pulse]

Apologies for the barrage of threads I've been making but I've recently had a revelation; my folks are now willing to pitch in for a new whole rig. Now, bare in mind that I'm a student and even with the additional funds I am still limited to a budget of around 500-600 GBP. I saw this deal on arbico.co.uk that is very relevant to my interests.

I think it's an extremely good deal considering the inclusion of a 19" monitor to go with it. I'd most likely only be playing Source related games anyway, so I'm not looking for a 'Crysis' rig or anything of that caliber. I also understand that it would be cheaper to build my own rig but I simply do not have the time or expertise to delve into a project like that at the moment.

Also discovered the following from cyberpowersystem.co.uk

This choice would sacrifice the inclusion of a monitor obviously.

So, thoughts anyone? Also which OS should I be looking at?

Edit: Another deal has been found: PC World option

Seems tempting for the 22" monitor, although I'm unsure about the graphics card. What would be the best choice out of the 3? At the moment I'm leaning towards the arbico deal.

 

[baron insig]

NO DO NOT BUY PCWORLD

i work for currys and i say no no no

what kit have u got right now ?

What power supply and case?

if its a decent 500W+ psu ur good

And an ATX case.

.

Build your own. it is more rewarding, a learning expeirience, and you arent putting TAT into it. Pcworld kit is cheap nasty and will fall to bits. What do u see on the tickets? 2048mb of ram, not 2 1xgb stick, dual channel ddr2800 ram 3-4-4-5 timings.

what motherboard? a bare minimum bit of kit to jsut get the job done but say goodbye to easy expandability.

what do they actually advertise? the processor. nothing else.

www.overclockers.co.uk

Awesome service, never had a problem with them.

vista premium is ok, ull need vista for dx10, but ultimate is veeery expensive.

x38 is ur mobo of choice, the intel 77d socket. you coudl go quad ocre but its not really advantageous atm.

a good core2duo will suffice.

if u have the above ^^ u shud also have a disk drive. Tho u may want a new HDD. and use the one u have as a backup or storage disk

This is all assuming the pc u have right now will be guttable, and ur parents wont want it.

Please give me more information and i will tailor help to your needs

/epic post

LOL dude im from bath! Team somerset pew pew

 

[Pulse]

Cheers for the gargantuan post there baron, but I literally ordered my PC 10 minutes before you posted lol D: Awesome that you're in bath by the way, you at uni at all?

I went for the arbico package in the end, with the following tweaks:

PC Case: Ice Box Black ATX Midi Tower
Power Supply: Quiet 550Watt PSU
Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo E6750 CPU
Heatsink & CPU Fan: Standard Heatsink & CPU Fan
DDR2 Memory: 2 GB Kingston 667Mhz PC5300 DDR2 RAM
PCI-E Graphics: 512MB nVidia 8600GT Graphics Card
Sound Card: Integrated 5.1 Channel Sound Card
Primary Hard Drive: 250GB SATA2 7200RPM Hard drive
Main Optical Drive: 20x Dual Layer DVD +/- Rewriter
Network Adapter: Integrated 10/100 Network Card
TFT Monitor: 19" Widescreen Multimedia TFT
Keyboard & Mice: Std Keyboard & Optical Mouse
Speakers: Built into Flat-Panel
Operating System: Genuine Windows XP Home Service Pack 2
Multimedia Software: Nero Burning Rom

Should definitely be an adequate piece of kit for the next 2-3 years or so I think. Thoughts?

 

[baron insig]

if ur into games get a set of headphones, as the built in tft speakers will be terrible,

if u upgrade the gfx card any time within the next few years, would be advisable to put a stronger PSU into it.

good processor, and named ram, for once

hehe, im going to bournemouth university dwn south, computer aided product design is my course first year this year, as i had a year getting drunk .

i havent really touched these forums for a few years, just lurked, i think im going to make hardware software my home

 

[Pulse]

if ur into games get a set of headphones, as the built in tft speakers will be terrible,

if u upgrade the gfx card any time within the next few years, would be advisable to put a stronger PSU into it.

good processor, and named ram, for once

hehe, im going to bournemouth university dwn south, computer aided product design is my course first year this year, as i had a year getting drunk .

i havent really touched these forums for a few years, just lurked, i think im going to make hardware software my home

Yeah I won't be using the monitor speakers, I've got a pair of philips speakers with a nice phat subwoofer to last me. I have a mate who does animation at Bournemouth, that's pretty awesome. I'm in my second term of fresher year at Bristol UWE and my liver is also being decimated haha.

 

[Citrus]

If I were you, i'd get a bigger hard-drive than 250gb. In 1 year i've completely filled my 160gb up, and if I hadn't extremely limited the amount of video I use for editing, I could of needed up to 500gb by now.

It really depends on what you want the computer for, obviously you've already said source games, but is that the only thing [excluding small documents etc.] you're planning on using it for?

 

[Lamarrfz]

A question for Pulse, and one that is solely grounded on curiosity: Could you possibly post an estimate on the price your newly-acquired computer had? Doesn't have to be exact. :].

 

[Pulse]

If I were you, i'd get a bigger hard-drive than 250gb. In 1 year i've completely filled my 160gb up, and if I hadn't extremely limited the amount of video I use for editing, I could of needed up to 500gb by now.

I do have a 500gb External HD to back stuff onto so I will most likely use that to store a lot of junk/coursework etc.

It really depends on what you want the computer for, obviously you've already said source games, but is that the only thing [excluding small documents etc.] you're planning on using it for?

I'll also be using it for audio recording, mixing etc. and for flash and image creation (fireworks, photoshop etc.).

A question for Pulse, and one that is solely grounded on curiosity: Could you possibly post an estimate on the price your newly-acquired computer had? Doesn't have to be exact. :].

From arbico it was 534.99 GBP, excluding VAT and delivery costs.

 

[Eejit]

Mind if I hijjack your thread if you're done Pulse?

 

[Pulse]

Mind if I hijjack your thread if you're done Pulse?

Only if you're gentle with it D:

 

[Lamarrfz]

Sounds like a decent pricetag, thanks.

 

[Eejit]

Alright, I'm going to be building a new desktop. I've never actually put one together before, but I should be ok since both of my flatmates have. Currently I'm looking at:

Antec 900 case
Hitcahi 160gb 7200rpm SATA2 (I have a 750g external)
Asus nForce 750i mobo
4gb OCZ 5400 DDR2 ram
Hiper 580w PSU
Tuniq Tower 120-lfb CPU cooler
And one of the new Intels released this month, and some variety of 8800GT. Might actually get the CPU from amazon as they seem to have some ~15GBP cheaper than OCUK.
64bit Vista to use the RAM, and a DVD drive ofc.

My main aim is something that'll be good for several years to come, with upgradeability, without going top-of-the-line for any parts. Looking for value for money.

Do you guys see any incompatibilities here? Any of those makes/models unreliable?

Advice please

 

[Eejit]

Bump, anybody?

 

[Eejit]

May change PSU to -this- (Corsair VX 450W), and mobo to -this- (Asus P5E X38).

I saw great reviews for the 480W version of the Hiper psu I was looking at before, but not sure how that would translate to the 580.
450W should be enough for that setup, with room to spare right?

 

[Eejit]

I think I'll probably go for -this- 8800 GT. Excellent price for the overclock, and according to reviews the bigger fan is quieter and cooler than stock chips.