View Full Version : build me a PC of £500
i was wondering if someone could help, buy telling me what i exactly need to build a pc, to max out the £500 to get the maximum from what i can spend thank you.
What do you intend using it for?? Gaming? Multimedia? Office work? Video editing type stuff?
Need a bit of background as to what you intend doing with it, i could spec you something with a £200 graphics card in and then find out you don't play many games on it and the money would have been better spent on more storage etc etc.
Yep, we need to know what you want to do with the system, and whether or not you have any parts already? Do you have a keyboard, mouse, monitor? If so you can use them and add more money to important components. :)
thanx for your reply, well if this helps i would like the pc to run for a couple of years with out changing much of it, thanx again for your help.
Presuming you've got keyboard, mouse, speakers etc. and play some games:
Athlon X2 4200 Socket 939 (£146)
ASRock 939Dual-SATA2 Socket 939 (£39)
Corsair Value Select 512MB PC3200 VS512MB400 x2 (£62)
160GB Seagate Barracuda 9 SATA-2 (£49)
Enermax Liberty 500W Modular PSU (£69)
Approx. £372 Total inc shipping.
Sapphire X1800GTO 256MB PCI-E £132 Total inc shipping (Aria don't stock these cards)
---------------
£504 TOTAL - close enough :wink:
*The motherboard will allow you to use an AGP graphics card if you currently have one. Otherwise, you can choose another motherboard with a few more PCI-E slots.
If you need a case, you could get a slightly cheaper PSU (Antec, Enermax recommended) and a smaller size HDD.
erm well i need everything so from scratch if go over by £50 it doesn’t matter, thanks for you help ppl, much appreciated
Well that makes a huge difference because you need a monitor and case. Including them, I doubt you'll have a PC that can play any new games, unless you source some parts from eBay on the cheap.
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y1/mac124/screenies/Quote.jpg
This includes everything you will probably need to do a bit of upgrading in a few months to a year depending on what you do, ie the gfx isn't great so if you find that game you really want to play is stuggling then graphics card / memory might need upgrading that type of thing also the monitor isn't massive but it should suffice again you could get a bigger one when / if needed when funds allow. Also i have added a different one to the one supplied in the 4 in 1 pack as i wouldn't trust a bundled psu as far as i coul throw it these days but it's upto you, you could go with the bundled one and spend the extra ££ elsewhwere upgrading something.
Alien Custom Case Silver (Zorro Design) (£27)
Keyboard, Mse & Sp'ks (Black/Silv) (£7) Would be sufficient to get you started
£538
If you don't have a monitor, then the cheapest option would be one of the Dell 17\" CRT's. That would probably knock up your shipping a bit too. You could always downgrade your cpu to an Athlon X2 3800 which would save you roughly £30/get you a CRT monitor. The X2 3800 is still a fantastic processor!
If you don't like the speakers, then just get keyboard, mouse and a nicer speaker set seperately. The keyboard and mouse are cheap. The speakers depend on quality. Anyway, that's a rough guide. Tell us what you think.
ADD: Sorry I forgot about your DVD-RW.
NEC ND-4571 LabelFlash (£25)
Looks like you may want to just get 512MB RAM. Things like RAM can be added to at a later date anyway. Approx. £508?
how much would i need to spend for a pc that would last me a long time without breaking the bank?????
I'd say £550-£600, depends what you class breaking the bank as.
This looks good to me:
Athlon X2 3800 (£117)
ASRock 939Dual-SATA2 (£39)
Seagate 80GB SATA2 8MB Cache HDD (£35)
Silver Floppy Drive (£5)
Corsair Value Select 512MB VS512MB400 (£31)
NEC ND-4571 DVD-RW LabelFlash (£25)
Any quality 450W+ PSU (Antec, Enermax etc) (£50-£70)
Alien Custom Case Silver (Zorro Design) (£27) (Also possible to source a Jeantech G-Max Case from ebay at under £20)
Dell 17\" CRT Black monitor (£50?)
Sapphire X1800GTO 256MB PCI-E (£125) (Can find elsewhere)
Windows XP Home OEM (£56)
Keyboard, mouse, speakers - you decide.
That should be everything.
£590 max total exc. shipping. (exc. mouse, keyboards, speakers)
Hope that helps.
17inch TFT http://www.aria.co.uk/ProductInfoComm.asp?ID=22833
AMD 3800 X2 http://www.aria.co.uk/ProductInfoComm.asp?ID=19392
120GB HDD http://www.aria.co.uk/ProductInfoComm.asp?ID=14774
1GB Memory http://www.aria.co.uk/ProductInfoComm.asp?ID=20235
Gigabyte https://www.aria.co.uk/ProductInfoComm.asp?ID=21420
NEC DVD/RW http://www.aria.co.uk/ProductInfoComm.asp?ID=22747
Windows XP http://www.aria.co.uk/ProductInfoComm.asp?ID=2048
Case https://www.aria.co.uk/ProductInfoComm.asp?ID=21645
Graphics Card https://www.aria.co.uk/ProductInfoComm.asp?ID=23628
Power Supply https://www.aria.co.uk/ProductInfoComm.asp?ID=19633
http://img88.imageshack.us/img88/1596/ariabuildwa1.jpg
A very stable build. Comes with a 17ich TFT monitor, Dual Core processor, 1GB of Memory, Windows XP, high quality power supply, and even a pci-e graphics card.
For around £550 delivered 8)
With an extra £50 upgrade to either 2GB if you do alot of muilittasking and not alot of gaming. If you like gaming then upgrade the graphics card.
[quote:8ca4574a64=\"mac124\"]http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y1/mac124/screenies/Quote.jpg
This includes everything you will probably need to do a bit of upgrading in a few months to a year depending on what you do, ie the gfx isn't great so if you find that game you really want to play is stuggling then graphics card / memory might need upgrading that type of thing also the monitor isn't massive but it should suffice again you could get a bigger one when / if needed when funds allow. Also i have added a different one to the one supplied in the 4 in 1 pack as i wouldn't trust a bundled psu as far as i coul throw it these days but it's upto you, you could go with the bundled one and spend the extra ££ elsewhwere upgrading something.[/quote:8ca4574a64]
you missed the HS/Fan for the OEM CPU :P
http://www.aria.co.uk/ProductsList.asp?Category=13&SubCat=FAN-939
Just had a thought,
Can you install XP SP2 on a SATA drive without a floppy drive these days?
[quote:e6cac23bfb=\"Firerat\"]Just had a thought,
Can you install XP SP2 on a SATA drive without a floppy drive these days?[/quote:e6cac23bfb]
You certainly can.
Best I can think of is to pop down to your local newsagents, and pick up the latest copy of Custom PC.
They have an article in it at the moment where they build three computer systems for £250!! All of them are good machines, and can even play some new games.
That would leave you £250 for a monitor, or even better upgrades 8)
[quote:00d699ddfc=\"Barley\"][quote:00d699ddfc=\"Firerat\"]Just had a thought,
Can you install XP SP2 on a SATA drive without a floppy drive these days?[/quote:00d699ddfc]
You certainly can.[/quote:00d699ddfc]
about time they sorted that out :)
[quote:3ec846d748=\"Barley\"]Best I can think of is to pop down to your local newsagents, and pick up the latest copy of Custom PC.
They have an article in it at the moment where they build three computer systems for £250!! All of them are good machines, and can even play some new games.
That would leave you £250 for a monitor, or even better upgrades 8)[/quote:3ec846d748]
That isn't hard, but if your after stability, and to avoid doing a full upgrade, then £250 isnt going to provide that.
It isnt hard to buy a Dell, but the ability to upgrade isnt there.
But i would love to see an example of this £250 system which plays the latest and greatest?
Take a look in the magazine, they built 3 PC's.
One with computer fair parts, one with parts from online retailers, and one just from parts on eBay.
All machines required being overclocked like hell though :)
Everyone knows overclocking shortens the life of the components.
This guy wants a computer that will last the distance.
__________
Ebay, can be good or bad. Could buy all your parts from there, and they guy you buy the processor off, could be dodgy then your waiting ages for your computer.
__________
Fair parts? No idea.
I don't believe it's a proven fact overclocking decreases a components life expectancy. It's not like parts all have a set amount of time, and they will expire immediately upon reaching it.
I had a Barton XP-M 2500+ overclocked by around 50% for a couple of years, and it never gave me any problems.
If he wants a PC that will last the next few years, he really needs it to be Vista compatible too.
Yeah exactly.
Hence why have spec'd a pc that has a pci-e slot. Dual Core processor, 1GB of memory, 120GB HDD.
And im currently running Vista on a AMD 1800+, 1GB RAM, 40GB, FX5200.
........
Yes well its a proven fact, Heat reduces the life of components.
And with an extreme overclock theres going to be alot of heat, or alot of money spent on cooling.....
[quote:e04a1beb2b=\"Belso\"]Yeah exactly.
Hence why have spec'd a pc that has a pci-e slot. Dual Core processor, 1GB of memory, 120GB HDD.
And im currently running Vista on a AMD 1800+, 1GB RAM, 40GB, FX5200.
[/quote:e04a1beb2b]
Tis a fair point.
But as for overclocking, I really don't think it will harm a PC if done correctly. The problem is overclocking it correctly int he first place, not something first time builders should think about :)
I just dont see the point spending £250 on a pc which you then have to work on, tweak it ect.. generate more noise, risk burn out, pay more for cooling.
Just to get it up to performance, to then upgrade later anyway.
But by spending around £550 his gonna have a kick *** system, the chance to upgrade to a better pci-e graphics card, 4GB of RAM which should keep him going for a good amount of time.
8)
kristoficus
27-07-06, 15:48
Overclocking might not directly lower the life expectancy of hardware, but overclocking always, *ALWAYS* produces more heat than previously, and it's the long exposure of a higher heat which usually fries the components.
If you overclock, make sure you get some decent liquid cooling system installed.
Anyway, here is my proposed system:
\"AXL DIY Athlon64 3500 512MB\"
- This is case, PSU, processor, motherboard, and memory already set up for you...Saves you a fair bob.
\"512MB PC3200 Elixir DDR SDRAM\"
- These days 1GB RAM is the minimum you should have... same make/modem as one in the AXL system so it sompatible.
\"160GB Hitachi Deskstar 133/7200+8M\"
- 160GB hard drive is the typical ball-park of storage these days... i wouldnt go less than 120GB, but you would only save about a fiver (so not worth going lower)
\"Club 3D Nvidia Geforce 6600GT 128MB\"
- A decent graphics card... should play most current/new games, albeit some of them at a low, or low-medium setting (dont expect medium-high on BF2).
\"Pioneer DVR-111DBK Black\"
- Love Pioneer drives and this is their latest... i have the 110D and wouldnt use anything else. Feel free to pick an alternative - all around the same price.
\"Dell 17\" flat TFT monitor E176FPm\"
- Dell make some sexy looking TFT's, and this is one of them...And at a good price for £89 (excl. vat)
\"Keyboard, Mse & Sp'ks (Black/Silv)\"
- A keyboard, mouse and speakers bundle for less than £6!
So there's your full system...With great performance, a sexy 17\" TFT, and everything else you need.
Total including VAT: £473.41
Total including VAT + delivery: £487.73
As you can see, your about £12 under budget... i would recommend you spend this and buy:
2 x 80mm case fans (£2.50 each)
2 x 48CM Round IDE ATA 100/133 Cable (£1.76 each)
TFT / TV / Plasma Screen Cleaner (£4.11)
Or get one of the first two above instead of 2 each, and then get a \"5¼ TO 5¼ AND 5¼ POWER SPLITTER\" instead, which will take the total below £500... I think one of the first two products is enough for ya.
Brings total up to: £500.36 (PERFECT price for ya)
Screen of shopping basket without the small extras listed right above:
http://www3.shrani.si/files/untitled743867.png
\"AXL DIY Athlon64 3500 512MB\"
- This is case, PSU, processor, motherboard, and memory already set up for you...Saves you a fair bob.
Would you mind posting the link to this.
kristoficus
27-07-06, 16:26
http://www.aria.co.uk/productinfocomm.asp?ID=21796&SpecialStatus=1
EDIT: Bear in mind link above is not showing the super special price... add to basket from following link for the SS price:
http://www.aria.co.uk/specials.asp?c=372|140
[quote:6be9c9f1e0=\"Belso\"]\"AXL DIY Athlon64 3500 512MB\"
- This is case, PSU, processor, motherboard, and memory already set up for you...Saves you a fair bob.
Would you mind posting the link to this.[/quote:6be9c9f1e0]
http://www.aria.co.uk/ProductsList.asp?Name=AXL+DIY+Athlon64+3500+512MB
Its on SuperSpecial at the moment, which is where the £140(ish) ex comes from.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v472/gregoroth/Greg/pcbuild.jpg
£547 + £11 delivery
£558
This is about as cheap an AMD Athlon X2 Dual-Core Socket 939 system that you'll be able to build. It has all the necessities needed to get you started. I wouldn't suggest going single core now, especially since you say this system will need to last for a long time.
If you're a gamer and you'll want a decent graphics card. Mid range=around £125. You will also want to put in another 512MB stick of memory, identical ram only.
You could easily get away with a less expensive PSU, but Aria have a pretty bad selection therefore going anywhere else for it would probably come to the same price because of the shipping!
the above system is good, but I think 1GB of RAM as a minimum would be a better choice.
XP runs rather sluggishly on 512MB RAM as it is, for Vista you're looking at 1GB or something. And that X2 3800+ is a sweet CPU, wouldn't be worth coupling it with just 512MB RAM.
kristoficus
27-07-06, 17:16
Unless your a gamer, Ubuntu Linux might be a good choice, which would save you over £50 since it's free. It doesnt quite have the software compatibility as Windows XP, but it runs better, its more stable, and its more customisable.
That would take the above system right down to your £500 budget, which would be ideal for you.
kristoficus
27-07-06, 18:15
If you are able to save up another £100, i would definately think about this system...Heck, im sure if you bought similar spec components with a cheaper name you could get it closer to your budget... For ex, smaller hard drive, cheaper graphics (maybe a 6600GT), cheaper case or PSU etc.
Processor @ £80.53
AMD Athlon64 3800 Venice Retail
- http://www.aria.co.uk/ProductInfoComm.asp?ID=18056
Motherboard @ £71.03
MSI K9N PLATINUM nF570 Socket AM2
- http://www.aria.co.uk/ProductInfoComm.asp?ID=22831
Memory @ £67.92
Corsair 1GB XMS2-5400 DDR2 SDRAM
- http://www.aria.co.uk/ProductInfoComm.asp?ID=22673
Graphics @ £137.42
XFX GeForce 7600GT XXX 256MB PCI-E
- http://www.aria.co.uk/ProductInfoComm.asp?ID=23821
Hard Drive @ £70.44
320GB Seagate 7200.10 SATA 2
- http://www.aria.co.uk/ProductInfoComm.asp?ID=23684
DVD-RW @ £25.20
Samsung 18x DL DVDRW BLACK
- http://www.aria.co.uk/ProductInfoComm.asp?ID=23670
Case @ £56.40
Aspire Cruiser Black Tower
- http://www.aria.co.uk/ProductInfoComm.asp?ID=23743
PSU @ £57.09
FSP Blue Storm 500w Psu Atx 2.0 SLi
- http://www.aria.co.uk/ProductInfoComm.asp?ID=22172
Heatsink @ £19.89
Zalman CNPS7700-ALCU 120mm
- http://www.aria.co.uk/ProductInfoComm.asp?ID=23404
Extras @ £13.99
3 x 80mm Case Fan Xilence Red @ £10.52
- http://www.aria.co.uk/ProductInfoComm.asp?ID=19864
1 x Round ATA133 Clear Cable 90cm @ £3.47
- http://www.aria.co.uk/ProductInfoComm.asp?ID=15111
Total Price: £599.91
Personally, I would recommend ATI for graphics because Nvidia charge extra for PureVideo technology.
Alos, if he looks at Linux, he isn't going to be playing games. He should be thinking about :
Athlon 3200 Socket 939 £59)
ASRock 939Dual-SATA2 £39)
Graphics Card (£30)
AKASA 400W active power supply (£40)
PowerColor Radeon X550 EZ 256MB PCI-E (£40)
kristoficus
27-07-06, 19:34
[quote:a0de026993=\"Gregoroth\"]Personally, I would recommend ATI for graphics because Nvidia charge extra for PureVideo technology.[/quote:a0de026993]
PureVideo is simply a software technology nVidia are selling in the form of an application... Even if it didnt exist, the capabilities of their graphics card would be the exact same. It's a completely different product to a graphics card so it's not really fair to compare like that.
Ati cards are good. nVidia cards are good. nVidia drivers are better, however. But really, the graphics card you choose all comes down to personal preference.
It's a little like the PC vs Mac debate... will never end, and neither will ever win :P
[quote:df38d7a729=\"kristoficus\"][quote:df38d7a729=\"Gregoroth\"]Personally, I would recommend ATI for graphics because Nvidia charge extra for PureVideo technology.[/quote:df38d7a729]
PureVideo is simply a software technology nVidia are selling in the form of an application... Even if it didnt exist, the capabilities of their graphics card would be the exact same. It's a completely different product to a graphics card so it's not really fair to compare like that.
Ati cards are good. nVidia cards are good. nVidia drivers are better, however. But really, the graphics card you choose all comes down to personal preference.
It's a little like the PC vs Mac debate... will never end, and neither will ever win :P[/quote:df38d7a729]
Well I would prefer my graphics card to come with awesome video playback quality as standard. But I do agree with you that it's always war between the two!
I understand what you're saying about drivers, nvidia are slightly ahead in that respect, but people always think that when they hear that, ATI cards are no good, whereas Oblivion and HL2, if you had equivalent powered Ati and Nvidia cards, the ATI card is clearly better (driver optimisation). Either company is great, both companies have the odd dodgy card, but on the whole they're both great companies. I've never had an Nvidia card, but I respect them none the less but ATI's video technology as standard and competitive pricing, wins me over! :wink:
Btw, the only dodgy driver stablility problem I've had with ATI was with a 3D Rage Pro.
It's also worth remembering that AMD have bought ATI, so although I am an nvidia fan, everyone can see big things happening with AMD cpu's and ATI graphics cards in the next year or two.
kristoficus
27-07-06, 21:50
@ Barley, indeed :)
And you can be sure that the new AMD-ATi cards will be optimised for the AMD chips.
Also, i dont believe any of these video enhancements (PureVideo too) actually work that well. It was installed on my mates computer a few months back and i saw no difference at all when he watched a video, or played games or anything.
Same with the PowerDVD colour optimisations...it's like they only put them in and have fancy names as a selling point, because the selling point certainly isnt their functionality (since it does no difference).
So who can see intel buying nvidia? :) And then one of them will buy the other out...Which means four companies in one (which also means prices will go sky high - since they can charge what they want).
[quote:2fe98c1fec=\"Firerat\"]
http://www.aria.co.uk/ProductsList.asp?Name=AXL+DIY+Athlon64+3500+512MB
Its on SuperSpecial at the moment, which is where the £140(ish) ex comes from.[/quote:2fe98c1fec]
Thanks for the link. I was going to pick faults with the motherboard, but cant seem to find any. Let alone reviews.
So instead, 3500+? Will it last?
I know it's Lucy's forum, but I find it amusing everybody's only sourcing from aria. I frequently use a mix of aria, ebuyer and lowestonweb.com(cheapst processor prices I've ever seen outside of trade accounts) to build machines - it helps mind you that ebuyer are about half a mile from my doorstep so I can collect and save on postage ;)
Ere, pick my CPU up and send it rmsd and save me £3
No problem. Of course therte's a service charge of 5 pounds for the privelege but y'know :lol:
[quote:54757c1546=\"gavpowell\"]I know it's Lucy's forum, but I find it amusing everybody's only sourcing from aria. I frequently use a mix of aria, aria and lowestonweb.com(cheapst processor prices I've ever seen outside of trade accounts) to build machines - it helps mind you that aria are about half a mile from my doorstep so I can collect and save on postage ;)[/quote:54757c1546]
Thata because we aren't allowed to quote from competitors websites, dunno what Aria are afraid of tbh :roll:
I hadn't realised that mac, I hadn;t read the rules :roll:
Looking at the rules as I am now, I don't think I'll bother much on here anymore - I don't like the idea that we're all supposed to support how amazing aria are at everything and any negative comments or mention of competitors is against the rules. I've lost a little respect for one of my favourite companies now.
Nice talking to you all briefly, I'm going to have a quick look at the question I asked about dual core vs multiprocessor and then scarper.
cheers! *dashes off into the sunset*
Sorry you feel that way mate and to a certain extent i see where your coming from but those are the norm for most forums hosted by online retailers.
Linking to competitors would lose Aria business.
Why would they do that :?:
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