Mesh or self-build?

P

PabloTeK

Active Member
I'm building a PC for my grandparents and I have a budget of £300 so I came up with these, but which one do y'all think is better?

Self-build:

Athlon64 X2 4200+ AM2
Asus M2A-VM HDMI
Corsair 1GB Value Select PC2-5300
Western Digital 160GB HDD SATA
Antec NSK2480
Asus DVD+/-RW
XP Home


Mesh Elite Essential:

Pentium Dual-Core E2160
Asus P5L-VM 1394
Crucial 1GB PC2-5300
Seagate 250GB HDD SATA
Mesh case + HEC PSU
Sony DVD+/-RW
XP Media Centre

They're both the same price, but which one do you think is better?
 
PabloTeK said:
The NSK2480 has the Earthwatts 380 and I've no idea on the PSU but it's 300 watts.
Click to expand...

... Which one's which? I get mixed up :o

The Earthwatts one should be pretty good. 300W is low but should do... but would probably crash if you put an GeForce FX in there...
 
The NSK2480 has the Earthwatts and the Mesh has the HEC, I might change that anyway for a Jeantech Arctic 600w (claimed 38a on the 12v lines). The self-build has a Zalman 7500-ALCU and the Mesh has the standard cooler which I might replace with the Zalman anyway so I can get it to perhaps 2.6-2.8GHz.
 
Well that sounds good. Good thing that your replacing the PSU. Sounds like the unit would overheat just playing an simple game. Whats the GFX?
 
PabloTeK said:
I'm building a PC for my grandparents and I have a budget of £300 so I came up with these, but which one do y'all think is better?

Self-build:

Athlon64 X2 4200+ AM2
Asus M2A-VM HDMI
Corsair 1GB Value Select PC2-5300
Western Digital 160GB HDD SATA
Antec NSK2480
Asus DVD+/-RW
XP Home


Mesh Elite Essential:

Pentium Dual-Core E2160
Asus P5L-VM 1394
Crucial 1GB PC2-5300
Seagate 250GB HDD SATA
Mesh case + HEC PSU
Sony DVD+/-RW
XP Media Centre

They're both the same price, but which one do you think is better?
Click to expand...


i don't think u grand parents need a duel core
 
Well Mesh offer that as the minimum and I'm keen on power as the other use for this system requires a fair bit of grunt.
 
Could you give me an website for parts and an budget? I'll see what I can get from there :)

For that cheapest Celeron an E2140 would be preferred...
 
Little edit: I'm now speccing a Gigabyte GA-G31MX-S2 and an E2180 on the self-build with some Zalman STG1. The E2180 is bizarrely £1 less than the E2160! I know it might seem overkill but as it's being used for iTunes I think I'll need the power, just watching even on this rig the CPU usage jumps around a lot.
 
Well actually I am the primary user; they have an E6400 rig (Which I can overclock!) by Phillips and this would be mine. I used to have an old eMachines 150DVD but that is too slow now.
 
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