Building a new comp

Y

Yue

Member
Hi all,

I am in the process of building a new computer, the computer will be used for gaming mostly, but also programes like Photoshop CS2 and Poser. I have a general idea of what i am after:

AMD A64 3200+ or higher

Motherboard i am not sure on, any suggestions?

1GiG Ram - Whats the advantages of buying branded ram to unbranded?

200Gb HDD - Sata or IDE? whats more effeciant?

A reasonable video card, mid to high end, 6800/X800 kinda thing. I have been looking at the ATi X800Pro or the GeForce 6800 Vanilia/GT any suggestions?

Sound, SB Live!/audigy2/on-board what would u suggest? I need it to support 6.1 speakers

I am in the UK, so US websites will not be of help. At this stage i am really just researching while i sort funds out. I am looking into buying from Ebuyer Any help would be great! :D
 
For mother boards: Abit, Asus, MSI, Gigabit, and DFI are all good companys
Speakers you said 6.1 well speakers normaly come in 5.1 or 7.1 so you might want to look around with that.
Do you know about how much your looking to spend on the whole thing?
 
1GiG Ram - Whats the advantages of buying branded ram to unbranded?
Click to expand...

Unbranded RAM is crap ;)

You can buy unbranded RAM but you will get better perfrmance and reliabilty with Corsair Value vs Joes Happy RAM Hut
 
i don't really want to spend over £800 luckily ebuyers deilvery charges are really cheap.

regarding the ram, do u get a performance increase to write home about? or is it a general increase?
 
If you buy from ebuyer, see if you can get the parts thorugh a shop. The VAT on my parts is £60, but im ordering through my uncles shop. VAT exempt! :D
 
good idea about the shop, but i don't know anyone with a shop anymore, last guy i knew went bankrupt. So for more stability get branded ram, check, will do.
 
Well i have almost decided on the following:

AMD Athlon 64 3500+ (Venice)
2 x Kingston 512MB DDR PC3200 400MHz CL3 Memory Module
FOXCONN NF4UK8AA-8EKRS SKT939 NFORCE4 ULTRA Motherboard
GeForce 7800GT 256Mb Video Card
160GB IDE Hard Drive
Creative Labs Soundblaster Audigy 2 Value
Antec PSU True Blue 480w Blue Led Fan - 28A on the 12V rail
Casecom KG-828 ATX Middle Tower Case in Black

All from ebuyer.com for:

£745.24

What you guys think?
 
Lol

Yue said:
i don't really want to spend over £800 luckily ebuyers deilvery charges are really cheap.

regarding the ram, do u get a performance increase to write home about? or is it a general increase?
Click to expand...

LOL :D
 
Hey Yue. I recently just built a computer from scratch, and like you, I live in the UK, and prices suck over here :( Personally, I would deffinitely recommend eBuyer, but I would also ask you to check out www.overclockers.co.uk. They are an awesome company, and depending on what you buy, they seem to charge the same on postage. But I do advise you to buy in bulk off them as they chrage you postage of £8 minimum, but if you place an big order, the postage hardly changes! AND it's next day delivery!

Here's what I would suggest from eBuyer:

AMD Athlon 64 (San Diego) 3700 CPU Skt 939 - £158.71
Gigabyte GA-K8NXP-SLI Skt939 nForce4 SLI Chipset DDR400 - £86.38
OCZ Platinum EL Dual Channel Kit 2x512MB PC3200 CL 2-3-2-5 - £96.36
XFX 7800GT 256MB DDR3 Dual DVI VIVO PCI-E - £242.52
Western Digital 160GB Serial ATA150 7200rpm 8mb Cache- OEM - £45.53
Antec TruePower 550 12V AC 550W ATX - £60.08
Casecom KG-828 ATX Middle Tower Case in Black - £14.99

Total (not including VAT) = £712.71

Total (including VAT & Shipping) = £837.48 (below is the link to the shopping list)

http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/shopping/index.html?rb=10583719342&action=c2hvd2NhcnQ=

Now I know that is £37.48 over your budget, but you do get:
  • A faster processor (espeically with the 3700 being a San Diego core)
  • You get a better known company for the motherboard (which also supports SLi, and RAID to make it more future-proof)
  • You get a factory overlcoked graphics card if you don't know how to overclock
  • You get a Serial ATA hard drive, which is much faster than it's IDE counterpart
  • You get an extra 80W in your power supply (which you will need if you do indeed overclock, and it will last you a long time)

One thing you have probably seen that I have missed off the list is the sound card. You don't really need to buy a sound card as all new motherboards nowadays come with a reasonably good sound card. So that's saving you money aswell.

I chose the Gigabyte motherboard because as you can see from my sig, I have one, and well you can't go wrong buying a part of a computer using first hand advice on the item. It also supports 7.1 sound, so met your requirements there.

The only this setup lacks is the ability to overclock like a 1000 times. It will overclock, but not aswell as you might want it to (but then again, you might not be an overclocker :confused: ). I guessed that you weren't as you didn't say it was neccessary, and a system costing less than £800 isn't going to overclock aswell as say a system worth £1200-£1600 (obviously :))

The only thing I am worried about is the fact that you haven't included any CD-RW/DVD-RW, Operating System, Floppy Disk Drive, Mouse, Keyboard, or a Monitor. This of course will blow your budget out of the water.

Hope all this helps!
 
Thanks for your reply Deceived, prices do suck over here :(

The extra over budget doesn't bother me that much.What you suggest above is doable from my point of view, see i have not got £800+ lying around the house :) so i will need a place that does finance, hence ebuyer :) I have already saved up a bit and i get another 6 months to pay off the items

I'm not an OC so i don't need to worry about that. The other parts i have mostly got already, i got a DVD-RW black, mouse, keyboard, monitor and speakers. Lately my laptop died, so i will be using the XP Home cd key from that, so i am set in that departement
 
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