Looking to make a uber budget games pc, advice?

[jamesdean]

Hello.

I am looking to make a new PC; I need Motherboard, memory, CPU, Case, Hard Drive and graphics card.

Money is an issue but I am not too tightly bound IE if spending £10 more on a certain component will improve performance or reliability substantially I will take it.

Basically I want a good solid and fast system, I won’t be over clocking or messing about I was a system that will work well. So what advice, can you give?

Basically what are the things that are a must have, IE graphics card chipsets, motherboard chipsets. And so forth, I am in the UK if that affects anything. Not looked for ages so I thought I would ask the voices of knowledge instead of wasting my time getting it wrong.

 

[Apathy]

:chortle:

a.
*

 

[saltymcpepper]

how much you got to play with then ill make a rig for you

 

[jamesdean]

The moniter speakers, keyboard mouse, etc and sound card are coming from my old pc. And the network card I use to connect to the net via my ntl box as well, got all that. Just want new case to put new motherboard, CPU, memory, graphics card and hard drive in and then plug the rest in from my old pc.

and I am looking for in the range of £400 - £800 ? allthough like I said I am fairly flexible but I am looking for a good value machine. IE a good price - performance ratio if you know what I mean, I am not looking to overclock either but I want a very fast solid machine. Reliable. Not fast by the overclocker computer ppls standard but fasts by todays standard.

 

[talen_sun]

Case = £20
Motherboard to take a Duron = £80
Duron 1100 = £25
GForce Ti4200 = £90
512 SDRAM = £50
Cheapy Sound Card = £20
20Gb HDD = £30
CD-ROM = £20
Build it yourself = £0

Total = £335
----------------------------------
If you get someone else to build it = £50

Total = £385
----------------------------------

 

[Jonaldo]

I made a new pc at the start of the year for about £600

80gb HD
Some budget Motherboard
2.2ghz Athlon
512mb RAM
Only got GeForce 4 MX tho
Soundblaster 5.1 Soundcard I think..
Saved money on using old monitor, OS, mouse, keyboard etc.


Should be able to get it cheaper now I think so maybe even get similar system for £4-500 or below.

 

[Belsameth]

why use a budget mobo?
it's probably the most important component in the system...

 

[Jonaldo]

Why use a budget anything? one unreliable/unstable piece of hardware and the system is buggered. No one component is mor or less than another if you want everything to work properly, and let's be honest, these days most technologies are shared and there's not much difference between brands.

He asked for a budget system spec so I said one.

It's what I've got and I've had 0 problems related to hardware in the 5 months or so I've been using this pc.

 

[IronlungDTP]

An approx price guide using a custom build tool.
If you buy these parts separately and remove the delivery, warranty, gfx and anything else you will salvage from your old pc you can get this fairly cheaply.

MESH Essential - Custom Build AMD (Jul03)
Case: NEW - MESH Midi Tower with tool free access
Standard Features: 1.44Mb FDD, USB Ports, Mouse Mat
Processor:AMD Athlon XP 2800+ with Quantispeed Technology
Motherboard: ASUS A7N8X Latest Technology (USB 2.0 - 8x AGP - DDR400)
Memory:512Mb PC2700 DDR (333MHz)
Hard Disk Drive: 120Gb Ultra Fast with 2Mb Buffer (7200rpm)
Graphics: 128Mb ATI Radeon 9600 + TV Out + DVI
DVD-ROM Drive: 16x DVD (40x CD-ROM)
Sound: Creative Soundblaster AUDIGY 2
Speakers: Creative Soundblaster SBS250 Speakers
Modem: 56kBPS V92 Modem, featuring voice, data and fax.
NIC: Integrated 10/100 Ethernet Adaptor
Keyboard & Mouse: Logitech Internet Keyboard & Optical Mouse (Black)
Software: Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition
Warranty: 3 years On Site Warranty (Mainland UK only - Terms Apply)
Delivery: Insured Del within Mainland UK (+ £39) at £39
Price Excluding VAT: £712

Price Including VAT + DEL: £ 836.60

 

[Vorcyn]

Check your pm's in ~5 mins from now.

 

[eynar]

Here's a nice config. I compiled it on a Belgian website and converted the prices, so some parts may be a bit more expensive or cheaper in the UK:
AMD XP 2800+, Barton Core 333MHz FSB Boxed with cooler £154
Main Board: ASUS A7N8X DELUXE (NFORCE2, SERIAL ATA, AGP8X, Dual Channel 400, 5PCI, SOUND, USB2.0, Firewire, Dual LAN) £97
Memory: APACER DDR 512MB 400Mhz PC3200 £61
Case: CHIEFTEC DRAGON Medium BLUE with FRONT USB and Firewire £50
Graphics: MSI Geforce 4 TI4800-SE 128 Mb DDR & TV-out & DVI Retail 8900 £130
Extra Cooler: COOLERMASTER Aero 7 £36
Hard disk: WESTERN DIGITAL 80GB 8MB (7200/100) WD 800JB £77

TOTAL PRICE: £605

 

[old.LandShark]

If you want it to last, do not go and buy a graphics card not fully compatible with directX9.... such as a gf4 ti, for example.

 

[Lorthania]

Originally posted by Belsameth
why use a budget mobo?
it's probably the most important component in the system...

Budget does not mean unstable. Budget means 'no features that you wouldn't use in the first place'. My mobo cost just under 100 euro and it's stable as a rock. Sure, I don't have Firewire and there are only 4 USB ports and 3 PCI slots, but that's all I need, so why spend more?

I do agree with you that a good system starts and ends with the mobo...

 

[Madonion Slicer]

How about this

Athlon 2000XP
ECS K7S5A-Pro Motherboard
40GIG Western Digital HD
512MB PC2100 Ram
ATI Radeon 9000PRO 64MB
BTC 16X DVD Drive
JNC Midi Tower 300Watt
£281 inc Vat

or

Athlon 2000XP
ECS K7S5A-Pro Motherboard
40GIG Western Digital HD
512MB PC2100 Ram
GF4 TI4200
BTC 16X DVD Drive
JNC Midi Tower 300Watt
£299 inc Vat


and lol at the so called Techy guys who will say ECS is crap, nothing to do with the fact they dont have a clue what they doing for those people add about 40-50 for a ABIT or Asus top of the range board which in a budget system will be tottally wasted but hey the techy guys would of made some money from you.

 

[greenfingers]

ECS motherboard are crap, and unstabil ...

 

[Madonion Slicer]

lol only people who build crap systems sell unstable gear.

Amazing how ECS can be one of the biggests selling motherboard manfuacturers when they are so unstable.

ECS for the money are excellent, hell you could go cheaper and get PC Chips boards.

Asus and Abit if money is no option, but ECS is perfectly fine and stable.

People who claim a entire Motherboard range is unstable just dont know what the hell they are doing, hence dont buy a PC from them.

 

[eynar]

ECS is stable as long as you don't fool around with it. If you're planning to overclock, I wouldn't recommend ECS at all...

And Landshark, my GForce 4ti works just fine with directx 9. They don't support all directx 9 features perhaps, but that doesn't mean they aren't compatible with it at all. And tbh I don't know of any alternatives which cost less than 300 to 400 £. Not to mention the fact that ATI still has no decent drivers.

 

[Vorcyn]

ECS are fine. Built quite a few systems with them and not had one problem. But then again, i dont overclock.

Saying that, i now use MSI boards, and are finding them great.

IMO, a gf4ti is fine for now, at least until the prices of the dx9 'compatible' cards have dropped a substantial bit. And for nigh on £100 you cant go wrong really.

 

[moo_work]

definatly learn to build your own pc if you don't already

because if you wanna upgrade all u gotta do is buy mobo+cpu(and mabye+ram)

like recently i just bought £280 of upgrades (athlon xp 2700, 2x512 meg 333mhz ddr ram, abit nForce2 motherboard)

it's practically plug and play

except dont ever buy nforce2 motherboards, i wont ever again - they really dont like generic unbranded (otherwise known as 'reasonably priced, wheras branded is known as 'focking expensive') ram.

 

[Scutter Bob]

I recently upgraded my pc and got the following for £600

Qtec 6052MDL case (silver case with glowy lights and stuff)
Qtec 400w PSU
Jetway m/board (forget the model)
P4 2.53 chip
1 gb (2x512) PC2700 RAM
GeForce 4 ti4800

took all the other stuff from my old PC

 

[Arwen]

Mmm..

1.8GHz Athlon XP - £50
512MB RAM - £40
decent motherboard - £60
Geforce 3Ti (or 4 if ur generous) - £60
CD-RW (might as well) - £41
hard drive - £70
case - £20

Subtotal £341

Delivery - £0
Knowing how to set it up yourself - £0
Getting it to work w/o any probs - Priceless

There are some things money can buy, for everything else, your screwed.

 

[jamesdean]

thanks for your help I have decided to go for

Asus A7N8X Deluxe nForce2 - £100
CPU - AMD *Retail* Athlon XP 2600+ *333 FSB* (2.08 GHz) - £90
Memory - 512MB PC3200 Non-parity - £60 X2
Case - £70
Hard Drive - £100 Western Digital 8mb cache 8.2 ms 7200 rpm 120gb - £100
Graphics Card - http://www.ati.com/products/pc/radeon9500pro/ - £150

= £630 and in my opinion of researching its definatelly the best you can get bearing in mind the price - performace ratio, factoring in I want reliablity and wont be overclocking, thanks all !