May need to replace my PC

[Bellerophon]

Basically, my PC went kaput over the weekend with what looks to be a fried motherboard. It's in the shop being looked at now, but it's been said that depending on what the problem turns out to be, I might get more value out of a new system (current one is about 4 years old).

I'm on a definite budget, so I shopped around and came up with this, which works out at £390:

Processor: Pentium 4 3.0ghz 630 LGA775 800mhz 2mb HT;
Memory: 1GB DDR 400mhz;
Hard Disk Drive: 200GB IDE ATA133 8MB buffer;
Optical Drive: 16x Double-Layer DVD+/-RW;
Graphics card: NVidia FX5500 256MB DVI TV-OUT
Operating System: Microsoft Windows XP Home SP2;
Sound Card: Audigy Soundblaster 7.1 24-bit

I'm hoping that's decent for most modern games, but I really don't know a damn thing about the technical stuff so I was hoping for some reassurance, suggestions welcome. :touch:

 

[Konah]

looks good, i dont know that gfx card but i'm sure its better than my overclocked 9800pro so

 

[Neffneff]

I dont see a motherboard or a power supply there?

and wouldnt you be wanting SATA hard drive and DDR2 for that system?

One thing you could do to lower the cost is not buy a soundcard, onboard soundcards these day are plentiful and capable for the most part.

I would suggest taking a look at my thread here

i would really recommend that CPU as its budget friendly, and if the need strikes you you can have it clocked alot higher than stock, for instance i have mine which i bought last week clocked @3.9GHz, so i have got myself a 3.9GHz dual core CPU for only 85 quid.

 

[Adlatus Hellbringer]

What neff said.

Go to www.ebuyer.com u can build an ok ish pc for around 450 quid. 500-600 quid will get u a nice pc for gaming.

Ad

 

[confused]

looks good, i dont know that gfx card but i'm sure its better than my overclocked 9800pro so

it certainly isn't... in the low end price range you should be looking towards a 7600gt card if you intend on playing games. Also as far as hdd go you'd be wise to look towards the S-ata II drives as they're typically faster and more reliable and also cheaper



Edit: and Neff why on earth would you take a pentium that isn't a conroe, the idea completely befuddles me.

 

[Neffneff]

Edit: and Neff why on earth would you take a pentium that isn't a conroe, the idea completely befuddles me.

can you get a 4 GHz dual core conroe for 85 quid or less?

 

[Equador]

I agree on what's been said about the gfx card, a NVidia FX5500 is pretty useless for almost anything these days.

 

[confused]

can you get a 4 GHz dual core conroe for 85 quid or less?

No but you cannot go on clock speeds, a 1.67 ghz conroe will beat a 4ghz presler

http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=72680 that starts off at 2.67ghz and clocks past 5ghz

vs

Now neff do a 1m super pi and post pic

 

[Neffneff]

thats an impressive score from that conroe, but then it IS the top of the range one that costs an arm and a leg overclocked to 5GHz ^^

if only i had the money, i soo would, anyway for ref. here's mine running @ 4.09ish GHz on air atm.

 

[Darzil]

Of course, for the vast majority of games, it's the graphics card that counts, and pretty much any modern processor will handle them no problem.

Darzil

 

[Neffneff]

lol, small tip for anyone buying a new PC, REMEMBER to MAKE sure you put the RAM in the right slots on the board for dual channel mode ^^ im down to a 33second PI score now thanks to realising that, and my clock speed is also back down to 4GHz, so i prolly got a 32s one in my machine atm...dont really know what that means tbh, but hey, its all good, shame superpi doesnt seem to use dual cores properly.

 

[Jupitus]

Confused - what kind of processor temps are you getting doing that, and with what cooling?

 

[confused]

Confused - what kind of processor temps are you getting doing that, and with what cooling?

I wish that was mine... It was a custom Liquid Nitrogen setup
Has done 14s on Air though
However with super Pi it might not look like it but the difference in processing power from 14s to 10s is huge

 

[confused]

Grr can't edit, for the bottom one I just googled prescott super pi

As Neff said Super Pi doesn't like dual cores, but my fx55 rig gets a 30s 1m and my fx60 gets a 36 when both at stock

 

[Ingafgrinn Macabre]

about that graphics... the FX5500 is a bit on the low end. I'd go for a cheap 6800 /TD or something. Will run all games albeit not the newest on full settings and it won't cost you all too much.
It'll run daoc just fine at 1600*1200 full settings. Infact I'm running daoc at those settings with my FX5700 /TD but a 5500 is quite a bit slower than a 5700 if I understand...

 

[confused]

about that graphics... the FX5500 is a bit on the low end. I'd go for a cheap 6800 /TD or something. Will run all games albeit not the newest on full settings and it won't cost you all too much.
It'll run daoc just fine at 1600*1200 full settings. Infact I'm running daoc at those settings with my FX5700 /TD but a 5500 is quite a bit slower than a 5700 if I understand...

Agreed there, with the present gfx card market, the cheapest card that is still viable is in the region of the Nvidia Geforce 6600gt - 6800xt/gt
The fx5500 is selling at approx £70 in most stores, whereas a 6600gt is about £85ish, but in that small margin there is a huge amount of power difference.

Edit: looking at prices, the 7600gs card weighs in at about £80. I'd be inclined to go for one of these

 

[Jupitus]

I wish that was mine... It was a custom Liquid Nitrogen setup
Has done 14s on Air though
However with super Pi it might not look like it but the difference in processing power from 14s to 10s is huge

Hehe ok - here I was wondering why my prescott wouldnt do that on water

 

[confused]

Hehe ok - here I was wondering why my prescott wouldnt do that on water

That prescott is on water.... the Conroe is on LN2