PC for my better half

Nightchill

Can't get enough of FH
Joined
Dec 22, 2003
Messages
297
My fiancée has, happily, received her profit share and thus will be upgrading from her cute but aging 1.2 Duron. With a budget of ~£400 I've suggested this:

- LG 16x Black DVD-ROM + 52x CD-ROM IDE
- 2x512Mb PC3200 (PC400) DDR Memory (Major Elixir) Retail
- AMD Athlon 64 3000 32/64Bit CPU S939 "Venice" 90nm Retail inc Heat Sink Fan & 3 Years Warranty
- 128Mb XFX PCI-E GF6600-Std. Tv/DVI £66.63 £78.29
- Gigabyte GA-K8NF-9 NForce4, ATX, DDDR400, PCI-E, Gbit Lan, USB 2.0, AC'97 Audio, 4 x SATA
- 80Gb Hitachi (IBM/HGST) Deskstar 7K250 (7200rpm,8MB) - SATA
- 400W Silent pPFC Power Supply AMD & P4 Ready 12cm Silent Fan
- Coolermaster Cavalier 3 Silver Chrome Finish with Window w/o PSU

Total cost: £410.15 (all from Scan)

Any thoughts/suggestions are more than welcome. I realise increasing to a 6600gt, or the hdd to 120gig, or the DVD to a nice Asus writer (she's going to scavenge the CDw from her current PC) would all be great but would, unfortunately, go a fair bit over the already over budget. ;)
 

.Wilier.

One of Freddy's beloved
Joined
Dec 22, 2003
Messages
798
What does she want it for? Games, work or general browsing and wot-not?
 

Jonty

Fledgling Freddie
Joined
Dec 22, 2003
Messages
1,411
Hey Nightchill

Depending on what type of games, you should be fine. Personally I'd save another £50 and buy a graphics card in the £130'ish range, you'd certainly notice the performance improvement (Gigabyte do an enhanced 6600GT with a silent heatpipe cooling, looks very nice).

Kind Regards

Jonty

P.S. For around £125 you could get a GeForce 6800 LE which may perform marginally better than the 6600GT (maybe :)).
 

.Wilier.

One of Freddy's beloved
Joined
Dec 22, 2003
Messages
798
If she cant afford another £50, drop the CoolerMaster case and buy a £20 Ebuyer special, theres a £30 saving straight away.
 

Jonty

Fledgling Freddie
Joined
Dec 22, 2003
Messages
1,411
Good thinking, Wil :) Also, have a browse around different stores, I've just had a quick look and noticed rather large price differences on CPUs alone (~£20 in one instance) so it's always worth trying different places just in case (note that if you order from lots of different stores, however, the separate postage may diminish any savings).

Kind Regards
 

Nightchill

Can't get enough of FH
Joined
Dec 22, 2003
Messages
297
Thanks for the responses guys :) I suspect the case is something she won't want to compromise on, a) because it's v.v.cheap from scan (about half rrp) and b) because she wants a better looking case than mine (women eh :) )

I agree about the gcard; twould be nice to get a 6600gt (wouldn't touch an LE with a barge pole ;) ) on there. I'll push her to save up a lil more.

Thanks again
 

Nightchill

Can't get enough of FH
Joined
Dec 22, 2003
Messages
297
Just to let you know, we've gone for:

Asus A8N-SLi (Standard), ATX, DDDR400, PCI-E, Gbit Lan, USB 2.0, 1394, 8ch Audio, 4 x SATA, Raid £89.03
-- sexy motherboard, very little difference to the deluxe (nothing performance wise)

2 x 512Mb PC3200 (PC400) DDR Memory (Major) Retail
£66.96 (2x£33.48)
-- standard stuff

128MB Gigabyte GV NX66T128VP - GF6600GT (NV43 Ultra,1000/500Mhz,128MB DVI,TV Out-SLI,VIVO,PCI-E x16
£135.94
-- passive cooling and extremely fast (going off various benchmarks)

160Gb Maxtor Diamondmax Plus 10 (7200rpm,8MB) "Sabre" SATA NCQ £52.70
-- nothing to see here.

AMD Athlon 64 3000 32/64Bit CPU S939 "Venice" 90nm Retail inc Heat Sink
Fan & 3 Years Warranty
£103.75
-- there are some very impressive overclocking tests of this (the Venice) chip over at anandtech and hexus.

400W XClio-SCF aPFC Super Silent (21Db) 12cm Fan 20/24 + SATA + PCI-E
+ Super Cooling Function
£29.36
- nothing special here, obv needs the 24 pin for the mobo

Centurion 530 Black Aluminium Case USB2.0 x2 ,MIC x1, SPK x1, IEEE1394
x1 (No PSU)
£38.76
- nice little case, includes intake and exhaust (120mm iirc)

Total Cost = £516.70 (inc VAT)

Cheers :)
 

Jonty

Fledgling Freddie
Joined
Dec 22, 2003
Messages
1,411
Sounds like a nice system, Nightchill :D Good luck assembling it. Don't you also need an operating system on top of that? Or are you using Linux? Or shouldn't I ask? :rolleyes: :p

Kind Regards
 

TdC

Trem's hunky sex love muffin
Joined
Dec 20, 2003
Messages
30,801
just a little comment on the cent5xx case...for a case that's in the nice price range, as opposed to the stupid price range some of coolermaster's other models are in, it's very nice! looks decent, good build quality etc. I've had a couple of cent* models recently, in pc's I've built for others and I've been well pleased with all of them.
 

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