Second opinions on this bundle?

UrganNagru

Fledgling Freddie
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http://www.komplett.co.uk/k/ki.asp?sku=311425&cks=PRL

The families old computer (Athlon xp 1700 geforce Fx5200 etc) is starting to struggle with most recent games such as BF2, and along with the constant squabbles over whose turn it is to use the computer I've decided to invest in a new system. This is the best I've managed to find for under 600 quid. Anyway just a few questions to put my mind at ease:

1) Should this place most games such as half life 2 at medium quality at a decent frame rate?
2) Anyone seen a better deal for similar money? ;)
3) Does the mainboard have good upgrade potential, as I know that the AMD FX chips will fit and so will the geforce 7800, but are there other features such as the FSB limiting my options in a years time?
4,5) And finally I know this one should go in the networking forum but I thought I'd fit it it in here, I've never set a network up, but I want to set up a wireless net work so I can run both computers off the same connection, however;
A: Can I plug the router straight into the broad band box so I can acess the internet when the other computer is switched off?
B: Will I need two of those PCI card dealies or can Plug the router directly into one computer and have the other one use the radio/PCI card thing?

Any advice would be gratefully accepted :)
 

MKJ

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Awesome bit of kit for sure.

Personally I would fit a 2nd hard drive and copy the main drive to it in a way that allows me to restore the first hard drive - be in through windows or dos (more importantly). Nowadays perhaps this is not so important with full restoration cds being included but even so it could be a good idea. How it works is this mainly - get the system as you want it without any nasties (ain't been on the internet yet) but with all the software installed - then backup the c drive to the 2nd drive. If you have a dvd burner then burn the image created by such software as Norton Ghost. If your system goes under for some reason you can be back online in mins. Backup really is the key to peace of mind with a computer in my opinion.
 

inactionman

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Looks fairly good, the only problems I can see are that I've never heard, or seen any reviews, of the company that makes the PSU, and I have no idea what ATI motherboards are really like (heard rumors that they are ok, but USB performance is a bit poor).
 

UrganNagru

Fledgling Freddie
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Thanks for the advice on te second hard drive, never really been bothered by reinstalling software, but it will save a heck of alotof time so I guess i'll pick up a cheapo one aswell :)
 

SheepCow

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Mmm, likewise I've never heard of that PSU manufacturer, which is normally a bad thing.
 

Ch3tan

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UrganNagru said:
http://www.komplett.co.uk/k/ki.asp?sku=311425&cks=PRL
A: Can I plug the router straight into the broad band box so I can acess the internet when the other computer is switched off?
B: Will I need two of those PCI card dealies or can Plug the router directly into one computer and have the other one use the radio/PCI card thing?
:)

a) yes you can plug it striaght into the router, and use it when the other pc is off

b) you can plug the routher into one pc and use wifi on the other
 

UrganNagru

Fledgling Freddie
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Ah thats fantastic Ch3tan makes things a lot clearer, think I'm gonna take my chances with the PSU looked at a few review they seem to have good build quaility the main problem being that they don't come with a manual or mounting screws, but got plenty of them lying around.
 

Embattle

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1) Yes
2) Not at the moment.
3) It even supports the X2 (Dual Core) AMD processors, overall it is about as future proof as you can get.
4)
A) Yes, providing the broadband box uses an Ethernet connection.
B) Router will allow to use any combination of wireless and wired connections.
 

UrganNagru

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Thanks for the replies, I'm considering getting a second hard drive on which I'll only installs, drivers and antivirus software, as I've heard that can boost your performance as sometimes the computer has to access both windows and game files simlutaneously. I'm also hoping this will make tidying up the computer easier if something nasty gets downloaded, is this a good idea. Howver I'm not too clued up on hard drives can anyone recommend a low capacity (ie. 40gb or less) but high speed hard drive?
 

inactionman

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Western Digital Raptor, they are 10k rpm drives. I have a 72Gb as a main system drive in my computer, you are best off installing xp etc on it and everything else on another drive. They are pretty expensive though.
 

DaGaffer

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That's a very good piece of kit for the money; the only part of it that you'll probably notice is a bit behind the times is the graphics card, but its PCI express so you won't have any future upgrade problems. Gig of RAM is also alright for now, but (as a few people are discussing on another thread), you'll probably want to go to 2GB in the near future; BF2 loading is only just acceptable with 1GB for instance.
 

throdgrain

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I have a similar system at the moment, only with 2gb of ram and a 256 6800GT on a AGP motherboard.
It plays anything you want pretty fast, for example I play CSS with AA on etc, same as I did for BF2 for the 2 weeks I played it...
 

UrganNagru

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Sorry to keep bringing this thread back up but they've just changed the package, only slighlty different now as the board is now agp x8 instead of Pci-e so is now slightly pricier still seems a pretty good deal to me, however I was wondering how much life is left in agp x8 as I thought it was being made redundant?
 

inactionman

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If you're getting a new system you want PCI-E, AGP is pretty much a dead-end now.
 

inactionman

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How about this from scan? Bear in mind some of this is on today (this weekend) only:

1 LN11804 Biostar Ideq 330P S939 GF4 Barebone MiniPC DDR400 PCI-E SATA Gbit Lan USB2/1394 7in1 CReader 300WPSU £189.00 £222.08
1 LN10979 AMD Athlon 64 3500 32/64Bit CPU S939 "Venice" 90nm OEM £120.35 £141.41
1 LN6622 1GB PC3200 (PC400) DDR Memory (Major) Retail £56.39 £66.26
1 LN11509 Pioneer DVR-110D Black 16x16 DVD±RW Dual Layer DVD Writer (Reduced Length) £25.50 £29.96
1 LN10432 200Gb Maxtor Diamondmax Plus 10 (7200rpm,8MB) SATA NCQ - Lead Free £49.75 £58.46
1 LN9374 128MB Gigabyte GF6600GT (NV43 Ultra,1000/500Mhz,128MB DVI,TV Out-SLI,VIVO,PCI-E x16 GV NX66T128VP £85.50 £100.46

Net Total £526.49

Carriage £10.00

V.A.T. £93.89

TOTAL £630.38
 

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