what can i build for 2-300£ ?

[holty]

as the topic sugests i was wandering what base unit i could build, and more for gaming than anything. and around that price. amd or intel will do, i was just wandering weres best to get the parts online. and whats best. any help would be appreciated thanks.ps im just after the tower thats all thanks

 

[eggplant]

pushing it a bit, a high end machine really for games, your budget will probably get you a graphics card and a hard drive...
You could of course go cheaper, but then what happens when all the latest games will only play at 640 x 480 with all the effects turned right down?

 

[holty]

thanks for the reply. forget about games then what could i get for that amount ie mother board ,ram,graphics card, power supply processor and hard drive.

 

[eggplant]

ok, most important and often overlooked - motherboard, dont skimp, and PLEASE stay away from pchips, ECS, jetway and the likes, Asus, Abit, Intel, Gigabyte all decent, as are Asrocks although performance wise they arent too good. You usually get what you pay for, looking at £50 up
CPU - depends, very confusing to boot, probably looking at something like a 600 series intel or athlon 64 single core about 3500 ish round about £60 mark
Case + psu - £25 up
Graphics card - totally up to you, onboard up to £1000's
HDD - 250 gig about £60 ish
RAM - again confusing - RAM isnt RAM ! it has different speeds (as well as different types) and speed makes a vast difference. Theres generic stuff which wil probably suit you fine, reckon about £40-£60/512 DDR or DDR2 - do yourself a favour and dont go for the slow stuff.
dvdrw about £30
Im tired and the prices are off the top of my head but shuold give you at least a bit to go on, you are probably now thinking "hmm, cheaper to goto pcworld or dell, they sell high spec machines for £499 inc 19"tft"
They sell machines for that, but not high spec, celerons, pentium D's, Semprons, stay the heck away from them if you want anything other than an office pc.
Possibly the best option if poss is to grab the necessities and uses old parts (if you have any) then expand later, for eg use your old hard drive, might be small and slow but gives you £60 more for your system, get a new drive next month.

 

[JohnD]

I've had several "barebones" systems and re-used my old disks. If you like games you can buy a fast graphics card and plug it in later (I got one off fleabay quite cheap, gamers are always upgrading).

They are at various powers and prices.
like these http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/specpage.html?BB-A38615B
http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/barebones.html

I have no connection with the company but they are local to me and I find them OK.

 

[holty]

thanks for the replys everyone

 

[Deluks]

A good start for a budget machine is the Asrock Mobo that is compatible with both AGP AND PCI express. This means you can use your old gfx card or get a cheap AGP card from eBay, then upgrade to the much faster PCIx when funds allow. Also runs older DDR as well as DDR2. The intel version will run anything socket 775, from a cheapo celeron up to the latest core 2 duo's. I'm gonna get one soon along with a 3.2 P4, total price from ebuyer is under £90 for the pair. Also means I can use my old 9800pro, and gig of DDR3200.

The board is the http://www.asrock.com/product/775Dual-VSTA.htm and comes in at about £35-40

 

[eggplant]

But he wanted a gaming machine, while asrocks are IMO pretty solid boards, they arnt what I'd call high performance, and therefore not the best choice to put in a gaming machine.

 

[Deluks]

But he wanted a gaming machine, while asrocks are IMO pretty solid boards, they arnt what I'd call high performance, and therefore not the best choice to put in a gaming machine.

Well I've seen reviews suggesting that this isn't too far behind mobo's costing many times more, and on that budget I'd be spending about a third on the video card. Something's gotta give.
The sheer upgradability of this board means he can put in 512 of fast DDR, get a 3.2 Pentium 541 for about £55 (eBuyer) and upgrade each component in the future as and when he can afford to.

http://www.legitreviews.com/article/377/1/

 

[eggplant]

quote from the above link:

"Of course to meet this price point some sacrifices were made"

The motherboard is one area you do not make sacrifices, on a budget, lower the ram or get a cheaper soundcard for the time being, or use old parts, never ever cut back on the board - since the board is in a way what holds it all together that would seem obvious, a slower board = a slower system compared to an identical one with a better board.

 

[Deluks]

Did you read the review? The sacrifices made were in features, not performance. Anyway if you have to cut back in other areas then you won't get top speed from the board anyway, so you can't win, certainly not on that budget.

I'm gonna be getting this board anyway, as a cheap upgrade path to C2Duo, It's cheap enough that it can be used for 6 months until I can afford to get a high-end mobo. In the meantime I can upgrade to DDR2 and PCi-xpress as as when I can afford it.

 

[eggplant]

It's cheap enough that it can be used for 6 months until I can afford to get a high-end mobo

Personally I'd save on something else, all you will do after 6 months is have to wipe your system clean when you put the new board in, much less hassle to have the right building blocks to build on rather than removing the foundations later on. Anyway, its up to you of course, just my advice, I do this for a living.

 

[Deluks]

all you will do after 6 months is have to wipe your system clean when you put the new board in, much less hassle to have the right building blocks to build on rather than removing the foundations later on. Anyway, its up to you of course, just my advice, I do this for a living.

Yeh, I've kind of realised now that I can no longer get away with simply swapping out mobos (see my other thread) But as I always keep my XP on a small seperate partition anyway, swapping over shouldn't be too much hassle. My main problem is not being able to afford new gfx (PCIx, memory (DDR2), CPU and mobo in one hit. For people in my shoes this Asrock is a godsend, means I can upgrade for £100 instead of £300. No brainer!