Help with budget build

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super_rad

super_rad

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Jun 27, 2008
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My pc is getting on a bit now:
Intel Celeron CPU 2.93GHz
1GB RAM
Can't remember exact mobo but it's made by ASUS (some hewlett packard OEM board) with integrated SiS gpu (which is rubbish)
2 x 160GB hard drives (both IDE as mobo has no SATA)
DVD drive (IDE)
It's really starting to struggle, hard drives are slow and extremely noisy when doing anything, can't enable any desktop effects or anything as there are no 3D drivers for SiS cards on linux, just browsing the web and listening to music the cpu is constantly at 50-60% and when changing tracks or switching between open tabs in firefox it spikes upto 100%
I've decided it's time I upgraded/built a new PC but funds are extremely tight at the moment so don't know how much I can afford.
I don't think it's worth upgrading this as I can't get any SATA drives, limited to choices on CPU's as there are no BIOS updates for the board (so c2d or anything like that is out) and it has AGP instead of PCI-E.
So looks like it's a new build but I really don't know which CPU is best bang for buck at the moment, I've found AMD 64 X2 3.0GHz for around £50 but are they going to be much/any better than what I have now or should I be looking at C2D, C2Q, Phenom etc?
I want 4GB of RAM (it's so cheap at the moment it seems silly not to get that much)
Don't need a screen as I have an old 17" which will do until I can afford something better.
Don't need to spend much on a GPU as I don't plan on doing any gaming (I have a PS3 for gaming) but would like to get a nvidia card as they have best linux support.
Sorry to go on so much but if anyone could help me build the best pc I can for a small budget (hoping to manage to scrape £300 together for this)
 
My recommendations:

AMD Build:

AMD 4850e ($56)
GIGABYTE GA-MA770-UD3 AM2+/AM2 AMD 770 ATX ($65 after MIR)
Corsair 400CX ($45 after MIR)
Antec 300 ($60)
GSkill PI DDR2 800 ($45)
ASUS EAH3450 (ATI 3450) $19 after MIR
WD 640GB ($70)
LG DVD RW (~$25)
Vista Home Premium x64 (MAKE SURE YOU HAVE x64 drivers for WiFi,etc!) $100

Total: $485 after MIRs

======================

Intel build:
Same as above except:
E5200 ($73)
P45-UD3L ($100)

Total: $537


Note: Prices based on USD and Newegg. Your prices will vary.
 
thanks I'll have a look on a few UK sites and see what sort of price that comes to. Don't need Vista as I'll be using linux so that will save a bit
 
Also can't find the mobo for the amd build (seems to be very few socket am2 mobo's) and are there any good cheaper motherboards than the one you reccomended for the intel build as an £80 mobo for a £50 cpu seems a bit much?
Thanks
 
I know you don't have access to newegg.com but I'll try to shoot for $400 US and that should give you a good basis.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103300 AM2+ X2 7750 $60

Any Asus of Gigabyte AMD 7xx series motherboard (just make sure it has onboard video, almost all of them do, this will suffice for your GPU needs) A 780G will decode 1080p HD content.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128379 Giga 780G mATX $80 - $10MIR
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131324 Asus 780G mATX $80

Any 2x2GB DDR2 800 kit will do, but a name brand preferably
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231122 G.Skill DDR2 800 $40

Hard Drive choices:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827136152 LG DVD Burner $22
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136074 WD 320GB AAKS $55

If you can reuse your PSU and Case that will helpout. But you can budget $100 for the case/mobo.

$350, pretty much the same as Shadow703793.

Are you going to buy from a local shop or online? If so whats the link to the place you wish to buy from, that'll make things a bit easier to recommend.
 
Thanks. I'll be buying online, will have a look around for the best prices but usually use Aria or Scan
I can reuse the case, but would rather replace the PSU as I'm pretty sure it's terrible
 
http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Components/CD%2FDVD+Drives/Internal/SATA/Pioneer+DVR-216DBK+20x+DVDRW+SATA+-+bLACK?productId=35315 LG DVD $16
http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Components/CPUs+%2F+Processors/AMD/Athlon+64+X2+Socket+AM2/AMD+Athlon+4850e+-+Dual+Core+-+45W+-+AM2+-+2.5GHz+X2+-+1MB+Cache?productId=31005 4850e $46
http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Components/Motherboards/Socket+AM2%2B+%28AMD%29/Gigabyte+GA-MA78GM-S2H+AMD+780G+Socket+AM2%2B+Motherboard+?productId=33795 Gigabyte 780G $56
http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Components/Hard+Drives/Serial+ATA/640Gb+Western+Digital+WD6400AAKS+SATA+?productId=33249 WD 640GB AAKS $48
http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Components/Power+Supplies/200w+to+449w/Corsair+400W+CX+Power+Supply+?productId=34003 400W Corsair $35
http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Components/Memory/DDR2/DDR2+800+%28PC6400%29/Corsair+4GB+PC2-6400+C5+XMS2+%282x2GB%29+?productId=27910 2x2GB Corsair XMS2 DDR2 800 $27

Total $227. Thats was my intial run through. The 780G is all the video you'll need so you won't need a seperate adapter. If you want more kick you can upgrade the CPU.

$ = pounds

Also this is a decent case/PSU combo.
http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Components/Cases/MIDI+Tower/Antec+NSK+4480-II+New+Solution+Case+with+380W+Earthwatts+PSU+?productId=35290 Antec w/ 380W Earthwatts 80 certified $73
http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Components/Cases/MIDI+Tower/Antec+Three+Hundred+Cool+and+Quiet++Gaming+Case+?productId=31087 Antec 300 $45

This is by no means the best deal, just stuff I saw that was reliable.
 
Thanks, with VAT that comes to around £300 so right on my budget.
Am I going to notice a big difference going from my 3GHz celeron CPU to a 2.5GHz AMD 64 x2?
 
The entire system will be noticably faster, mostly from the RAM and Hard drive to be honest. The CPU from what you want to do won't impact as having a good amount of ram and hard drive that is on the brink of destruction.

With that said the 4850e has more l2 cache and dual core with a better memory bus. You should have no problems multitasking to your heart is content.
 
haha, This whole thing reminds me of this guy I know, He has been running on an old amd 3000+ for years and years, you know guys the one with pc2700-pc3200 ddr1 memory, but this guy has built up around that cuz he was smart and thought ahead. He is now happily running a geforce 8600gt cuz he smartened up when he bought a MB and it was capable of doing pci-e 16, he maxed out his ram,around 4 gig maybe 6. 500 gig sata 3.0 drive. To make a longer story shorter, He continually was able to do these little upgrades to keep a 4-6 year old system "able" to play and do new things, if not at what we in the medium and top build status, at a taxed rate.

My point is, picking your CPU is at the bottom of my list of important things to do, All new AMD chips are capable of doing anything you want at any rate tolerable. But, your mother board, now thats something you should pick wisely, yeah, you can get a 35-55 dollar board from newegg that will do what you want, and maybe keep you going for a couple of years with upgrades but if you want a system that keeps you going then if your doing a AMD new build then I would recommend a TA790GXB or higher chipset, i mean, a high end am2+ motherboard or higher is all I would buy so you can have a good long future with your board.

Back to CPU, an AMD x2 will get you down the road at a healthy rate, but I recommend at least an AMD Phenom II x3 and more at a Black Edition for excellent OCen ability.

And think ahead when you buy memory, if your buying a ddr2 board because ddr3 is a bit slower at the moment, then your thinking in the moment because it has never failed that any new platform that becomes main-stream takes a humongous lead after i slight decrease in the beginning. This does not mean that you should run out and buy ddr3 if you are currently running a ddr2 platform, if your running ddr2 800 with a AMD 64 x2 and your going to a AM2+ board as your upgrade and a phenom II base CPU, you wont be disappointed in the longevity of this setup, just make sure you dont go cheap and not buy ddr21066 memory with your x3 or x4 based system.

As for hard drives, I recommend buying the largest drive that you can afford. The reason isnt mainly the obvious gain in storage, its also do to the position of data gets compressed closer together in larger drives and hence the heads dont have to travel across the platter as long to attain the info hence faster read, access, and seek times. Also, Western Digital does something very special with there drives that makes them faster, cooler, and a heck of a lot faster. The only move the head as fast as it needs to go to obtain information, this means no more clicking and grinding due to the head snapping into position to merely wait on the info so it can snap into its same position, its only a guess, but I see this method giving these kind of drives and drives that have similar methods a longer life time.

Power supplies are very important, I am running an OCZ stealth extreme, to me, this is the bottom of the bucket in the area someone would want to run on there system. PAT NO ATTENTION to the stats that companies give for there psu's. Do research, I mean, serious research before buying one to make sure it fits your needs because even the top end brands have different attributes that you may or may not need. I have heard 10's of 20 people buy a power supply because its a great name brand, all to get it home and find out that it was designed as a top mount type. This doesnt mean that it cant mount either way, but the leads were way to short to even make it to his MB.

The rest, well, graphics cards, just go hear on Toms and look at the article on best price per performance or the charts section will give you the edge you need to get that performance based card you need.
 
Thinking of going for MykC's build. Anything that could/should be changed?
Will the ATI Radeon HD3200 on the motherboard be enough to power a 22" monitor? As once I have the cash I will be buying one (in the mean time I will be using my old 17")
 
Thought I should add, I'll only be using 1 hard drive, 1 DVD drive, no GPU (as long as the integrated one can power a 22"), probably 3 extra 8cm fans at the most and a TV card. Will a 400w power supply be sufficient, too much or not enough power?
 
After much thinking last night I'm trying to decide whether to go for this build or save a few weeks more and go for a Phenom X3/X4 or Phenom II X3/X4.
Would I need a new motherboard and DDR3 RAM for the phenoms or would they still work with this mobo, RAM?
Would I notice a big performance increase from the Phenom/Phenom II's?
I could probably get another £100 if i saved for a few more weeks.
 
So for just over £100 more I can change from a 2.5GHz dual core to a 3GHz quad core.
Think it's worth holding off for a couple of weeks for the upgrade
 
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