£800 Desktop

[J1MI]

Yeah so, if your bored at school / work, want a little project to do, make me a £800 desktop, no peripherals. Links to the site you got the parts from would be required. (Pref micro-direct).

I wish I could give some kind of reward to the best system made, I guess its +rep for now though. :)

[N!ck]

Some of the same parts are a few quid cheaper on other sites, but i'll stick to MicroDirect.

Motherboard: http://www.microdirect.co.uk/(18217)Asus-Motherboard-P5KEWIFIAPIntel-P35-LGA775.aspx - £88
CPU: http://www.microdirect.co.uk/(21806)Intel-Core-2-Quad-Pro-Q660095W-Energy-Efficient.aspx - £124
RAM: http://www.microdirect.co.uk/(32155)OCZ-4GB-Kit-2x2048-PlatinumEdition-DDR2-PC2.aspx - £64
DVD-RW: http://www.microdirect.co.uk/(37351)Samsung-DVD-RW-SHS223FBEBESpeedPlus-Black.aspx - £16
HDD: http://www.microdirect.co.uk/(15155)Seagate-500GB-Barracuda-SATA-II-3007200rpm.aspx - £44
GfX: http://www.microdirect.co.uk/(37512)BFG-GTX-260-OC-896MBGraphics-Card-DDR3-PCIE.aspx - £265
PSU: http://www.microdirect.co.uk/(31041)Corsair-PSU-620W-CMPSU620HXATX12V-22-EPS12V.aspx - £78
Vista: http://www.microdirect.co.uk/(16276)Microsoft-Windows-Vista-HomePremium-64-Bit.aspx - £59

That comes to £738, excluding a case so you've got £62 to spend on a case that you like if you want to keep within your budget http://www.microdirect.co.uk/productlister.aspx?&n=2,10,70,921,1082&s=14&cpp=10

[Hypertext]

I'd suggest go over budget and get a nice case, a good case can mean a difference of up to 20°.

[Stephen!]

With air cooling your components will never be below what your room temperature is.

[Hypertext]

Thats true but good air flow is always a good thing :)

[Stephen!]

Indeed. Depends what you're into though.. If you want performance or looks. Some cases have a compromise between the two.

[Agent 47]

Sorry to be off topic, but I can just see Darren coming in here and showing off his "£550 Custom Built Computer". :P

[Hypertext]

Lol. :P

Yup Steven, J1MI we need to know what you'd use this for to help you some more.

[N!ck]

Lol. :P

Yup Steven, J1MI we need to know what you'd use this for to help you some more.

Yeah, it would help. I've assumed gaming though in my post.

[DaveTaylor]

Yeah so, if your bored at school / work, want a little project to do, make me a £800 desktop, no peripherals. Links to the site you got the parts from would be required. (Pref micro-direct).

I wish I could give some kind of reward to the best system made, I guess its +rep for now though. :)

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=FS-043-OK&groupid=43&catid=1080&subcat=&name=%22Ultima%208800GTX%22%20AMD%20Athlon%2064%20 X2%206000%203.00GHz%20Dual%20Core%20SILENT%20DDR2% 20System

[J1MI]

Cheers N!ck, legendary as usual i'm going to do some looking around and hopefully bounce some idea's off you guys. It'll be a gaming rig yeah, I'm sticking to air, there's not a chance im risking setting up a water cooled system, I could see it going horribly wrong.


http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=FS-043-OK&groupid=43&catid=1080&subcat=&name=%22Ultima%208800GTX%22%20AMD%20Athlon%2064%20 X2%206000%203.00GHz%20Dual%20Core%20SILENT%20DDR2% 20System

Bah Dave, I love my AMD system, and love them as a company, but with the current market intel are the CPU leaders right now.

[J1MI]

Additional info:

I've got a couple of things I might be able to salvage from my current rig:

oczgxs600 (http://www.pcmoddingmy.com/e107_plugins/content/content.php?content.375.6) - Hopefully the 600w is still good enough for my new rig.
700Gb's worth of HDD's.
And I have XP pro and sticking with it so won't be needing to spend money on a new OS.

Sorry I didn't mention all this earlier I didn't have much time to post last time.

[N!ck]

Additional info:

I've got a couple of things I might be able to salvage from my current rig:

oczgxs600 (http://www.pcmoddingmy.com/e107_plugins/content/content.php?content.375.6) - Hopefully the 600w is still good enough for my new rig.
700Gb's worth of HDD's.
And I have XP pro and sticking with it so won't be needing to spend money on a new OS.

Sorry I didn't mention all this earlier I didn't have much time to post last time.

That PSU will probably do fine. With the money you save maybe spend a little more on the CPU. Don't forget you still need a case.

Edit: Don't forget you'll be needing a 64-bit OS.

[DaveTaylor]

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=FS-043-OK&groupid=43&catid=1080&subcat=&name=%22Ultima%208800GTX%22%20AMD%20Athlon%2064%20 X2%206000%203.00GHz%20Dual%20Core%20SILENT%20DDR2% 20System

[J1MI]

That PSU will probably do fine. With the money you save maybe spend a little more on the CPU. Don't forget you still need a case.

Edit: Don't forget you'll be needing a 64-bit OS.

Damn forgot about that, oh balls, I really don't know which OS to choose now. I have a beta vista installed on my current pc on a seperate HDD, and I never use it because it seems to hate all my components. But i've also heard bad things about the 64-bit version of XP, where microsoft we're just too lazy and missed out alot of code.

What should I go for?

[N!ck]

Damn forgot about that, oh balls, I really don't know which OS to choose now. I have a beta vista installed on my current pc on a seperate HDD, and I never use it because it seems to hate all my components. But i've also heard bad things about the 64-bit version of XP, where microsoft we're just too lazy and missed out alot of code.

What should I go for?

I say Vista as everything new is now compatible with it, and there is only a slight performance decrease compared to XP.

Im not too big of a fan of Vista myself, but i feel i'll be needing to install it fairly soon.

[Recursion]

Vista Home Premium x64 has no problems for me.

XP x64 was so crap it should never have been released.

[efq]

i cant get links but if your a gamerz type or like alot of space.

Duel Core Processor
8800/8400 GeForce
3GB RAM
500GB Harddrive ^^

I built mine like that and baby it works like a charm!

[J1MI]

Currently:
Intel CPU Core 2 Quad Q9300Quad Core 2.5GHz 1333FSB LGA775 6MB cache - 172.71 - CPUIP4775Q9300
Gigabyte motherboard GA X48-DS4 LGA775 Intel X48 1600 FSB DDR2 ATX - 139.59 - MOTGIGX48DS4
Corsair 4096MB TwinX XMS2 8500C5 DDR2 5-5-5-15 1066Mhz Memory Kit - 81.71 - MEMCORTX485DF
BFG GTX 260 OC 896MBGraphics Card DDR3 PCI-E Dual DVI - 264.96 - VIDBFGGTX260OC
DVD-RW - Current
PSU - Current
HDD's - Current
Vista :s

Need a case some fans and a CPU heatsink.

[Technologic]

With air cooling your components will never be below what your room temperature is.
Yeah, my case is a butt ugly thing but it's basically made of chicken wire and fans

[Agnostic Bear]

Vista Home Premium x64 has no problems for me.

XP x64 was so crap it should never have been released.

XP x64 Pro is ok, cause it's built on win server 2k3 :)

[N!ck]

Currently:
Intel CPU Core 2 Quad Q9300Quad Core 2.5GHz 1333FSB LGA775 6MB cache - 172.71 - CPUIP4775Q9300
Gigabyte motherboard GA X48-DS4 LGA775 Intel X48 1600 FSB DDR2 ATX - 139.59 - MOTGIGX48DS4
Corsair 4096MB TwinX XMS2 8500C5 DDR2 5-5-5-15 1066Mhz Memory Kit - 81.71 - MEMCORTX485DF
BFG GTX 260 OC 896MBGraphics Card DDR3 PCI-E Dual DVI - 264.96 - VIDBFGGTX260OC
DVD-RW - Current
PSU - Current
HDD's - Current
Vista :s

Need a case some fans and a CPU heatsink.

The changes you've made are better components, but slightly less value for money. Judt to confirm, is the RAM you've put down this? http://www.microdirect.co.uk/(37333)Corsair-4096MB-TwinX-XMS2-8500C5-DDR2-55515.aspx If it is then good and if it's not which is it?

Depending on which case you go for it may come with plenty of fans or it may need a few more. Depending on whether the CPU you buy is retail packaged or OEM packaged it will come with the stock Intel HSF or not. It's uup to you if you want to use a different cooler than the stock if it comes with stock.

According to one of Stephen's posts "Actually, they overclock brilliantly, but they don't last near as long. On the overclocking forum I use people have killed their new 45nm quad cores within months with only a moderate overclock. I'd steer clear of them" it may sway you decision on whether you want one of the new generation quads and whether you want to overclock etc.

[Stephen!]

Scrap the GTX 260. ATI's new cards (4870 and the 4870X2) are really going to pwn.

[N!ck]

Scrap the GTX 260. ATI's new cards (4870 and the 4870X2) are really going to pwn.

I read somewhere that they're not going to meet the performance of the nVidia 200 series, but will be better value for money.

[Stephen!]

Well, the 4870 is going to beat the 9800GTX+ at a cheaper price, and the 4870X2 beats the GTX280 at a cheaper price.

[N!ck]

Well, the 4870 is going to beat the 9800GTX+ at a cheaper price, and the 4870X2 beats the GTX280 at a cheaper price.

Ok fair enough then. How'd you know this?

[Stephen!]

Well we don't know it yet as a fact, but i'm hoping. Nvidia should be put in their place for charging over £500 for a graphics card. To be beaten by a £300 card, it will be a deadly blow.