[bodhi]

Hey,

My dad wants a PC to replace the junk he has at the moment. I said i'd build him one, just wondering what people thought the best use of £500 would be?

Don't need a monitor/keyboard/mouse, just the main box of tricks.

He only wants it for email, internet and maybe the ocassional game (he likes medal of honour and some flight games etc). He doesn't want to spend a fortune on a graphics card, so just a graphics card which is good enough for running most games.

It has to be able to last a few years aswell, as my parents are sick of having to replace it all the time.

Any advice on the latests and greatest stuff would be appreciated.

Thanks.

Bodhi

[Electronics & Photo Fan]

Originally Posted by bodhi

He doesn't want to spend a fortune on a graphics card, so just a graphics card which is good enough for running most games.

Isn't that a contradiction?

[bodhi]

Yeah, it probably is. I just mean he won't want to play the latest games, but he will want to play some medal of honour/flight sim type stuff, but he doesnt want a £400 graphics card!

[Abarbarian]

You won't go far wrong with this memory for £35

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showpr...odid=MY-058-GL

As an alternative to a 1950 Pro this might do , its fully DX 10 and Vista compatible .

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/133101


I'd go for a low wattage AM2 cpu meself as they are as cheap as chips and you can get a good board for next to nowt .

[floppybootstomp]

Working to budget, how's this?



Looks like quite a respectable system to me.

[bodhi]

Thanks guys,

Flopps, where did you find all that stuff? I was hoping to get an Intel Core 2 Duo processor of possible. Do you think i could get one for the budget?

Bodhi

[floppybootstomp]

Here ya go:



This stuff sourced from Overclockers, you can try E-Buyer and Scan, to name but two.

Mix and match to budget and cosmetic taste. Add a floppy drive for around £7.00.

You could economise on the memory, hard disk and video card to get a faster CPU but I think the above represents a nice balance for the money.

The Antec case/PSU comes in white as well.

Also consider a different CPU cooler to the stock one supplied if budget allows. I recommend Noctua, Scythe, Zalman and Thermalright.

[bodhi]

Hey mate,

Thanks for the start, it is much appreciated. I was on overclockers, but the main thing that confuses me is what is compatible with what nowadays!! I didn't want to buy a motherboard which didn't fit with the processor/graphics/RAM etc etc.

I would get a 320Gb Seagate drive i think (i like seagate and he wont need 500Gb of RAM).

Is the Geforce 8600 graphics card quite good for most games is it?

Oh, and i'll have to get an operating system. What is the general consensus at the moment? Would i be best to stick Vista onto this?

Cheers again.

Bodhi

[floppybootstomp]

Vista or XP eh?

I dunno, really, advantages and disadvantages to both.

Weighing up all the odds though, I'd go for Vista Home Premium 32 bit.

If only for the reason it's actually cheaper than XP

Which perhaps kinda tells us something about MS's brand new OS don't it?

[bodhi]

Yeah, thats another thing!! Firstly there are SOOOOO many hardware options out there which is confusing. And now just for a laugh, Microsoft bring out 10 million versions of Vista!! What's that all about!

Is Vista Home Premium 32 the cheapest version? Is there somewhere which tells you what each version has etc?