Making a new PC....very tight budget!!

[mojouk]

I currently have alot of components to build a new PC:

Enermax PSU 433W
HDD Western Digital 100GB
Seagate 60GB
CD-RW
floppy
USB hubs, etc

I'm thinking to buy a 6600GT graphics card.

I'll be using the PC for gaming purposes.

But what I need help in deciding is what processor/motherboard combination to go for.

I've got £200-£300, for the CPU (+fan+heatsink), motherboard, 512MB RAM.

I was thinking of a 3200+ Athlon 64,.........what mb would you recommend?????

 

[Belloni]

Ight m8...


Right so you need CPU, motherboard, and 512MB for 200-300 ?! Pretty tight lol !

Motherboard ?! For a good one ?! Around £70-80 i would say ?! http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/ASUS_Socket_939.html (4th one down)

512MB !? Around £40-50 ?! For a decent one http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/Crucial_Value.html (3rd one down) Crucial are good lol i have them !

That leaves you with around say... £200 ?! depending how much you can put for that EXTRA bit ! hehe

For the CPU... i personally with that money, would go for the AMD athlon 64 3500 Winchester or Newcastle. About £15 more for the Winchester version. Go to www.overclockers.co.uk and look at the available CPU's there m8

Also what socket are you going for ?! 939 or 754 ?! That would help alot too

Hope this helped m8

Good luck

P.S Gr8 graphics card !!! lol

 

[mojouk]

What does 939 or 754 mean??? which is better??

 

[Belloni]

The socket type 939 is the latest socket... more future proof 754 is the old type, which most pcs have at the moment i think ?! lol

Go for 939 for better performance etc... More pricey but worth it obviously !

 

[mojouk]

Just out of interest........what's the equivalent of a 3500 Athlon in Intel Pentium proccessor terms?

Would a 3200+ be quite fast? Is this the same as a Pentium 3.2Ghz proccessor?

 

[Belloni]

First of all...

Don't worry about Intel processors. AMD are better quality and more value for money.

I honestly can't rememeber what the conversion is between the two processors, but i think the 3200 is converted to something like... 2.6Ghz ?! But don't ask me on that... because personally i don't rememeber, someone else will know

Are you using this because you are more used to Intel processors ? So it's easier for you to know the speed of it etc ? I used to do that lol !

Just don't use an Intel processor if you can help it lol AMD are WAY better ! hehe

Even though i have one, this is quite old



And yes a 3200 is quite fast lol

 

[Me__2001]

the board belloni has picked looks good, if you use that you'll need a 939 pin CPU you wont want anything less than a 64 3500 winchester if you want a gaming system, i'd put in a 1Gb of PC3200 ram in dual channel to give you better performance

so thats

the Asus A8V £75

1Gb Crucial PC3200 Cas 2.5 £100

AMD 64 3500 Winchester £210

roughly £385 + PP

 

[Belloni]

Hehe thanx m8 Me though it looked pretty good too ! Dunno if he can afford the extra 512MB yet ?! Save it for later i would say when more cash is available ! Unless you hassle all known relatives known to u ! hehe ;P

Good luck with the pc m8 !

If you can't afford the Winchester CPU, go for the Newcastle ! Save ya 15 pounds ! not much but HEY ! Every little helps eh ! lol

Good luck

 

[ChristopherP]

Belloni... the 3500 is comparable to i don't know...a 3.6GHz or 3.8GHz P4 - CERTAINLY not a 2.6!!


Go socket 939
Low end A64 socket 939 cpu (Retail package)
1Gb GeIL Value RAM
6600GT - Gainward if you can

 

[floppybootstomp]

I agree, go socket 939 for future proofing. The DFI Lan party boards should be released soon, but they're a bit pricey, from £106.00 to £153.00 (pre-ordering at overclockers.co.uk now).

However, if you wanted to build a socket A system using an XP3200 here's a suggestion:

Abit NF7 motherboard £68.00

XP3200 £94.00

Gigabyte 3D Rocket Pro Cooler £28.00

1 Gb (2 x 512) Corsair Value Select RAM £100.00 (3rd one down) (note that's 1Gb of RAM, not 512 as requested/suggested. It's worth going for a Gig).

Total: A little less than £300.00 including postage. Or around £250.00 with only 512Mb of memory.

I'll admit some may see a system like that as old technology now, NF2 chipset and all and it certainly isn't future proof.

But it will do you proud for a couple of years or more and coupled with a good AGP Video card will handle Games OK.

An XP3200, btw, is supposedly the equivalent of a Pentium 3.2Ghz.

You pays yer money, you makes yer choice

 

[crazylegs]

I would agree with flopp's and go for the 1 gig of corsair memory as opposed to 512 it would make the system run so much faster.

And although 939 is the way to go at the moment for future proofing, you could do a lot worse than a socket 754 athlon 64 3200 with a gig of corsair ram, and an asus a8v socket 754 motherboard, this would almost certainly last for a good couple of years and be capable of everything you want of your pc.

But like others have said you pays your money...........

 

[Belloni]

Belloni... the 3500 is comparable to i don't know...a 3.6GHz or 3.8GHz P4 - CERTAINLY not a 2.6!!


Go socket 939
Low end A64 socket 939 cpu (Retail package)
1Gb GeIL Value RAM
6600GT - Gainward if you can

lol chris... i realised this late last night when going through !!! I must have not looked when typing coz i wouldn't have put 2.6 GHz that's for sure ! Soz !

Hehe

 

[mojouk]

Cheers guys......your suggestions have really helped me out (or rather my brother).

So it may be worth getting a 3500, but it is very pricey in my opinion.....over £200 pounds seems ALOT to pay for a CPU, especially since they devalue so much within a few months. The 3200 only costs £130 (with heatsink+fan)

I've been looking at Corsair Value Select 1GB RAM 400Mhz, and I have a question about it......

I've been looking at the reviews and people say that it runs at 200Mhz and you have to manually OVERCLOCK it to 400Mhz.

How do I do this? I've never overclocked anything in my life!!!


Also, I already have 2 sticks of Samsung 256MB PC3200 400Mhz CL3 RAM already,... can I combine this with the two sticks of 512MB Corsair to make 1.5GB RAM??

http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/prod...2hvd19wcm9kdWN0X292ZXJ2aWV3&product_uid=54472

 

[psd99]

Also, I already have 2 sticks of Samsung 256MB PC3200 400Mhz CL3 RAM already,... can I combine this with the two sticks of 512MB Corsair to make 1.5GB RAM??

http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/prod...2hvd19wcm9kdWN0X292ZXJ2aWV3&product_uid=54472

alrite mate

now i didnt read this on your post be4 cuz im a lazy git

the short answer is as long as both memories are the same speed ie pc3200 and pc3200 then u can use the same memory on the motherboard! but if the speed of the ram is different ie one is pc2700 and one is pc3200 then NO u cant use the memory the bios will bounce u off!

So the best thing to do? already proably been mentioned get the same speed memory so u can combine it!

good luck mate!

 

[ChristopherP]

Dude...chill...your getting confused.

Yes the RAM is 200MHz - DDR - Double Data Rate = 400MHz

You don't need to touch a thing, it will run at 400MHz as soon as you put it in. It will be fine. If you can get the GeIL stuff cheaper, thats very good stuff, no better or worse than the Corsair, and comes wrapped in funky looking heatspreader stuff... Never had any probs with all the stick i have used for people.

If you can save the £70 on the CPU and get a socket 939 Athlon64 3200 with HS and Fan, do it. Get the full Gig of RAM and also the GOES LIKE HELL 6600GT, and make sure you dont buy a crap motherboard. Abit, Asus, DFI...those are good. Always liked the look of the DFI's personally but never owned one... Abit are a safe choice. They bundle all the cables you need with their boards too...

You'll want a SATA hard drive too, if you can spare £50, that will really speed things up.

 

[mojouk]

Would you go with PCI-Express or AGP for the motherboard?

Plus I heard you can get DUAL PCI-Express SLi??

(although I don't know why you'd need 2 PCI - E slots!!)

 

[ChristopherP]

2 PCI-E slots would be for the SLI - you have two graphics cards as opposed to one, i believe one powers the vertical rendering and the other the horizontal therefore doubling the effective speed...

tbh theres not much difference between AGP and PCI-E at the mo, get PCI-E if you can, Futureproof as much as you can. Dont touch DDR 2 though...

 

[floppybootstomp]

Most ground's been covered but thought I'd mention one thing.

You'd only be able to use 2 x 512Mb RAM & your existing 2 x 256Mb of RAM and benefit from dual channel mode if your motherboard has 4 RAM slots, all of which are capable of supporting dual memory mode. And the new memory was PC3200.

The Gigabyte GA700N Pro 2 is such a board, but that's socket A.

Worth bearing in mind when you choose your mainboard.

 

[ChristopherP]

AMD boards with 4x RAM slots are fairly rare... most Intel boards are like this, but ive never seen such an AMD board, well ScktA at least...

 

[mojouk]

Sorry. I'm asking a mix of questions for 1) a PC I already own 2) a PC that my brother's gonna build.

MY existing PC 1) has an intel board and is a PCI-E (1 slot) with 4 RAM slots (lucky me), which is why I'll be keeping my existing 2 x 256MB, and adding a further 2 x 512MB.

But I was thinking in terms of the new PC 2), maybe to go with a dual PCI-E SLi. Although there aren't that many SLi graphics cards to utilize this?? And I will be buying the 6600GT so maybe a PCI-E SLi will be a bit redundant. And I'll probably be getting the AMD AThlon 3200 (939), with all of this.