ok people been chatting with my brother and he has been on about a new computer since his current one is really **** anyways the budget will be about £400 so this is what i have initially specced up for him Coolermaster Elite 330 Case With Coolermaster eXtreme Power 460W PSU *SPECIAL OFFER* 135101 854 in stock £49.98 Sony AD-5240S 24x DVD±RW DL Internal SATA Black Bare Drive - OEM 170014 > 200 in stock £16.16 Intel Pentium Dual Core E5300 2.6GHz Socket 775 800FSB 2MB L2 Cache Retail Boxed Processor 155434 328 in stock £48.73 Gigabyte GA-G31M-ES2L iG31 Socket 775 onboard VGA 7.1 channel audio mATX Motherboard 152225 223 in stock £31.30 Maxtor 320GB Hard Drive SATAII 7200rpm 16MB Cache - OEM 161103 268 in stock £31.50 Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium - Licence and media - 1 PC - OEM - DVD - 64-bit - English 173791 52 in stock £70.95 1 (free accessory) Ebuyer Antivirus, 3 User License for Antivirus, Spyware & Online Fraud Protection 126059 220 in stock £0.00 PowerColor HD 4850 512MB GDDR3 VGA DVI HDMI PCI-E Graphics Card 164593 10 in stock £63.25 Corsair 4GB (2x2GB) DDR2 800MHz/PC2-6400 XMS2 Memory Kit CL5 1.8v 166785 253 in stock £69.99 Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro rev 2 Socket 775, 1156, 1366, AM2, AM3 Heatpipe CPU Cooler 176157 42 in stock £16.22 Cart total inc vat: £398.08 what do you think? any things need changing? my main worrys are the motherboard (any good at overclocking) the power supply (does it have the power for a 4850) and the HDD (is it any good full stop) anyway any advice or other suggestions apprectiated so i can modify it and show him a rough spec to try and make him part with his cash!
How much of this gear do you already possess? If the answer is 'none,' why are you investing £400 in an extinct socket with no upgrade path? Is it possible to do i5 for £400? If it is I strongly suggest you try that. AM3 is another £400 alternative: http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/buyers-guide/2009/11/10/what-hardware-should-i-buy-november-2009/1
well the answer is own none, and to be honest hadnt thought you would be able to get a i5 for under £400 and as for AM3 guess my brain forgot about them damn christmas excess's and brain not wanting to get into gear. back to the drawing board i think...
The student W7 offer is definitely worthwhile; sadly I don't think i5 is. A brief search on OCUK says that a Gigabyte GA-P55M-UD2 with i5 750, XFX 4850, 4GB of 1600Mhz OCZ RAM, 500W OCZ Modstream Pro Modular, Samsung F3 500GB, Sony DVD-RW and an Antec Three Hundred is still over £500 with VAT. I'd reluctantly go for AM3.
nope not a student, and dont know any students with a .ac.uk email address to get that deal yes i think you are right i will probably have to go down AM3 with current prices which means i now need to start doing some looking into AMD parts to find the best ones for his needs... will keep me busy at least
I've always wondered... When they say student, do they mean college student or would high school students be included as well?
Intel are releasing the Clarkdale i3/i5 range in a couple of weeks that may be worth looking out for, otherwise I would expect you could put together an Athlon II x2 based system for around the budget you have.
With intels habit of producing new CPUs that arn't electrically compatible, this is a moot point. Stick with the e5300 and you can always grab a c2q off ebay in a year or so.
The C2Q would still be distinctly underpowered compared to i5, even perhaps to the AMD option despite originally costing three times as much. LGA 775 has had it's run - 6 years, by my count - and now it's died. Plus OP wants new parts, we assume, and the AMD socket does not keep changing, so in two years or so he could buy a brand new AMD CPU that would utterly destroy the then 4+ year old C2Q and will be compatible with his motherboard.
