Ok here's the deal, m8 has approx 500 quid budget (can stretch a little further) Just priced up a pc, rough specs he wanted and its to 630 already without a case. So, heres the bits he wants: 160gb hdd (50 quid for ebuyer, sorted.) Dual layer capable DVD-r (thinking a pioneer 106/107 as they are I've heard flashable) 1gig of ram (3200, corsair value c2.5 seems ideal, he wont be overcloking FSB wise anyway, and some of it is quite good) decent gfx, and an all in one printer jobby. All for 500 quid lol! So, first rig was based around 3000+ 64bit Newcastle and the MSI neo 754mobo. Was thinking NF7 and a mobile 2x00+ with a decent air cooler could hit 2.4-5 and save a fair wad of cash. He's up for a little overclocking, but want to avoid it if possible. So any ideas? Didnt wanna go as low as the 2800+ 64bit chip, kinda didnt seem worth it. Trying to get him to spend a little more, the "overclocker" in me says spend 700 quid and get a 3000+ newcastle, epox 8KDA3+, along with a gig of 3500 EB, and maybe a 9800pro. Could do that for ~ 700, sod the dvd-r and case, just run on a desk with a cheap dvd-r and have done with it
If he really wants to keep the price down, I'd be tempted to go the NF7, M-Barton route. And a cheepo DVD rw, unless he's starting some porn empire.
DL DVDs are now starting to hit £60-70 online. However, AFAIK blank DL DVDs are only currently available in Tokyo's Akihabara district for £6-7 each! For a cheap, reasonable case, I'd say go for a PC World item, a Jeantech Phong. I managed to pick one up for £30 instead of £40 2 months ago, and I like it. Custom PC gave it a really good review in issue 10, saying it was "second only to the SavRow SR-71 Blackbird in terms of ventilation." (The SavRow is a £300 case!) The case comes with 120mm fans front & rear, connected to a built-in fanbus (intake fan is filtered). The only downside is the lack of a PSU.
/me sings "PC Scummmmmmmm" yup, go the NF7 mobile barton route. I'd go with a NEC 2500A dvd-rw as these can be easily flashed to dual layer, and are only about £40-50 atm. An enermax 350w psu is about £35 from scan, and probably a chieftech dragon (or one of their other variations) is about the same price. Corsair value select is top notch ram. It's cheaper and has better cas latencies than most of the competitors value ram. For the all-in-one print I think ebay is your friend... I'd then go for a 9800pro (with r360 core) and flash it to 9800xt. And bob is your fathers brother. That lot should be within budget I'd say. If not then tell him to save some more cos thats about as low as he should go.
Best case would be Antec 3700AMB, bronze, takes quiet 120mm fans (1 inc) and has a great Antec 360W PSU built in, should be £60 tops. On that budget I'd definitely suggest SktA (ideally nF2) with ANY Barton. Std £50 XP2500+ should hit XP3200+ speed which is great value, £75ish XP-M 2500+ are unlocked and tend to o/c even better. For the gfx Rad9800Pro is the clear choice, by a long way. 512MB should be fine, hardly hurts perf in ANYTHING and RAM is the easiest thing to add later. I'd rec branded (TwinMOS, Adata, Corsair Value etc) PC3200 for SktA but PC3500-4000 is best if you intend to o/c A64. He may need to come down to a 120GB and simply add in another HD if/when it begins to fill. I'd price up the most desirable (but realistic) system and the most budget conscious system, see how the prices come out and see what parts to 'upgrade' in the budget system. XP2500+ @XP3200+ with 9800Pro is really one heck of a performer and incredibly cheap, comparitively.
na DL DVDs are about £50, and the disks are £6.99 tho but you can get them in the uk from www.svp.co.uk
Ok thats kinda what i was expeciting. This way he/we might be able to splash out on a few extras, maybe work on silence a little more. Might mean I have to upgrade meself as well, cant have a m8 having a better pc now can we
so explain what ya just said to me guys coz i get all confused, whats flashing (computer terms only please!! ) and over clocking and everything, can ya really do that with air cooling?? ooo and i saw this drill bit for an oridnary drill, its 90mm diamter, its a ceiling cutter i think, but do u reckon its a goodun for drilling holes in a to a case? I am understanding the motherboards and processors n everything. my mates got the 2500+ barton in the comp i made, him, i havent got a clue what the diff is between then all the amd processors, obviously the 64 is different. and for that money, isnt a gig of ram a bit much on that budget, considering everything else he wants? or maybe thats just me and my novice veiws! and if he's gonna start a porn empire he should take some lessons from me (gotta use that 10mbps connection at uni for something )
Flashing means chaging or installing a new bios to the mobo bios, graphics bios or updating the firmware on other devices. You can get 80mm hole saw bits, the 90mm one will be too big for an 80mm fan and too small for a 92 AMD processors, theres a few varieties of the current AMD range. Duron, have 128k L2 cache, they are the "runts" of the litter T/breds have 256k L2 cache, are the middle. Faster than the durons, but slower than the Bartons. Barton's have 512k L2 cache and are the fastest in the socket A range. Overclocking = something for nothing basicallly! Yes it can all be done with air cooling, but usually not to the extent as with water or phase. the 64 bit processors come in 939, 754 and 940 socket varieties. 940 is the server side (also FX51 whcih was a desktop chip) requires ECC mem. 939 is the new replacement for 940, and is the high end socket. Dual channel and non reg-memory. 754 is teh "budget" socket, single channel and again no reg mem. (thats a VERY brief description) And erm dont think he needs any lessons tbh esp on the pr0n front (and again these questions should probably have gone in a new thread)
grab some Kingmax 3200/3500 "superram" that stuff is seriously underrated. Its cheaper than the CL3 Kingston 3200 and Sammy, and can do 2-3-3-7 at ddr400 with a little voltage (2.7v or so) defo good budget ram for the non-oc'er
lol yeh i keep doin that, but its kinda related to his question, ish, next time i have my own question, i'll do a new thread, promise!! u have helped me there alot though, i see alot of the coolers out there arent for the 939 skt though! as for ram, the budget stuff pc next day does it pretty smart, when i say budget i mean the cheapest one they sell
Yep Kingmax PC3500 is really good, I've got some running in one of my machines at the mo, and i've not had any probs with it!
Sure Kingmax is nice but do compare it to TwinMOS, Adata and Corsair Value, should be available from www.komplett.co.uk or www.overclockers.co.uk among others. PC3200 is all you need for SktA (inc o/c'ing) or Athlon64 stock (ie no o.c'ing). If you want to o/c Athlon64 then PC3500-4000 is wise. Not to be picky but I believe the Durons have 64k L2, still it only hits them by about 10% compared to the Tbred/Thorton (256k) which in turn is 5% slower than the Barton (512k). Obviously only a rough guide as it sopme things benefit more from cache than others, but as averages it's pretty accurate. Those percentages are when all are at the same clock speed & FSB BTW. In terms of o/c'ing you should easily get around 2.2ghz from any of the SktA cores, even the TbredB XP1700+ which uses just 1.47ghz stock! So your friend's XP2500+ (always Barton) should be able to become an XP3200+ by using 400FSB with PC3200 RAM. 940 is also scheduled to stay around for a long time, it's AMD's 64bit multiple CPU / server socket; Opteron. Athlon64-FX is migrating from 940 to 939 whilst the normal Athlon64 will come in both Skt754 (budget single channel) and Skt939 (high-end dual channel). 754 & 939 use normal DDR which consumers are used to buying.
