Build Advice Sub £350 New Build?

Hi All

I'm looking for some advice on my first build - having read a lot of the posts, you guys clearly know a lot more about this then I ever will!

The machine is to replace an 8 year old bit of kit. It needs to do a bit of everything as well as playing games (nothing heavy as far as I'm aware). Originally I was going to build something like Geiseric's BBB but recently have been looking a the CPC Elite Budget PC spec and tweaking it. Perhaps I'm aiming at the wrong category of components (?) but ideally I wanted to get below £350 (excluding O/S - I've got already got a copy of Vista Ultimate 64bit). So far I've got:

Case - Coolermaster Elite 335 (Scan - £29.31)
Mobo - Asus P5Q SE, iP45, S 775 (Scan - £74.19)
CPU - Intel Pentium Dual-Core, E5200 (Scan - £52.44)
Graphics - 512MB Palit/XpertVision 9800 GT (Scan - £79.34)
RAM - 2 x 2GB (2x1GB) Corsair TwinX XMS2, DDR2 PC2-6400 (800) (Scan - 2 @ £26.04 = £52.08)
Hard Drive - 500 GB Western Digital WD5000AACS Caviar Green (Scan - £42.54)
DVD - Optiarc (Sony/NEC) AD-7200S-0B 20xDVD±R (Scan - £16.55)
PSU - Antec EarthWatts 650W PSU (eBuyer - £66.26)

Total cost = £412.71

So far I don't think I've made too many compromises for what I need (suggestions welcome though!!). However I really need to get below the £350 mark. I was therefore hoping for some suggestions on where best to make the savings (e.g. only get 2GB of RAM, downgrade the hard disk, cheaper power supply, downgrade the mobo etc etc).

What do you think?

Thanks

 

change gpu to http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/512MB-Sapphire-HD4770-DDR5-21149-00-20R
change ram to http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/4GB-...800)-240-Pins-Non-ECC-Unbuffered-CAS-5-5-5-18
change HD to http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/500-...aviar-Blue-SATA-300-7200-rpm-16MB-Cache-89-ms

 

change the hd to this as it's faster than the western digital.

 

i dont knwo much about bugdet builds but i wold suggest you get a cheaper mobo

Gigabyte GA-EP43-S3L, Intel P43 Expres is 61.97 @scan

plus i wouldnt go with the green drive yu would be better off with the blue

Asus ATI Radeon HD 4850 512MB GDDR3 will outperform the 9800 gt and is the same price @ OCuk

ram i would suggest looking at 1* 2*2GB kit instead of 2*2x1GB

Corsair XMS2 DHX 4GB (2x2GB) is £37

 

thinking about it idont know how strict your budget is but witht the savings outlined above ifyou could squeeze another £50 or so you could get a q6600 and have a rig equal to anything i own

 

If you go to ebuyer you can get this lot for about £351:

Intel Pentium Dual Core E5200 Retail
Coolermaster Elite 334 Case
Corsair 4GB Kit (2x2GB) DDR2 800MHz/PC2-6400 XMS2 Memory Kit CL5 1.9V
LiteOn 16x DVD±RW DL & Ram IDE
OCZ Stealth Xtream 500W PSU
Samsung HD502HI 500GB Hard Drive
Gigabyte GA-EP43-S3L
Zotac 9600GT Synergy Edition 512MB Graphics Card

 

HD 4770 would be better than that for sure. Only problem is getting hold of one.

 

Yeah, ebuyer didn't even list any

 

That looks promising - I reckon I can increase the budget by the extra pound... ;-) Thanks - will take a look on eBuyer!

 

i wouldn't buy a 9600gt really underpowered get a 4770, split buyers, buy the 4770 from novatech http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/specpage.html?SAP-4770

 

Is it a new copy of Vista? Or has it been used before (your old system). If it has then you could have problems registering it as it's bound to your mobo. You'll need to contact Microsoft to get a new license key...

 

Ok, cool, this gives me:

Case - Coolermaster Elite 334 Case (eBuyer - £27.51)
PSU - OCZ Stealth Xtream 500W PSU (eBuyer - £45.00)
Mobo - Gigabyte GA-EP43-S3L (eBuyer - £61.85)
CPU - Intel Pentium Dual Core E5200 Retail (eBuyer - £54.00)
RAM - Corsair 4GB Kit (2x2GB) DDR2 800MHz/PC2-6400 XMS2 Memory Kit CL5 1.9V (eBuyer - £37.84)
Hard Drive - Samsung HD502HI 500GB Hard Drive (eBuyer - £39.99
Graphics - Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 4770 512MB (Novatech - £85.08)
DVD - LiteOn 16x DVD±RW DL & Ram IDE (eBuyer - £15.29)

Total £366.56

Based on what you've said, it sounds like it's going to worth spending the extra on the graphics card. Thanks

 

Thanks for the heads up - it's a new copy so should be ok.

 

It looks like a nice build, no real need for the P43 board though, you could get a GA-P31-DS3L instead, and an Akasa heatsink and overclock it! http://www.ebuyer.com/product/134773

Nice build though, it is amazing how much performance you can get for so little cash, it will happily do anything something double its price will

Don't forget free delivery for orders over £50 on both ebuyer and novatech

 

That's a very good idea

It should be fine anyway - I've changed motherboards in my computer twice and it's never had any trouble re-registering.

 

the 4850 is cheaper than that at OCuk and is about 10% better

 

I would go with an AMD build if you are going that cheap.
Something like:
Case - Coolermaster Elite 334 Case (eBuyer - £27.51)
PSU - OCZ Stealth Xtream 500W PSU (eBuyer - £45.00)
Mobo - Gigabyte GA-MA770-UD3 (eBuyer - £58.11)
CPU - AMD Athlon X2 7750 Black Edition (eBuyer - £46.91)
RAM - Corsair 4GB Kit (2x2GB) DDR2 800MHz/PC2-6400 XMS2 Memory Kit CL5 1.9V (eBuyer - £37.84)
Hard Drive - Samsung HD502HI 500GB Hard Drive (eBuyer - £39.99)
Graphics - Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 4770 512MB (Novatech - £78.19)
DVD - LiteOn 16x DVD±RW DL & Ram IDE (eBuyer - £15.29)

Total £348.85

Leaves enough money for an aftermarket cooler, if you want.
Akasa AK-876 Which seems ok, and at 16.20 at nova, is a good price.

 

don't go amd they are rubbish at the moment e5200 is the best budget chip by far atm

 

BLASPHEMY!!!
They're just not as good as Intel, far from rubbish. Don't be biased

 

if they where far from rubbish they would have designed a chip that is better than a two year old chip in overclocking which is th esame price