Finalising build.. hopefully.

Vikings

I've been trying to put together a budget PC for myself that will play some of the current games to come out recently to try and ease myself back into the gaming side of things.

I'm going to stress budget so take that into account when reviewing the parts:

Case: Dabs Value case :eek: (remember the budget!) /w PSU
Mobo: MSI S775 blah blah - with an eye to upgrading in the future
CPU: Core 2 Duo E6550 just can't stretch to the Q6600 now
GPU: Dabs Value X1950 Pro 512mb best bang for buck card at the minute?
RAM: Corsair TWIN2X2048-6400C4
HDD: Western Digital Caviar 250GB
DVD: LiteOn DVD RW etc

Total price delivered: €646.46

I had started to price up a system a while back and was looking at in or around the 750 price range but have decided to cut that back to 650. The above comes in just under budget which is great, but it will still be a budget PC.

I'm looking for it to play some games i've missed, going to pick up The Orange Box, Stalker, PES2008, get back into WoW, maybe CoD4 if the system will handle it and a couple of others. So not looking to build a Crysis killer or anything like that, just want decent perfomance from it in some current/older games.

What do people make of the build? Did I mention it is a budget PC?

Slightly worried about the Dabs Value parts, with them being the Case, PSU and Graphics card but im sure they will work considerably well and at those prices even if they are duds its worth the risk to try it and then go through RMA hassle if needs be. I'm also thinking the hard drive I have chose there isnt the best, had a better one chosen first but then cut back to that to bring it within budget.

Any advice for me?

Thanks:D

TerrorFirmer

All seems fine, will check it later in more detail but

a) you might want a better board if you plan overclocking
b) avoid that dabs case, not so much for the case side of it but the PSU, notoriously unreliable from what I've read on these and other forums. The PSU is the most important part of your system, don't skimp on it. I'd drop on the 6500 down if you absolutely can't increase your budget, something like a 4500 would still be OK. It's acceptable to skimp on cpu at the moment given the good performance and high over clocking ability.

As a budget build though that aside it looks good. This is an example I made about 2 weeks ago, for 500 euro (granted it's not exactly top end components either and the cpu is weaker then what you have, but its a decent board with better overclocking ability to negate that and a better power supply not to mention there's another 100 to spare there which would purchase a far better psu or a fast cpu):

Vikings

Cheers for the advice Havok...

I've dropped the dabs case and PSU and upgraded that to the Antec Sonata III which comes with an Antec 500w PSU which should be somewhat better than the dabs one.

And I have downgraded the e6550 to an e4500 - is there much of a performance drop there?

Which brings the grand total to €639.14, still within budget.

I don't think I will be overclocking anything in this build at all, I chose that board as I will probably end up getting a q6600 in a couple of months time and that board can handle a quad core.

highlydebased

The Western Digital Caviar hard drives are pretty good. I have 2 of their 500gb's in my machine and have had no issues at all

TerrorFirmer

No, even at stock the 4500 should be grand, no worries there, the card will be more of a concern to be honest and will limit you sooner then the processor will. That's not to say the machine will be poor for games, it won't, but just pointing out why there's no reason to worry about your processing power. Even with zero overclocking knowledge, if you feel you want to increase it it's a simple as entering a few digits (raising fsb) in the bios - for small overclocks.

Vikings

Thanks again for the advice, I might get in to my old computer today and have a look around see if I can salvage anything, might end up keeping the case (lian li) and possibly the PSU to bring down the price even more.

Vikings

My current PC consists of the following:

P4 3.4g
Asus P4S800
1gb pc3200 ram
2 optical drives, dvdrw + dvd
Crap old graphics card (x800pro died last year and never got round to upgrading)
Lian Li case
550w PSU

So... my question is, the mobo I have selected says it supports both P4 and dual core processors though the processor socket is LGA775 and my old mobo is S478 - this mean that the old processor will not work in the new motherboard? Or what im asking is there any way I can keep my current processor but put it into a new board that has PCI-E and will eventually take a Core2Duo or Quad core CPU? I'm guessing not but crossing fiingers!

Anyway i'm going to be keeping the Case, PSU, DVD drives for starters so that saves me €150 right off the bat.

If I somehow manage to keep that processor (how big of a difference would there be between the P4 and a C2Duo E4500? im clueless) that would be another €110 saved which would let me upgrade the graphics card even more.

Cheers

TerrorFirmer

No you can't use that processor, only 775 P4 would work in the board. 2 totally different socket types. Yes there would be a significant performance increase going with the 4500. You should get a reasonable amount of money for the board, cpu and ram when you sell them, maybe 90-100 euro give or take a few quid. Plus whatever the video card is, people always looking for older parts on adverts.

Vikings

Thanks again HavoK, going to go with the 4500 I think and will try flog some of the bits on adverts then.

Im sure ill have more questions between now and when I eventually order the parts though so ill be back!

Vikings

Ok, i've finally decided on the parts im going to get!

They are:

Case: Antec Sonata III w/ 500W PSU
Mobo: Gigabyte S775 (P31-DS3L)
CPU: Core 2 Duo E4500
GFX: Sapphire Tech X1950pro 512mb
RAM: Corsair 2gb 6400
HDD: Western Digital 250gb HD
DVD: LiteOn DVD rewriter

€645.02 delivered.

Just wanted to double check to see if everything there is compatible? Particularly the RAM, will that be ok with the motherboard? As far as I can tell everything there will work ok for me.

Is there anything im missing to get this off the ground - apart from monitor, keyboard, mouse and operating system?

white_falcon

Vikings wrote: »

Ok, i've finally decided on the parts im going to get!

They are:

Case: Antec Sonata III w/ 500W PSU
Mobo: Gigabyte S775 (P31-DS3L)
CPU: Core 2 Duo E4500
GFX: Sapphire Tech X1950pro 512mb
RAM: Corsair 2gb 6400
HDD: Western Digital 250gb HD
DVD: LiteOn DVD rewriter

€645.02 delivered.

Just wanted to double check to see if everything there is compatible? Particularly the RAM, will that be ok with the motherboard? As far as I can tell everything there will work ok for me.

Is there anything im missing to get this off the ground - apart from monitor, keyboard, mouse and operating system?

Yup:
Mobo says on it:
Supported RAM SpeedPC2-6400PC2-8500Your RAM will work fine with it.

One thing - make sure the CD drive or mobo comes with the correct cables for ur CD drive - i got two CD drives - a SATA and IDE - didnt have a spare sata cable with my mobo so need to get another one somewhere

Those parts are all grand tho

EDIT - u shud also get a sound card if u want any decent sound...

Vikings

...and its ordered!

Hopefully have it before the end of next week now.

Yeah a soundcard and a few other bits will be next to go with it but for now I want the rig up and running so I can get back to the gaming!

TerrorFirmer

Also you can get a 512mb X1950Pro on dabs.ie for about 20 quid less if you take the Dabs Value one...:)

Not a huge saving but a worthwhile one if you're going budget.