Budget PC, have i forgotten anything?

Mutant_Fruit

I have...

Memory: 2x CORSAIR PC3200 512MB CAS 2.5
Case: Antec 350W ATX (case+PSU in one... assumably its good cos its antec)
HD: Western Digital Caviar 160GB SATA150
CPU: Athlon 64 3000+ Socket 939 512Kb
GFX: Radeon 9600Pro 128MB
Mobo: MSI K8T Neo2-F Socket 939 VIA K8T800 Pro AGP8x ATX
CD/DVD: Nec 3540.

EDIT: Deliberately left out floppy drive, so i better include a memory stick...
MemoryStick: 256megs.

Grand total: €625.36 + PP.

Firstly, have i left anything out? There will be a monitor/keyboard/mouse/speakers already in the house.

This is a budget system, designed to replace a Dell 8250 2.8ghz, which has horrendously overpriced RDram. I want to present this as an option to the family as opposed to upgrading the dell, i don't expect them to take it, but at least i can offer it. The Dell box will then be sold on.

I'd like to think this system offers great upgradeability. Its socket 939, and i assume thats going to stick around for a while, and they could upgrade to either a faster single core, or an X2 at a later date. Its 64bit ready aswell.

astec123

Do you have all the cables, monitor, audio, and the little details like modem, floppy drive and case fans?

IrL3

Well you should get a modem, just incase you ever need it.
Nice system for €600 though!

Mutant_Fruit

I assume the mobo comes with an SATA and IDE cable, but i'll check it out. No need for modem, they have broadband. I'll throw in a casefan or three, forgot about those.

Out of interest, would i be better off getting a PCI-E mobo? They really aren't going to be doing much gaming. They could get a 6800GT or something in future in an AGP version if it turns out they need a good card. I just don't think PCI-E will give them any bonus's.

mp3guy

I *think* you'll need a floppy drive to load your SATA drivers when installing windows xp, if thats the os you plan to use.

skywalker

Im putting together a basic build of roughly the same price in the next month. Everthing you have there looks good to me. Are all those from komplett? Whats the motherboard like? thats one of the few parts I havent researched yet.

rsynnott

Mutant_Fruit wrote:

I'd like to think this system offers great upgradeability. Its socket 939, and i assume thats going to stick around for a while, and they could upgrade to either a faster single core, or an X2 at a later date. Its 64bit ready aswell.

Yep, it should be dual-core capable. Socket 939 will be replaced early next year or late this year, and should be out of production by the end of next year. No compelling reason to go for PCI-E, really.

Mutant_Fruit

Those prices are from www.dabs.co.uk, which i find are generally cheaper than komplett. I think that system is grand, tis a fine system for €600, and should handle anything thrown at it,

DemonOfTheFall

If you want to talk to them about upgradeability you should stretch to a PCI-E system. Otherwise theyre going to have to do this again when they want a new GFX card in the future.

skywalker

Those prices look good alright. www.Jes.de would be another good one for comparison shopping.

Orion

mp3guy wrote:

I *think* you'll need a floppy drive to load your SATA drivers when installing windows xp, if thats the os you plan to use.

You can just use the fdd from the dell for this. That's what I did for my folks when I built them a pc.

Mutant_Fruit

I have had THREE horrible experiences with jes, and so i'll never go back. Maybe in a few years, but i don't see the point in wasting weeks of my time trying to get a tracking number off them, only to find i missed hte parcel by 4 hours, and its being returned to germany. All because they horribly mislabled my packages after getting specific instructions to double check it printed ok. (The name and address bore next to no relation to my actual name and address).

Ciaran500

Thats a GLS problem. No matter where I order from, if it goes through GLS it gets lost/damage or is late. :mad:

DemonOfTheFall

You need a floppy to install XP onto a SATA hard drive. You have been warned.

EDIT: You might want to get an nForce board rather than VIA. Never had anything but trouble with VIA, and in my experience they dont overclock well / at all. It's worth paying a little extra for what an nVidia chipset will get you.

skywalker

Mutant_Fruit wrote:

I have had THREE horrible experiences with jes, and so i'll never go back. Maybe in a few years, but i don't see the point in wasting weeks of my time trying to get a tracking number off them, only to find i missed hte parcel by 4 hours, and its being returned to germany. All because they horribly mislabled my packages after getting specific instructions to double check it printed ok. (The name and address bore next to no relation to my actual name and address).

Oh I remember reading about those ages ago alright. Sorry for bringing em up to you so

Mutant_Fruit

Ciaran500 wrote:

Thats a GLS problem. No matter where I order from, if it goes through GLS it gets lost/damage or is late. :mad:

I put all the blame at Jes's feet. I emailed over half a dozen times trying to get them to send me the tracking number, at least four those times were in german, two of those emails were written by an actual german.

Eventually when i DID get the tracking number, the monitor had been shipped back, but i managed to catch the case+parts before they got shipped back, and GLS had it out to me in two days, after i gave them the corrected address.

The address on it was (in its fullest):
McGowans
Templerush
Ireland.

Now, my name isn't McGowan, i don't live in templerush. My address should have appeared as follows:
[My Fullname]
[House Name]
[Street Address]
Rathfarnham
Dublin16
Ireland.

The second parcel (in the SAME delivery) had a completely different address on it. now, is that GLS's fault or Jes's? Anyway, i gave em another two tries, and had horrible problems, so i said never again.

I own nForce and Via-based boards myself, and i was tempted to get an nForce one, but didn't think it would make much difference except by increasing the price. They wont be overclocking, so those options will never be used. Therefore a cheaper Via-based board would be better.

Also, i'll be sure to include a floppy drive. Forgot about the SATA driver issue. I assume WinXP64 will ahve those drivers built in to the windows installer. This is one area where linux has a definate advantage. YOu can build drivers like that directly into your installer pretty much as soon as they're craeted. You can't with windows

juliuspret

You think MS would have fixed the SATA problem with SP2.

Morons!!!

Mutant_Fruit

Oh wow, theres guides out there (and programs) for doing just this.

http://xpcreate.com/raid.htm

and a quick google "slpistream SATA winxp" pops up 100's of threads.

jc94062

Looks fairly similar to my system.

Floppy drives cost like £5, inc. VAT and are invaluable for the odd dos boot, bios flash (tho most of those are CD dooable as well) and so forth. You will almost certainly need to flash the BIOS to get it X2 compatible in the future - or if you want to overclock, but then you may want to go for some better RAM as well so...

Plus, as mentioned, you *do* need a floppy to get the SATA drivers there for XP. (Random note: For some reason XP still thinks my SATA HDs are removeable components like USB things??? But thats just MS :P)

I went for PCI-E, s'not much different as far as I've seen - tho due to working 12-17 hour days this week I ain't got any games installed to really test the gfx side of things yet. But for upgradability, on one side I'm thinking the better gfx cards are gonna start being just PCI-E at some stage, on the other side they're still selling PCI gfx cards so I doubt they'll stop doing AGP ones for a few years, and by the time they faze em out, you'll need a new mobo to upgrade your chip.

Mutant_Fruit

SATA can be done with a slipstreamed XP cd.

But i couldn't be arsed slipsteaming them an XP cd for the sake of a few euro. To hell with it i say! Thanks for the tips and pointers.