Pc Diy Help


davey g

Bitches and hos
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Staffordshire Uni, Stafford
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Well, after the BargainBassment shenanigans I have decided (almost) to build my own PC. I have around £700 to do so. I'm having some difficulty choosing the parts here but not the parts you'd expect. What I have in my shopping basket so far is:

 
Do you also need an LCD screen?

Edit: Get this RAM instead of the one you have picked. As it is the same price, but has a lower latency CL2.5 rather than CL3, which makes it faster. And don't worry about the make Corsair is one of the best.

Edit2: What about a mouse and keyboard?
Floppy drives are only £3, so get one of those as well.

Edit3: Get a SATA Hard Drive as well. As they are faster.
 
Getting a Dell M992 Flat Screen CRT for £60 inc. delivery.

This 'un

If you are talking about on the case then a very big no. As for a SATA hard drive, I don't know if I'm wanting to pay the extra for a 17mb/s speed increase. If you know of a 200GB SATA hard drive that isn't noisy and expensive could you point me to it?
 
I sugest you a chieftec dragon series case
http://chieftec.de/?page=products_show&ite...d=1&language=uk
+ 1 80mm silent fan in front of the hdd's
maybe a 120mm fan at the back, but thats not a must.
i would use noiseblocker s1 fans as they are pretty much unhearable (9-11db)
or s2 (11-19db)

as a psu i would sugest a be quiet! p5 550w, damn silent and powerfull.
http://www.be-quiet.de

as cpu fan i would use the zalman cnps7700cu or a cnps9500, i prefer the 7700.
http://www.zalman.co.kr/eng/product/code_list.asp?code=005

also that motherboard bundle isnt the best choice, i would go for a asus a8n-sli and either a single 6600gt or a 6800ultra. maybe add a second one when needed.
 
Thanks for the advice.

I've changed the motherboard and graphics card. At least I'm trying to, ebuyer is responding really slowly.

As for how much I can afford for the case, fans and PSU, I'm thinking around £70 max. I don't really want to use the highest quality components, just enough to get the job done. Don't want any burnt out parts.
 
well, the case alone is about 40gbp and the psu about 70...

maybe you should get a cheap case/psu combo, but that wont be quality components
 
That dual 6600 thing looks pretty dodgy. Quoth http://shsc.info/SLI:

"A $150 SLI motherboard with a $175 6600GT adds up to $325; adding another 6600GT, assuming they drop to around $150, would raise the price to $475. This is nearly $100 more than the price of a single ATI X800XL ($290) and a standard nForce 4 board ($90) at the time of this writing, and the X800XL would offer better overall performance than two 6600GTs."

edit I appear to have been beaten by vimacs. I recommend the 6800 GT as the Ultra is disproportionately expensive (check some graphs). The 6600 is underpowered unless you're going the SLI route, which as I quoted is probably not a good idea at the moment.

As for mobos the Asus ones have never failed me, or you could get the ECS nForce 4 which is pretty cheap.

As for PSUs and fans, I never spent more than £20-£30 for both (getting a bundle) and I have (fingers crossed) yet to encounter problems for many years. Your perogative, though. Just don't go and buy a 500 W PSU that you'll never use to full capacity.
 
the prices arent right anymore, but a single 6800 is a betetr choice than buying two 6600gt at once, but getting one 6600gt/6800ultra and getting another one later is a option
 
Its best in that case to go for particular specs.
For example for Fans, aim to go for as low a Sound rating as possible (Measured in dB), while also having as high a Air flow rating as possible (measured in CFM's).
Ie. Take a look at these Fans and you should be able to see what you can get for your money.

As for Cases, just go with whatever you think looks good, and check the reviews out.

Generic PSU's are supposed to be a really bad investment (as they don't supply the power rating they say they do under normal stress), and most people recommend that you buy a name brand. Not that I am or anything, I ran out of money at that stage.

You should swap that RAM as I said though.
 
Hanz™ posted on Sep 9 2005 at 02:04 PM said:
Generic PSU's are supposed to be a really bad investment (as they don't supply the power rating they say they do under normal stress)
They put more tolerance into the +5 and +3.3 rails instead of the +12 which is the most commonly used one. Although it says 400 W, it's less tolerant/reliable than a good quality 400 W. Unfortunately there's no easy way to know unless you specifically buy PSUs that give you the W for each rail.

As for fans, the noise never bothered me, but you might be different.
 
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Vimacs posted on Sep 9 2005 at 03:02 PM said:
the prices arent right anymore, but a single 6800 is a betetr choice than buying two 6600gt at once, but getting one 6600gt/6800ultra and getting another one later is a option
Yeah, that is a better Idea. Just buy one 6600gt for about £120 and then at a later date.
 
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I've updated my post up at the top with the RAM you suggested, a Gainward 6600GT and the Asus a8n-sli motherboard. I'll just update the top post from now on when I make changes.

For SLI, can you match a 6600 and a 6800 or do they both have to be the same?
 
For SLI, can you match a 6600 and a 6800 or do they both have to be the same?
They both have to be the same, although I read something somewhere about this might not be the case in the future.
 
if your looking for a midrange car ud be better going with the x800gt.

but you cant pair these up. ahh well.
 
There seem to be arguments either way. The X800GT outperforms the 6600GT in some games but the 6600GT outperforms the X800GT in others. The 6600GT is also better prepared for future games with it's support of shader 3.0. If someone could give me a better idea of which I should choose it would rock the casbah.

If I chose the x800GT I could get a non-SLI motherboard and maybe save a few bob.
 
i would allways sugest nvidia, ati is allways a bit behind and a bit more unstable, also the drivers suck, especialy for linux and 64bit theres no way arround nvidia.
 
ATI drivers are fine on 64-bit.

At high resolutions, even the X700 outperforms a 6600 GT.

I'll admit I don't know much about PCI Express prices, but if you have the money and you still choose the 6600 over a 6800 you are a fool.
 
Semi-finalised system.

I've gone for a non-SLI mobo and went for an X800GT instead. I'd rather wait and buy an X850 when the price drops than than get another 6600GT.

Gigabyte GA-K8N Ultra-9 SKT939 NFORCE4 PCI-E DDR400 RETAIL BOX
AMD (Venice) Athlon 64 3500+ 939pin
Corsair (VS1GBKIT400) 1024MB (2 x 512MB Matched Pair), DDR400 / PC3200, non-ECC, Unbuffered, CL2.5
Sapphire X800GT 256mb 256bit PCI-Express VGA + TV out + DVI
Maxtor 6L200M0 Diamondmax 10 200GB 7200rpm Serial ATA150 8mb Cache
LG GSA4163 16x DVD R/RW/RAM Internal Dual Layer IDE
Mitsumi OEM Black Internal Floppy Drive 1.44mb 3.5 Inch
Antler SQ-311 ATX Midi Tower Case in Black with USB2.0/Audio/IEEE1394 with 350w P4 PSU
Keyboard, Mouse and Speakers aswell.

Assorted fans still to come. How many more would I need apart from the one included with the case? Oh yeah, this has come to £557.50 so far including VAT and delivery. Anyone know a magic code to remove VAT?
 
lots of links on ebuyer now lead to a page saying its under maintenance :(, i was look at some stuff too :( well, just have to wait i guess, hope your computers a success!

EDIT* ebuyer is working again fully now i think, hurray!
 
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