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how can i bring this down to budget ?

post #1 of 17
8/2/06 at 7:50am
Thread Starter 
CPU
INTEL® CORE® 2 DUO E6600 (2 X 2.40GHZ) 1066mhz FSB/4MB Cache

Memory
2048 MB CORSAIR DDR2-533 PC4200 - LIFETIME WARRANTY! (2x1GB)

Motherboard
ASUS® P5W DH DELUXE: DDR2, x16 slot, 975X chipset, 2 PCI

USB Options
USB PORTS & 4 PORT USB HUB (ALLOWS USB ON YOUR DESK)

Hard Drive
SATA II 200 GB HARD DISK @ 7200rpm 8mb cache

Second Hard Drive
NONE

RAID
NONE

DVD ROM/Combi Drive
16X DVD ROM WITH 48X CD ROM

CD/DVD Writer
16x +/- DVD WRITER (8x +/- Dual Lyr) (Lightscribe) (40x CD-RW) (£23)

Graphics Card 1
512MB RADEON X1900XTX PCI Express + DVI + TV-OUT

Graphics Card 2
NONE

Sound Card
SoundBlaster X-FI Extreme Music 7.1: £52

Modem
NONE, I WILL BE USING BROADBAND

Network Facilities
2 x 10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORTS ONBOARD

Floppy Drive/Card Reader
1.44MB FLOPPY DISK DRIVE

Case
Stylish Silver Aluminium Trigon Case + 2 Front/Side USB

Power Supply & Cooling
600W Super Quiet Quad Rail PSU + 120mm fan & CPU Cooler (£79)

Operating System required
MICROSOFT® WINDOWS® XP HOME (inc. Genuine CD & licence) (£59)

Firewire & Video Editing
1 x FIREWIRE PORT ONBOARD

Monitor
HIGH END TFT: 19 INCH SILVER/BLACK: 8MS + DVI! (£149)

Keyboard
NONE

Mouse
NONE

Speakers
CREATIVE INSPIRE 7.1 T7900 SPEAKER SYSTEM (£65)

Printer
NONE

Anti-Virus
NORTON ANTI-VIRUS 2006 (£19)

Office Software
MICROSOFT WORKS 8.5 - Word Processing, Spreadsheets, etc (£6)

TV Card
NONE

Warranty
1 Year Return-to-Base Warranty + 1 Year Free Collect & Return: £5


im £50 over budget, and then ill still need to buy a keybaord/mouse. im sorry i cant give all the prices, but im sure youl know the prices of most thing. £50 is about $87 if im right.

i need a powerful pc to last me for a few years. my current only manged 1 year, but then my dad bought it.. he knows nothing about pcs ! i need to bring this donw to budget, if i dont it will have to be a pentium d ( !! ) dell dimension.

this one should prove very powerful compared to my last, but once again how can i cut the price down ?

ill be doing some heavy gaming on this machine, aswell as listening to music, and the usual office/net/email etc.

my current monitor is a low end 17" , so i would a good 19" would be a substantial upgrade.

thanks
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post #2 of 17
8/2/06 at 8:21am
Why not downgrade your processor to:Intel® Core™2 Duo processor E6400 (2.13GHz)? Not a very significant decrease in speed. Probably won't even notice the difference.
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post #3 of 17
8/2/06 at 8:43am
Thread Starter 
what about the cache downgrade ? isnt that big ?
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post #4 of 17
8/2/06 at 8:49am
yeah, dropping the processor down one model would drop it a bit. also, not getting the dvd/cd drive (the basic one, not the burner) might drop it a little too. you can always buy a second one later if you really need it.

also, where are you buying this from? dell? if so, i would almos recommend not getting quite as much ram and then buying that from another source at a cheaper price. just a thought.
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post #5 of 17
8/2/06 at 9:07am
It sounds like your ordering the pc from a place like dell. If your comfortable with the parts, it would be cheaper to go through newegg and put it together yourself.

if you are going to buy from a place like dell, do not get 2 gigs of ram. They rape you on price when you do that. If you know you'll only ever want 2 gigs, just get 1 gig to start, then get a 2nd gig from newegg.

Asus, while I like their motherboards, tend to be more expensive. Perhaps go with a less expensive brand.

Yea, that video card is probably costing you an arm and a leg. I would go with a Nvidia 7900gt 256 meg or something similar.

I would scratch the audio card and go with onboard sound. That tends to be pretty good. If you find you want something better later on, you can then spend the money on the extra sound card.

If you can go through a place like newegg, and want to save a bit of cash, I would recommend getting AMD over Intel. You could go with a slightly cheaper motherboard, but still get one with good reviewer ratings. I would get a less expensive video card. I think that card is around 450$ which seems like to hefty a price (but that is just me). And as above, use the onboard sound.

My friend is actually buying a new machine pretty soon, and I put together one for him (well, spec'd it out) on newegg. Had a 20" lcd, 2 gigs ram, AMD dual core (am2), Asus motherboard, Nvidia 7900gt video card, etc...the total came to around 1500$ with the OS and such.
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post #6 of 17
8/2/06 at 10:29am
Thread Starter 
thanks for the help.

problem is, i really dont want to put together my own, i just know it will be too hard, and ill muck something up. other downside is the warrenty, when something goes wrong, youve actually got to find out what it is and replace it.

this is not a dell.

unfortuantly, im not in the US ( uk ) and cant buy from newegg ( AFAIK )

when i did spec my own, i found it didnt come much cheaper ( infact, not cheaper at all, although i got a much better screen ).

if you really think i should give it a go, could something lonk me a proper, uptodate, complete guide to building a pc ? ive seen a few old ones.

this place im buying from though, hardly charges much miore then say newegg would. its very cheap.
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post #7 of 17
8/2/06 at 10:30am
Thread Starter 
also, my other thread ( which system .. ) has got some better choices in, please take a look there.
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post #8 of 17
8/2/06 at 10:51am
Thread Starter 
Here is the most likely system for me. What do you think ?

CPU
AMD® ATHLON® 64BIT X2 3800 2 x 512K L2 Cache (AM2 pin)

Memory
2048 MB CORSAIR DDR400 PC3200 - LIFETIME WARRANTY! (2x1GB)

Motherboard
ASUS® A8N-E/M2N-E: DUAL DDR, S-ATA, x16 slot, 3 PCI etc

USB Options
USB PORTS & 4 PORT USB HUB (ALLOWS USB ON YOUR DESK)

Hard Drive
SATA II 200 GB HARD DISK @ 7200rpm 8mb cache

DVD ROM/Combi Drive
16X DVD ROM WITH 48X CD ROM

CD/DVD Writer
16x +/- DVD WRITER (8x +/- Dual Lyr) (5x DVD-RAM) (40x CD-RW) (£23)

Graphics Card
512MB RADEON X1900XTX PCI Express + DVI + TV-OUT

Sound Card
SoundBlaster X-FI Extreme Music 7.1: £52

Network Facilities
10/100/1000 NETWORK CARD FOR BROADBAND

Floppy Drive/Card Reader
1.44MB FLOPPY DISK DRIVE

Case
Stylish Silver Aluminium Trigon Case + 2 Front/Side USB

Power Supply & Cooling
600W Super Quiet Quad Rail PSU + 120mm fan & CPU Cooler (£79)

Operating System required
MICROSOFT® WINDOWS® XP HOME (inc. Genuine CD & licence) (£59)

Monitor
HIGH END TFT: 19 INCH SILVER/BLACK: 8MS + DVI! (£149)

Keyboard
NONE

Mouse
NONE

Speakers
CREATIVE INSPIRE 7.1 T7900 SPEAKER SYSTEM (£65)

Printer
NONE

Anti-Virus
NORTON ANTI-VIRUS 2006 (£19)

Office Software
MICROSOFT WORKS 8.5 - Word Processing, Spreadsheets, etc (£6)

TV Card
NONE

Warranty
1 Year Return-to-Base Warranty + 1 Year Free Collect & Return: £5

£1356 Seems a great price to me. I think AMD would be the best option now, leaving me able to upgrade to the quad cores. ( is this possible ? will i beable to upgrade to AMD's next proccessors, whatever they are with am2 ? my choice could depend on this ) Whats your opinion ?

My budget being £1500, should i upgrade in some areas ( need around £50 for KBRD/MOUSE ) ? Or what should i cut donw, inorder to have a core 2 duo ?

Thanks for all your help guys, has been very useful for all my topics!
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post #9 of 17
8/2/06 at 1:28pm
oh my, you took a giant leap down in the CPU department.. that's definitely not the place to go for price cutting..
I'd cut prices from the original config by getting rid of the second DVD ROM (keep the burner), can't see any use at all with the floppy drive, don't pay extra for an anti-virus program when there's free ones like Avast (that's my choice and there's many other free ones, AVG is also popular), I suppose £6 is a good price for Works, but Office 2003 student and teacher edition is by far the best deal and it's legal to put it on three machines, try a lower video card (I'd personally get a 256 Mb Nvidia over anything by ati..) and lower the amount of RAM to the bare minimum they offer and buy from an online retailer (there has to be something that ships to the UK and it'll probably cost much less).
that'll be $3.50 (1.86536£)
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post #10 of 17
8/2/06 at 1:38pm
Thread Starter 
thanks D. Im actrually considering a different system entirely, as i heard that site doesnt give perticually good support. im still considering though.

only reason i would like to stick to that card is the fact that its at least in the top 3 cards on the market ( if not top.. i prefer nvid too, but you gotta give ati some credit ) and it seems to stay within budget. If i dont choose this card, what would you suggest ? ( ati or nvid ) i can choose from basically all of the top end cards. This isnt sli config though. Maybe a 7950 ? or 7900gtx ? or donw a grade to the 7900 gt ? im not sure.

I really am tempted to try building my own, but i dont want to risk anything. and the thought of no warrenty is very daunting. Ill definatly try upgrading myself.
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post #11 of 17
8/2/06 at 2:04pm
First, building a system is REALLY easy. I remember my first time and how scared I was, but when I was done I kinda kicked myself for being scared.. there's very little you can screw up as most everything will only fit in one way (you can screw up where the case plugs into the mobo for the power light/hd activity light etc though and I started a small fire once doing that ). but seriously, it's really easy and it guarantees you have the best parts, because you buy them yourself.
if you insist on the prebuilt though, I'd personally take a 7900GTX or even GT over anything ati, but I also wouldn't buy anything ati, so I'm probably not the right person to ask on that one never been a fan of their drivers and NVidia has never done me wrong..
I also buy things that aren't top of the line. You'd be paying a very large premium for the 7950 or 7900GTX because they're at the top, so if you can get over stupid benchmarking scores, I don't see a GT as a bad option. The games will still look great and that's all that really matters to me.
besides DX10 cards will be out eventually and that'll make whatever you buy right now an instant dinosaur
I'd definitely stick with a Conroe CPU though. That thing is the $hit right now and I don't think anyone will disagree..
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post #12 of 17
8/2/06 at 2:21pm
Thread Starter 
i think id like to build my own, especially as the patts get here a ton quicker.. but, i still think it cant be that easy.

what about the wires and everything ? do you need to buy any ?

if you would be so kind, could you list every single part needed ?
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post #13 of 17
8/2/06 at 2:44pm
i'd ditch Norton, thats $19 right there....see where else you can cut corners
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post #14 of 17
8/2/06 at 6:50pm
That was 19£ abf, not $19. quite a difference between those two numbers

ok, parts needed are this simple
case, which sometimes includes a PSU (power supply unit), but the good cases rarely come with one and a good PSU rarely comes in a case
PSU (if applicable)
motherboard
CPU
RAM
video card (multiple matching video cards if going SLI)
hard drive(s)
at least a CD burner although it would be stupid to only get CD when DVD burners are cheap and something you'll want

and believe it or not that's all you need..

you can also add:
sound card
additional hard drives/cd or dvd burner
floppy (if you insist)
multi card reader (for memory cards)
might need some fans if your case didn't come with enough or has room for extras
some sound cards and motherboards have an external interface you can buy which normally goes in one of the 5.25" slots

and then you can go extreme and buy watercooling, lights and things like that, but watercooling might make things a little more complicated

everything you need is going to come with those things.
the case comes with the wires for the power button, USB/firewire connections, power and HD lights and usually also comes with other things you might not want.
the motherboard will usually come with a million extra parts
hard drive will include a cable (although it might be old style flat instead of rounded and I'd definitely recommend rounded for air flow purposes)
a boxed CPU will come with a cooler fan which is guaranteed to cool the CPU enough under normal use, but won't be enough to do extreme overclocking
RAM just plugs in, nothing else needed
power supply comes with all the power wires and I recommend getting one that you can plug in only the cables you need, they're also usually rounded for good air flow
video card just plugs in, but may require a strong PSU, so decide on a GPU first and make sure the PSU supports it

and I think that's about it. you shouldn't need to buy anything else unless you want to modify, plus you're probably going to end up having at least a drawer full of extra parts, especially cables and screws..
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post #15 of 17
8/2/06 at 7:57pm
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post #16 of 17
8/2/06 at 7:59pm
i would go with conroe (whatever model) and down the x1900xtx to maybe a 7900gtx or x1900xt (which you can flash to xtx)
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post #17 of 17
8/3/06 at 12:54pm
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