Building a New desktop for £800($1600 ish)

[payney1987]

Hi there all!

this is my first post on this site and have found alot of the replies useful.

Iv been looking into buying a new desktop to replace my current machine. I found a web site called:

Computer Planet

this site offers very cheap builds with core duo 2 but i havent a clue what parts mean what and whether they are compatable. Here is a link to a PC that i thought seemed good. If you could rate this or suggest other parts i would be very grateful.

Computer Planet > INTEL CORE 2 DUO System

I have a monitor etc so thats not a problem and my friend is capeable of building from parts so this is also an option if you suggest it is cheaper to buy this way. My friend also suggested buying 2 hard drives one raptor 10000rpm 36gb to install the OS and a larger 400-500gb for installing everything else on to increase running speed. Is this advisable?

Oh and also im using the pc for lan gaming (new and up and coming games) and for high end 3d graphic design.


Thanks in advance for your help.

Richard Payne

 

[b1gapl]

Hey Payne,
Welcome to T.F.!


It's better that you have a friend, to help you build it. Buying the parts are almost always cheaper than buying it prebuilt.

Getting one raptor for the OS and the other for the rest is a nice idea. What you could also do is get two Seagate 7200.10 320GB hard drives, and put them into a RAID 0 configuration.

For that budget I would suggest:

Intel Core 2 Duo E6600
MSI P6N Platinum
2GB of G. Skill DDR2-800 HZs (Since you're doing graphic design, you could go for more ram, as this will benefit the designing program you'll be using)
8800GTS 640mb or an 8800GTX if you can afford
Corsair 620W or HIPER 580W or Antec
For the hard drives, you can go one raptor and one storage drive, or what I said earlier. Two big hard drives in a RAID 0 configuration.
Also an optional aftermarket cooling for the CPU, if you want to overclock. I would suggest the Tuniq.

You should buy from these sites instead, because they have more choices than computer planet:
Ebuyer
Overclockers UK

If you can wait for July 22, there will be a price drop on Intel's processors. You can get a quad core(Q6600), which will be around the same price as an E6600.

 

[M.Davies]

You have a pretty good budget which you can buy a pretty good desktop PC for as long as you build it yourself as a pre-built is just going to rip you off and make you fork out lots of money on a tub of old junk which you could get for cheaper if you just bought it yourself.

Asus P5N-E SLI 650i Socket 775 - £70
Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 (2.4ghz) Socket 775 FSB1066 4MB Cache Retail Boxed Processor - £150
Corsair 2GB Kit (2x1GB) DDR2 800MHz/PC2-6400 XMS2 Performance Memory CL5 1.9V Matched Pair with Heat Spreaders - £80
XFX 8600GT 256MB DDR3 540MHz Core Clock 2xDVI PCI-E -£98
WD Raptor WD740DFD 74GB SATA 10KRPM 16MB Cache - OEM - £96
Western Digital WD4000AAJS 400GB SATA 7200RPM 8MB Cache - OEM - £65
Huntkey True 500W PSU - 14cm Fan 20+4pin 2x SATA 2x PCI-E 2x 12V Rails - £40

Then all you really need is the few basics such as a case, Optical drive and maybe a new heatsink and some fans. This would work well with Windows Vista if you want it and be pretty good for gaming.

 

[saltynay]

good uk sites just in case you don't know where to buy....

Ebuyer - Cheap Computers Laptops Digital Cameras Televisions
Overclocking for Overclockers - Overclocker.com
Kustom PC's
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