Building a PC

[Leon]

OK, a while back I was talking about building a PC and several of you bods jumped up and said that you could do it for reasonable rates.

I'm seriously considering it, just need a month/2 to get the requisite £4-500 budget sorted.

I'd be looking for the highest processor speed and the most RAM that could possibly be sourced and put into a stable system in this price bracket. And maybe a hard drive that would make you weep... ;)
Leave rodent, keyboard and monitor out for now (tho if you can find a cheap 17-19inch TFT for buttons that would be nice)

hi-speed Graphics card, sound card, the usual tarty extras (not a games player but going to be running plenty of graphics software)...

Basically, I need a stupidly fast and powerful business computer so that I can run a number of memory chewing programs at once. IE Quark, PSP, FP/Dreamweaver as well as full video editors.

What have you? Any ideas?

Oh, and a fancy case would be nice but not essential... ;)

[Leon]

Oh yes
and recommendations for a server as I want to be doiung all my own webhosting within 6 months...

[dave_s13]

Don't know about the server bit but I'll do you a quote for a base unit.

Give me a few minutes.

[Scottie]

If you're only going to have the money in two months I wouldn't bother looking now :)

Prices change so fast that the spec would be different in two months !! On the plus side if you find a good system the parts should be less the longer you leave it !!

[dave_s13]

Right, this is based on todays stuff but it will give you an idea.

CPU
AMD ATHLON XP2000+ 266MHz FSB / with cooler

RAM
Crucial PC2700 256mb DDR

MOTHERBOARD
MSI KT4V-L SKT A Sound/lan/usb2.0 AGP 8X
http://www.msi.com.tw/program/products/mainboard/mbd/pro_mbd_detail.php?UID=362&MODEL=MS-6712

HDD
Maxtor Diamondmax Plus 8 40Gb ATA 133 7200rpm

CD RW
LG 48x16x48 IDE Internal CD-RW Drive - With Nero

MODEM
56K Hardware

FLOPPY
Generic 3.5" drive

CASE
Cheap and cheerful but it won't look cr@p

SOFTWARE
All evaluation copies you understand :) :-
-Win XP PRO
-Photoshop 6
-Dreamweaver
-Fireworks
-a couple of games
I can get you any other software on request.

That lot should fly your DTP stuff nicely.

Delivered to your door for £475

Obviously that may change a bit in 2 months and if you have any specific requirements that are not listed, just ask.

You'll get 12months warranty on all the bits.

Cheers

[Leon]

sounds promising :D
THe reason I said 2 months was coz its me b/day at the end of this month and i should have 3 months worth of invoices by then too :D
We like money
esp if it goes to making things go WHIZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzz

[Mark]

I can do you the following if you got a bit more cash

CPU
AMD ATHLON XP2200+ 266MHz FSB / with cooler

RAM
PC2100 512mb DDR

MOTHERBOARD
Asus A7S333 Motherboard

HDD
Western Digital Caviar 60Gb 7200rpm UIDE Hard Drive

Graphics Card
Sapphire Radeon 7500LE 128MB SDR AGP TV-OUT

CD RW
Liteon 52x24x52 IDE Internal CD-RW Drive - With Nero

DVD-ROM
Liteon 16x48 DVD

MODEM
56K V92 Hardware

FLOPPY
Panasonic 3.5" drive

CASE
350w Tower

SOFTWARE
-Win XP or 2000 (your choice)
-Photoshop 6
-Dreamweaver
-Fireworks
-Norton Antivirus
-Office 2000

All for £550 delivered at todays prices, as with Dave i can get most software and change the spec to your requirements.

To be honest not alot in it really in price with Daves as i priced his spec and came out with the same price and he could probably do the one above at the same price as me but probably about £200 cheaper than PCW / Time etc. :D

[Ant]

I'd defo go for 512MB which ever you choose. Now becoming standard memory size nowadays. :)

(says me plodding along with a P2 350, with 192MB :()

[RichSeal]

Originally posted by Nismo Mark
I can do you the following if you got a bit more cash

CPU
AMD ATHLON XP2200+ 266MHz FSB / with cooler

RAM
PC2100 512mb DDR

MOTHERBOARD
Asus A7S333 Motherboard


Sorry to hijack this thread, but how much could you do the chip, m/b and memory for?

[Papa Lazarou]

Speaking of fancy cases, whats the cheapest place to get a Lian Li or Coolermaster alu case from these days?

Also whats the current "best" chipset for Athlon/XP now? VIA KT400, the Nvidia one or some other type?

Haven't really been keeping up to date and it changes so much every few months :rolleyes:

[Filmidget]

On the case...

www.web-systems.co.uk (smallish but friendly place near me)

appear to be knocking out a Lian ali case for 60 quid in their shop. Not sure of the exact model, but looked nice, and it's the cheapest I have seen one at. I was sorely tempted but bought 512ddr instead.

Also Crucuial website are doing 512 PC2700 for 85 odd quid... cheaper than dabs and others I think.

Cheers, Phil

[dave_s13]

I could up that memory as required for a bit more dosh (about £30).

Note to everyone:
Always buy 'crucial' memeory, even if its a few quid more. Generic RAM has a bad habit of doing nasty things to your PC (crashing, turning off unexpectedly blah blah), Crucial stuff is great, always reliable.

And yes KT400 is the latest standard.

[Mark]

Originally posted by RichSeal
Sorry to hijack this thread, but how much could you do the chip, m/b and memory for?

£260 delivered and thats with the chip and memory fitted to the m/b if you so wished.

[dave_s13]

..

[Vipers]

Originally posted by Papa Lazarou
Speaking of fancy cases, whats the cheapest place to get a Lian Li or Coolermaster alu case from these days?

Also whats the current "best" chipset for Athlon/XP now? VIA KT400, the Nvidia one or some other type?

Haven't really been keeping up to date and it changes so much every few months :rolleyes:

if i remeber these guys make the things

www.bosse-computers.com

or variation of that address

KT 400 is latest if i remeber rightly, but thats only for the ramm, plus, u'll have to check with board man ufactuter to see if how much ddr400 ram it can take last time i looked, asus i think could only manage i stick of 512 ddr400 with no other ram n e where

may be fixed now so that it can except more ram than that

[dave_s13]

This is one with DDR PC3200 memory to take advantage of the KT400 motherboard. Also bear in mind this MB is AGP 8X compliant and also has a 133mHz IDE bus; all that means 'only' having 256meg of RAM doesn't really matter so much.....it will fuking fly, I assure you :)
Ram is something you can easily upgrade yourself anyway.

Price is the same surpirisingly, I can get some bits cheaper than I thought.

CPU
AMD ATHLON XP2000+ 266MHz FSB / with cooler

RAM
Corsair 256MB DDR XMS3200

GRAPHICS
Sapphire Radeon 9000 64MB DDR DVI TV-Out Retail

MOTHERBOARD
MSI KT4V-L SKT A Sound/lan/usb2.0 AGP 8X
http://www.msi.com.tw/program/products/mainboard/mbd/pro_mbd_detail.php?UID=362&MODEL=MS-6712

HDD
Maxtor Diamondmax Plus 8 40Gb ATA 133 7200rpm

CD RW
LG 48x16x48 IDE Internal CD-RW Drive - With Nero

MODEM
56K Hardware

FLOPPY
Generic 3.5" drive

CASE
Cheap and cheerful but it won't look cr@p

SOFTWARE
All evaluation copies you understand :) :-
-Win XP PRO
-Photoshop 6
-Dreamweaver
-Fireworks
-a couple of games
I can get you any other software on request.

That lot should fly your DTP stuff nicely.

Delivered to your door for £475

Obviously that may change a bit in 2 months and if you have any specific requirements that are not listed, just ask.

You'll get 12months warranty on all the bits.


ps.
I take back what I said about only buying crucial memory, if your spending a bit more the quality of the stuff I've specced is spot on.

[Mark]

Dave

What Graphics card is that using coz i cant see one in your spec :p

Consider my BBQ well and truely pi$$ed on :( :D

You must stop giving away the trade secrets Dave or we will never make any money :D :D :D :D :D

[dave_s13]

Good point, I've Edited my post accordingly and also amended the BBQ pi$$ing post, on reflection, your right about that one :)

[Martin T]

Originally posted by Papa Lazarou

Also whats the current "best" chipset for Athlon/XP now? VIA KT400, the Nvidia one or some other type?

The Nforce2 is undoutebly the fastest AMD chipset right now. VIA are incapable of designing a low latency memorte interface....