Building PC : Need help.

[nicK]

On a 1000euro budget, without having to buy a monitor, i'm hoping to put together a PC capable of playing the latest games, running and storing most software and basically all the usual computaer stuff.

Starting from the bottom, i need:

good motherboard (very upgradable)
decent hard-drive (80gb)
around a 2ghz amd cpu
a good/very good graphics card (geforce 2/3?)
some healthy ram
and whatever else is needed

any suggestions on what, exactly i should order and where from? i'm aware of the other "building a pc thread", komplett, dabs, etc..but just need some recomendations and details of some good, bargain hardware.
please do go into detail...

photty

I have bought various bits n bobs from this guy a few times. His prices seem to compete pretty well and it's an irish site so delivery charges are fair too

Heres an example of some pretty top range components:
Product Subtotal
Epox 8KHA+ SocketA ATX € 169.00
DDR-RAM 512MB PC266 € 149.00
Maxtor 120GB UDMA100 € 287.00
AMD Athlon XP 2100+ 1 € 348.00
Sparkle Geforce4 Ti4200 128MB € 296.00

Subtotal = € 1249.00

I mean its over your budget but you get the idea. Save on the HDD or get a slightly lower spec CPU. Actually thats a good idea because things like how much ram, disk access speeds and the video card are far more important than CPU. Anything over 1GHz is loads.

CodeMonkey

Getting similiar parts from www.komplett.ie

Abit KX7-333 RAID Mainboard Socket A DDR - 155.36

DDR-DIMM PC2100 512MB DDR CL2(generic) - 156.49
DDR-DIMM PC2100 512MB DDR CL2.5(generic)-106.95

Maxtor IDE ATA-133 120GB 5400RPM -215.61
AMD Athlon XP2100+ 1.733 GHz -277.59

Asus V8420 GeForce4 Ti4200 128MB DDR
- AGP, (V8420/DT) DVI, Tv-Out -292.93
(they also stock lots of 64mb version which uses faster memeory, they are cheaper and faster than th 128mb varieties)

total: €1048.44 (assuming you went for the cheaper CL2.5 ram)

Lemming

Komplett's shipping costs are also ludicrously cheap.

I ordered a Creative Labs GeForce4 ti4600 off them about 2/3 weeks ago, cost me 6.60 euro for overnight DHL shippingr. It was shipped from Oslo in Norway and on Irish soil inside of 23 hours. I got it the next morning (9am)

Inspector Gadget

...do you need any of these as well?

• Case
• Floppy Drive
• Power Supply
• Internal cabling (floppy/IDE/y-splitters etc.)
• Keyboard
• Mouse
• CD/DVD drive(s)
• Heatsink/Fan for the CPU
• Sound Card
• Speakers
• etc...

If so, I suggest you tone down the choices of components listed here to try and keep on-budget... it's always the little things that make the price mount up when home-building...

Gadget

JustHalf

Hoping you're not dead set on an AMD CPU, here's a list of components that should make a very good PC. I compiled it this morning. If you want to know about any component, ask me.

Gainward AGP GeForce4 Ti4200 64MB DDR - "Ultra/650TV/DVI",
E241,66
Chieftec Dragon Midi Tower (UK) Case w/300W Power
E100,77
Intel Pentium 4 1.6 GHz Boxed PC400 - Socket PGA478, 512kB "Northwood"
E199,53
Abit IT7 MAX Mainboard S478/DDR/533mhz - I845E, ATA/133, ATX, Raid, LAN, USB2.0
E253,74
Crucial PC2700 DDR-DIMM 256MB CL2.5 6ns - Unbuffered, Non-parity, 2.5V, 32Meg x 64
2xE86,56 = E173,12
IBM Deskstar 80GB IDE 7200RPM - ATA/100 Hard Driv 120GXP
E127,90
Actima DVD-drive IDE 16x/40x Tray - Retail
E59,93
NEC Floppy Drive 3,5" 1,44MB - Floppy Drive Internal
E19,00
CA Flat Cable IDE ATA66/100 - Harddrives - Cable etc. for 2 HDD
E9,50
CA Flat Cable Floppy universal 50cm - Cable etc. Serial
E2,92

Total (including 33.19 delivery) = 1221.26

Doesn't include keyboard or mouse (I presume you already have them?) and it's a really good machine. What exactly do you already have?

TacT

I'd go for one of the small packages here then consider what needs an upgrade and I'm sure you can work out some sort of a deal to stay within budget and get (justabout) what you are looking for.

Inspector Gadget

Not bad, JustHalf, but it's 20% over budget and, well, it's dumb!*

To be honest, I think some more beatings are required to get this thing down to E1000...

Gadget
* I mean it has no [EDIT: Delete this]sound card or[/EDIT] speakers

JustHalf

It has no speakers, but it DOES have a sound card (or at least, decent onboard sound).

It's a very good motherboard.

The thing is, it's very difficult to build a computer to spec when that spec is very rough. I'd like to know if this person needs:

• A case
• A DVD drive
• A floppy drive
• and Cables

before cutting down.

Saruman

Komplett has a kit: http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?action=info&AvdID=&CatID=&GrpID=&p=22768&s=fp

Seems good, €900 or so and you get most of what you need,
I would say this is the best deal.. but there may be something cheaper out there... It costs less than your budget so room to spare on extras like a writer. you can get one i saw on their site for €99 or so.. (40x at that!)

Inspector Gadget

Yeah, I was just editing my previous post when the notification of your post came in :rolleyes:

You're essentially echoing my original point - no harm, I'd imagine - of asking how many of the little things do you need, Scrappy]-[Nick? Did you just get a monitor somewhere, or do you have a PC you can scavenge from?

The IT7 is certainly a nice board - having said that, I have no great love of either Realtek or Highpoint hardware, but that's neither here nor there, I suppose - anyone know if that Gainward GF4 is a 1.5v card or not?

Gadget

JustHalf

Surely it must be a 1.5v card?

Diarmuid

I went with OCUK a few weeks back and built the base system for 600, picking a very good soundcard. Here's a pretty good setup for 1k.


Abit KR7A-133/AMD Athlon XP 1900/Globalwin CAK38-II - Bundle (BU-043-OC)
1
  - Abit KR7A-133 (Socket A motherboard) (MB-013-AB)   - AMD Athlon XP 1900 (CP-017-AM)   - Globalwin CAK38-II (HS-001-GL)   - Thermal Compound (sachet) (OA-001-GE) £190.50
£190.50
Crucial 512MB DDR PC2100 CAS-2.5 (MY-006-CR)
1
£102.80
£102.80
Maxtor DiamondMax D740X 80GB (HD-003-MD)
1
£83.00
£83.00
Sound Blaster Audigy SB1394 EG - OEM (SC-006-CL)
1
£42.00
£42.00
Gainward GeForce 4 MX (AGP) - Retail (GX-006-GW)
1
£115.00
£115.00
LiteON LTR-40125S 40X/12X/40X CD-RW - RETAIL (CD-004-LO)
1
£47.00
£47.00
Subtotal:
£533.30
Shipping: (Lynx Euro 48)
£25.25
VAT:
£105.99
Total:
£711.54


= 1137 Euro.

drop the cdr, and it'#s E1017

Saruman

Surely he can stratch to the €17.. maybe even €137 over budget.. not all that much... barely over £100 punt

KdjaCL

I`d go with an upgrade package from Peats.
CPU RAM MOBO ,case fan
they ahve a wide selection
wont be as cheap as some of the above but can build on it easily.
I got kk266plusr PC100/133 ram but the built in sound card saved me a few quid its 5.1 but i never used it as 5.1.
then you just need g card HDD and cdrom floppy.
Mouse and keyboard can get ps2 for now then get optical in a few weeks time .
Also check out PC World brown box department in Liffey valley and their broken box department i got some cracking bargains their.
I was suprised seeing as it was PC World
kdja

thegills

Just Half: There's no mention of a 17" monitor costing on average 200Euros

JustHalf

the gills: He specifically mentions that he already has a monitor

Saruman

kdja 2 things... firstly yes brown box at PC world is good value surprisingly... new overall manager dude and he has been shaking things up all over the place as far as i can see... secondly though Peats... eek the poor chap has a budget and peats and budget do not mix... they are about 3 times as expensive as komplett for instance... I mean i bought an athlon 2100xp for €275 (i think) from Komplett.. peats though sell a 2000xp for €490 or something there abouts... thats a lower clock cpu for more than twice the price.. i shudder to see the price of the 2100xp... On the plus side if somthing goes wrong.. bring it back to peats.. or in komplett's case send it back and be without for a few weeks.

Diarmuid

two points.

1. He said that he had a 17inch monitor but in any case it's pretty easy pick one up for 100 from buy and sell. I got one brand spanking new in the plastic & box for 100.

2. I wouldnt even buy a pencil in Peats. The few time I went in there the prices were so outrageous that I never bother looking in there for anything. Same goes for PC World, Compustore etc.... Marx and Dawncomputers are pretty good value, but you can beat OCUK or dabs

[nicK]

First off, thx for all the feedback - now i know not to rush into buying some "ok" pc..

Yes, i can use the monitor of my old pc for now, but all the rest of the parts are basically ****ed.. (case and motherboard etc are too small)

I need the case, floppy, cdr-w and dvd drives...

So, i'm just waiting for someone to advise me on the right parts for a gaming pc for approx 1000euro (give or take 150euro)

(the package on komplett seems "ok" but it doesn't have a cd-rw and the geforce4 is an mx version (which i heard are crap)

CodeMonkey

Ok, I don't understand this myself but the xp1800+ package is listed for 900.10 euros. If you enter all 9 items seperately into the shopping cart (use the quick item entry function), it only adds up to 896.54 euros. So just enter in the stuff yourself, take out the gf4 mx and put in a good one and then put in a cdrw of your choice, should not be more than 1100 euros and you can shop around for cheaper parts.

po0k

If it's a gaming PC you can dispense with the DVD rom.
Scavange the old drive from your old PC, along with the floppy, and *maybe* the sound card - what do you have left?

Get a class mobo, mid range cpu (1.6A Northwood P4 + 533fsb mopbo should be good here)
256 MB PC2700 Cas2.5nanoseconds DDR minimum I suppose, cheaper, more common and less hassle to install - Rambus costs too much.
Decent graphics card, JustHalf's Ti4200 looks good, TVOUt and 128megof ram are musts for longevity. Core can be overlcocked towards end of lifecycle.
Decently large hard drive, doesn't have to be 7200rpm, but wuold be desireable.
Get a comfortable case and a good quality PSU, 300W minimum,and a good brand - more and more are cheapo ones that'll give you untold hassle in the future and unsteady power supplies.

Scavange the modem from the old PC (56K I assume).
APir of decent headphones maybe, instead of speakers, if it's just for games. Speakers can be bought later, or hook it ot a hifi or something.
That should be enough.
Dunno how much that comes to, but if you have the cash left over, upgrade the sound card/ Optical Drive first.
Anyone else got any suggestions?

[nicK]

well, it's not a pc specifically for gaming. I just want one capable of playing the latest games etc. New DVD, cd-r and floppy drives are all needed, because as i said, my old ones can't be used...

the komplett one i think would be too expensive with a good graphics card and a cd-rw...an extra 400 maybe?!? minus the 150 included for the geforce4mx...so it would be 1150 without a keyboard, mouse, (sound card?), etc.. Would that be the best pc i could get for that price? I need to know before i actually order something i'll regret...

CodeMonkey

well, it's not a pc specifically for gaming. I just want one capable of playing the latest games etc. New DVD, cd-r and floppy drives are all needed, because as i said, my old ones can't be used...

Then you don't need that powerful a machine. A slower cpu and a geforce3 ti200 even will play all of the latest games quite comfortably. Get your priorities straight. If you are getting a xp1800+ cpu and a good gf4 card, then you are building an uber gaming system.

Would that be the best pc i could get for that price? I need to know before i actually order something i'll regret...

Yes, I haven't seen anywhere cheaper for that kind of spec.

Gerry

You can't have everything for nothing. If you want a good gaming pc, you have to spend a bit over 1000 euro. The suggested specs here are all pretty good, and komplett will not rip you off.

zAbbo

Get a new mobo/ cpu/ ram and HDD. If you`re looking to save some money, why not go for a second hand dvd and writer Here it will only cost E125.

Saruman

You can buy them new at Komplett for not much more than that... (wow you would think i work for them lol)

40x cdrw €96 http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?action=info&AvdID=1&p=22832&s=ut&CatID=3&GrpID=6

16x DVD €59.93 http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?action=info&p=17388&t=775&l=2&AvdID=1&CatID=3&GrpID=3&s=pl