- Joined
- 21 Mar 2002
- Messages
- 1,693
Hello chaps,
I've not been on here for a while, I hope you're all keeping ok!
Anyway, I'm in the market for a new rig which I'm building for my cousin, who is 15. He's got about £300 - £400 in mind, which he's going to try and earn over the summer holidays so I have a few weeks to get this planned.
It's been a couple of years since I've bought any serious components online, and a few of my usual haunts are either a bit crap now (Novatech seems to be loads of own-brand stuff) or closed down (RIP Komplett). Where is a good place to get stuff these days? Dabs has always been reliable but a bit expensive. What's Microdirect like?
The other big question I have is on the rig itself. He's going to use an old PCI express graphics card of mine, as well as his existing screen, keyboard and mouse, and my old version of Vista x64. Basically I need to get a motherboard, a PSU, a case, some memory and a hard drive.
So far I have the following in my wishlist from Dabs:
MSI S775 Intel P45 DDR2 ATX Audio Lan
Intel Core 2 Duo E7400 S775 2.8GHz
Tagan TG680-BZII PipeRock "Lighting" Modular DC-DC PSU
CoolerMaster Elite 330 ATX No PSU Black
Western Digital Caviar 500GB S300 16mb 7200rpm
Crucial 4GB (2x2GB KIT) 800MHz DDR2 PC2-6400
That lot comes to about £380, which is on the high end of the scale. Idealy I'd like something closer to £300. The PSU seems to be pretty awesome as I'm a big believer in having a good PSU, especially as he'll want to get a better graphics card next year. That said, do you think it's overkill?
What about the rest of it? I'm a bit concerned that the motherboard is a bit old and may have some compatability issues with either the CPU or Vista x64. If there's an issue with the CPU then I won't get it but I can easily flash the BIOS if it's just a problem with x64.
Any thoughts or opinions you guys have would be really appreciated. Thanks.
I've not been on here for a while, I hope you're all keeping ok!
Anyway, I'm in the market for a new rig which I'm building for my cousin, who is 15. He's got about £300 - £400 in mind, which he's going to try and earn over the summer holidays so I have a few weeks to get this planned.
It's been a couple of years since I've bought any serious components online, and a few of my usual haunts are either a bit crap now (Novatech seems to be loads of own-brand stuff) or closed down (RIP Komplett). Where is a good place to get stuff these days? Dabs has always been reliable but a bit expensive. What's Microdirect like?
The other big question I have is on the rig itself. He's going to use an old PCI express graphics card of mine, as well as his existing screen, keyboard and mouse, and my old version of Vista x64. Basically I need to get a motherboard, a PSU, a case, some memory and a hard drive.
So far I have the following in my wishlist from Dabs:
MSI S775 Intel P45 DDR2 ATX Audio Lan
Intel Core 2 Duo E7400 S775 2.8GHz
Tagan TG680-BZII PipeRock "Lighting" Modular DC-DC PSU
CoolerMaster Elite 330 ATX No PSU Black
Western Digital Caviar 500GB S300 16mb 7200rpm
Crucial 4GB (2x2GB KIT) 800MHz DDR2 PC2-6400
That lot comes to about £380, which is on the high end of the scale. Idealy I'd like something closer to £300. The PSU seems to be pretty awesome as I'm a big believer in having a good PSU, especially as he'll want to get a better graphics card next year. That said, do you think it's overkill?
What about the rest of it? I'm a bit concerned that the motherboard is a bit old and may have some compatability issues with either the CPU or Vista x64. If there's an issue with the CPU then I won't get it but I can easily flash the BIOS if it's just a problem with x64.
Any thoughts or opinions you guys have would be really appreciated. Thanks.
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