Need help choosing a computer

thecremeegg

Yup the graphics card is very cheap and the RAM could possibly be better quality, but the motherboard etc is good.
For gfx, how much are you willing to spend extra? I recommend the 8800GTS 320mb for around £200 - will play any modern game at max settings whereas the one supplied will not

GoofyGAT

Initial thoughts are that that is very confusing, & the graphics card is going to be dire for modern games.

There also seems to be some upgrades that are more expensive than they should be??

For instance, Vista Ultimate OEM (which it's likely to be - correct me if wrong) costs only £112 - they're charging £175 - why?! Also, do you really need Ultimate? See my first reply in this thread.

'4GB RAM 667MHz £60.00 (upgrade)' - the system already has 4Gb 800Mhz RAM doesn't it?

'160GB HD + 500GB HD (SATA) £65.00 (upgrade)' - are they upgrading the 400Gb hard disk to these 2 drives for £65? If yes, this should actually only be £30 extra.

'Asus 54G Wifi £17.00' - this is not some extra is it? The motherboard has this wireless capability built-in. Btw, the mb & the processor are the best components in this system.

The original 8500GT is the better card (see comparison - many more tests in the review). They're not charging you £35 for this HD 2400Pro 'downgrade', are they?!

Can you just list all the components in the system individually? That would be a lot clearer.

The system I specced for you here is a lot better balanced, with many better components. I feel the 2Gb extra memory & Vista Ultimate are just not worth it in lieu of a much inferior graphics card. G

Cerro

Yes that card is pretty poor to say the least - I'd go with an 8800GTS 320Mb, if you're going for casual gaming.

They are also charging more than they should for some "upgrades" as others have pointed out... the spec I sent with links in the PM show you what the real price of these parts are.

I wouldn't bother with lightscribe either, just adds to the cost of the drives and the media that you need for it is more expensive too! I have the Asus Striker motherboard (the bigger brother of the board listed) and while it is a good board is has a shed load of issues which seems common place with most 680i boards and the Bios for these boards are still a little rough around the edges... I'd go with either a good P965 board or a newer P35 board (less features, slightly better performance but added cost), because Intel chipsets are best with Intel processors, makes sense I suppose.

I'd still go with the spec I sent - with a few changes:

CPU: E6600 (or E4400 if you are on a tighter budget)
Mobo: P35 (Gigabyte P35-DQ6) or P965 (Asus P5B or Gigabyte DS3)
Ram: OCZ/Corsair 800Mhz Cas4 or Crucial 1066Mhz Cas5 (there's better but on your budget and for 4Gb worth, you'd struggle to get it)
Gfx Card: 8800GTS 320Mb (XFX recommended)
Soundcard: Creative X-FI Audio 7.1
HDD1: WD Raptor 74Gb (OS)
HDD2: Samsung Spinpoint T166 500Gb (storage - 2 if you want Raid)
PSU: Silverstone 750W ST75F
Case: A big one with good airflow and easy installation, like the Aurora I suggested.
Drives: Dual Layer x16 DVD drives (LiteONs recommended)

Most of what I posted I have given you links to already and you can get Vista Ultimate OEM for £109 (Premium OEM is £62) - you can build all that for within your £1000 budget.

GoofyGAT

Cerro, nice spec. My only concern would be the ~£90 Raptor drive - overpriced & overrated IMO. I think you may have missed the monitor though? Minimum 20" required by the looks of it.

Ashok, Intel's newer better C2Ds are already listed on some websites.

E6750 = £113 - If the price is correct, that's excellent value for money. It' on par with the old E6700 (£185 at the moment), if not better.

E6850 = £160

The quad core Q6600 in my original list has since dropped by £18 - already a good sign of things to come. G

Ashok_2

Thanks guys, I made a mistake with the OEM, he was actually going to charge me £125, which cuts down £40 from price.

I made an error in original post too.. this is the base spec:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Intel-CORE-2-Duo-E6600-2GB-250GB-Vista-Ready_W0QQitemZ160136550067QQihZ006QQcategoryZ179QQtcZphotoQQcmdZViewItem

Also, it is £22 extra for 2 lightscribe drives so not £44.

Then if I minus the cheap graphics card included I have another £35 taken off and total is £907.99 and I'm happy to spend up to maybe £150 on graphics card..

On basis of above do you think the RAM upgrade of £60 for 4GB is still okay, and if you could let me know if the other upgrades are good value?

Now, I was told by someone else that the motherboard is quite bad?

Right now I need advice on:

• Whether upgrades and whole system in general are okay value
• What graphics card to go for, best possible graphics card for movies please. (but keep under budget of £1100 please)
• If motherboard is worth changing? And any other part..

Here is full spec as it is now (corrected:

P5VLM Soprano case £387.00
E6600
4GB RAM Upgrade £60.00
160GB HD + 500GB HD (SATA) £65.00
2 Lightscribe DVD+- 20x writers £22.00
Creative SoundBlaster X-Fi Xtreme Audio 7.1 £32.00
Asus 54G Wifi £17.00
Vista Ultimate £125.00
Samsung SM206BW 20" LCD £175.00
Postage £24.99
TOTAL £907.99

Ashok_2

Sorry guys, finding it hard to keep up right now.. Not sure what to do..

Stick to the spec I've been given (above) and make changes according to recommendations or start from scratch again!

GoofyGAT

The entire system (with upgrades) incl del is overpriced by around £170 - this would put me off straightaway. As you said, mb not good too. Not to mention the inferior case+PSU & memory. 4Gb is better than 2Gb, but by how much in real terms? You could always add 2Gb later if you felt the need.

Wait a few days for the Intel price drops & newer models to come into affect, then start looking afresh.

For the GPU, I would drop the 8800GTS for now & go for this X1950XT at only £105 (also included in my original spec) - that's £80 saved for something else, even more memory & Vista U! This X1950XT article couldn't have argued the case any better. In a couple of years you could go for a fancy DX10 one - by then prices would've fallen & hardware-DX10 games more on par with each other. Good things come to those who wait. G

Ashok_2

GoofyGAT wrote: »

The entire system (with upgrades) incl del is overpriced by around £170 - this would put me off straightaway. As you said, mb not good too. Not to mention the inferior case+PSU & memory. 4Gb is better than 2Gb, but by how much in real terms? You could always add 2Gb later if you felt the need.

Wait a few days for the Intel price drops & newer models to come into affect, then start looking afresh.

For the GPU, I would drop the 8800GTS for now & go for this X1950XT at only £105 (also included in my original spec) - that's £80 saved for something else, even more memory & Vista U! This X1950XT article couldn't have argued the case any better. In a couple of years you could go for a fancy DX10 one - by then prices would've fallen & hardware-DX10 games more on par with each other. Good things come to those who wait. G

Okay, well I'd been also getting opinions on Nv News forum, and a reputable member has offered to build, I'm gonna get him to price up something and maybe if I post again you can tell me what is better to go for?

The graphics card you mentioned, will that be good for my movies etc.?

Thanks again!

GoofyGAT

Ashok wrote: »

The graphics card you mentioned, will that be good for my movies etc.?

Are you kidding? That''ll be good for anything you throw at it - it's one of the best DX9 cards on the market. Only something like the overpriced X1950XTX would be better in games & 3D-intensive tasks.

Looking forward to the NV Forums member's spec & quote - it should be a lot better (we hope!). G

Cerro

OK here we go again

Monitor - well its a pretty personal choice and there's alot of them out there. You're looking for a 20" Monitor, with a good response time (12ms or less), decent contrast ratio (2000:1 or greater), DVI connector and a good viewing angle (important if you watch movies). The hardest one is the viewing angles because you can't tell by checking them online... but you can probably get a cheap one for around £150 or a good one for £200-250. You can spend more of course! I spent £300 on my one, two-three years back, its pretty standard now but it has outstanding colour and no ghosting and back then ghosting was pretty common in TFT monitors and black was often more like grey. You get what you pay for with monitors... well usually. A friend of mine recently bought a nice 22" Widescreen, some odd brand - really nice, its £250 but on ebay its £150 or so. I'll ask him what it was called, but point is... don't pay too much attention to brands, almost all of them are made by about 4 big companies and rebadged with a slightly different design.

Back to the important stuff (based on the spec you gave):

E6600 (£140) OR E4400 (£85)
Gigabyte P35-DQ6 (£130) OR Asus P5B-Plus (£95)
OCZ SOE Urban CAS4 800Mhz (£84 x2) OR Crucial BallistiX CAS5 1066Mhz (£95 x2 - P35 Mobo only)
EVGA 8800GTS 320MB (£199) OR XFX 8800GTS 320MB (£197)
Creative X-FI Audio 7.1 (£27)
Gigabyte Aurora Black (£77)
Maxtor 160Gb DiamondMax 20 8Mb (£30)
Samsung Spinpoint 500Gb T166 16Mb (£65)
750W Silverstone ST75F (£105)
LiteON 20X Lightscribe DL-DVD Drive (£19 x2)
Vista Home Premium OEM (£62) OR Vista Ultimate OEM (£109)

Total (Min): £949 (Max): £1107

Add delivery, Komplett has very cheap delivery, Scan is more expensive - but if you buy more from them, it gets cheaper (relatively speaking). Either way, can't see it coming to more than £50.

The problem with that second one you've spec'd is that the motherboard is bad. The ram is slow and it all makes a big impact on system performance. And yes, change that graphics card.

Building the system above would not be that difficult, the case is easy to use - because its big (I should know, I use the same case and PSU). The rest all just fits together so you really can't go wrong!

GoofyGAT, yeah the raptor is probably a luxury, certainly in Ashoks case although, in my case - I wanted the best I could get my hands on and it does seem to make a difference to system boot time. But as you said, wait awhile for the new cpus (and in a few more months the really nice, shiny new Intel motherboards)