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PSPkiller · 18/04/2010 01:25 PM

Well my parents have decided to give my brother (the lucky bastard) a new computer for his birthday. Originally it was to be a netbook then he discovered he wouldn'ty be able to run his Warhammer games (I am ashamed of him) on a netbook so that idea went.

Then it was a full blown laptop. So my dad went down to the local PC World to do a bit of spec-hunting with me on the other end of the phone. All they had for under £500 were old Pedntium D's with chocolatety GMA graphics. So that idea went also.

So I suggested (while in the French Alps) that I build him a desktop. My brother seemed happy with this so off I go and compile a quick build on my favourite computer components supplier's website. Here's what I have so far.

Motherboard:
Asrock K10N78 (Socket AM2+) DDR2 PCI-Express Motherboard   £45.18

CPU:
AMD Athlon II X2 Dual Core 240 2.80GHz (Socket AM3) Processor - Retail   £44.64

Memory:
Arianet 2GB (1x2GB) DDR2 PC2-8500C5 1066MHz Single Channel Memory Module   £46.99

Graphics:
XFX ATI Radeon HD 4650 XXX 512MB DDR2 PCI-Express Graphics Card   £35.24

HDD:
Samsung HD502HJ F3 500GB 3.5" SATA II Hard Drive - OEM   £39.94

DVD Drive:
Sony 24x Internal DVDRW SATA Black oem   £15.78

PSU:
OCZ StealthXStream 500W Silent SLI/Crossfire Ready ATX2.2 Power Supply   £44.64

CPU Cooler:
Coolermaster Hyper TX3 (Socket 754/939/940/AM2/AM3/775/1156) CPU Cooler   £15.26

Case:
Arianet 1009 Black Midi ATX Case no PSU   £13.31

TOTAL: £300.98

As you can see it's not exatcly top of the line. It doenst need to be bleeding edge technology quick. It'll be running fairly basic games on Wangdows XP. I've thrown in an aftermarket CPU cooler as I plan on overclocking the CPU a little. Just maybe bump it up from 2.8 to 3GHz.

The whole thing really needs to be fit-and-forget as I'll be going off to Uni in September. It needs to be very stable hence the cooler and a branded PSU. I have a couple of case fans lying around that I can cable-tie in as I've run out of fan screws.

Anyone got any suggested changes that I could make? Especially in the Graphics department as I know next to nothing about graphics cards. I've heard good things about the 4000 series but that's about it.

Any changes need to be within budget. At the moment my budget is £300 but with the ability to stretch a small amount If I can convince my brother to put some of his own money into it. Also I'd like to keep all comonent ordered from Aria as it just makes things easier. If I have to I could maybe get some parts from eBay (such as RAM. Overpriced on Aria if you ask me.)

ProperBritish · 18/04/2010 03:45 PM

looks pretty nice man

im bringing my i7 rig to uni hopefully ;D

D: what uni you going to?
im going to uni this year too

PSPkiller · 18/04/2010 04:23 PM

(18/04/2010 03:45 PM)ProperBritish Wrote: looks pretty nice man

Why thank you. I have just discovered Hybrid SLI though. It looks like it could be an interesting feature to use. It does need an Nvidia 8400GS or 8500GT (according to the motherboard manual) to take advantage of though.

What do you think would give better performance? A Radeon 4650 working on its own or one of the listed Nvidia cards working alongside the onboard graphics?

(18/04/2010 03:45 PM)ProperBritish Wrote: im bringing my i7 rig to uni hopefully ;D

Jealous. Still rocking a Core2Duo laptop (T8100) and an ancient AMD Athlon Thoroughbred 1.8GHz desktop. I gave my slightly less spoon Pentium 4 HT setup to my dad and I got his Thoroughbred in return. Been meaning to try overclocking it for a while.

(18/04/2010 03:45 PM)ProperBritish Wrote: D: what uni you going to?
im going to uni this year too

University of Glamorgan, Atrium Campus in Cardiff to do sound technology.

What you doing/where?

ProperBritish · 18/04/2010 04:36 PM

(18/04/2010 04:23 PM)PSPkiller Wrote:
(18/04/2010 03:45 PM)ProperBritish Wrote: looks pretty nice man

Why thank you. I have just discovered Hybrid SLI though. It looks like it could be an interesting feature to use. It does need an Nvidia 8400GS or 8500GT (according to the motherboard manual) to take advantage of though.

What do you think would give better performance? A Radeon 4650 working on its own or one of the listed Nvidia cards working alongside the onboard graphics?

(18/04/2010 03:45 PM)ProperBritish Wrote: im bringing my i7 rig to uni hopefully ;D

Jealous. Still rocking a Core2Duo laptop (T8100) and an ancient AMD Athlon Thoroughbred 1.8GHz desktop. I gave my slightly less spoon Pentium 4 HT setup to my dad and I got his Thoroughbred in return. Been meaning to try overclocking it for a while.

(18/04/2010 03:45 PM)ProperBritish Wrote: D: what uni you going to?
im going to uni this year too

University of Glamorgan, Atrium Campus in Cardiff to do sound technology.

What you doing/where?

hopefully going to university of Hull to do computer science with games development :)

i cannot wait to go to uni ^^

Assassinator · 18/04/2010 04:53 PM

(18/04/2010 01:25 PM)PSPkiller Wrote: PSU:
OCZ StealthXStream 500W Silent SLI/Crossfire Ready ATX2.2 Power Supply   £44.64

CPU Cooler:
Coolermaster Hyper TX3 (Socket 754/939/940/AM2/AM3/775/1156) CPU Cooler   £15.26

Case:
Arianet 1009 Black Midi ATX Case no PSU   £13.31
[quote=PSPkiller;302531]CPU Cooler:
Coolermaster Hyper TX3 (Socket 754/939/940/AM2/AM3/775/1156) CPU Cooler   £15.26

I say dump the custom cooler, and also get a cheaper lower wattage PSU (since you don't really need that much), or maybe a case that comes with a PSU.

I'd dump as much money into the CPU/GPU (or maybe more RAM?), which actually effects performance, than stuff like custom coolers/PSUs, which don't effect performance, when there is limited amount of funds. Having a PSU that's more expensive than your GPU for a gaming PC is sort of... weird...

Meh, that's my 2 cents.

PSPkiller · 18/04/2010 04:53 PM

(18/04/2010 04:36 PM)ProperBritish Wrote: hopefully going to university of Hull to do computer science with games development :)

i cannot wait to go to uni ^^

Go on any open days at other unis?

(18/04/2010 04:53 PM)Assassinator Wrote: I say dump the custom cooler, and also get a cheaper lower wattage PSU (since you don't really need that much), or maybe a case that comes with a PSU.

I'd dump as much money into the CPU/GPU, which actually effects performance, than stuff like custom coolers/PSUs, which don't effect performance, when there is limited amount of funds. Having a PSU that's more expensive than your GPU for a gaming PC is sort of... weird...

Meh, that's my 2 cents.

Just noticed that little price discrepancy myself. I'd rather not go for an un-branded PSU from all the horror stories I've heard. Arianet stuff is't too bad though from what I've heard. It's not actually going to be my computer so if it does go bang I don't really have much reason to care.

As for upping the CPU and GPU would swapping the current Athlon II for it's equivalent Phenom II make much difference? From what I've heard the Athlon II is based on the Phenom II. Also is a Radeon 4670 much of a step up from a Radeon 4650? It's about £20 more but is it worth the extra money?

ProperBritish · 18/04/2010 04:58 PM

(18/04/2010 04:53 PM)PSPkiller Wrote:
(18/04/2010 04:36 PM)ProperBritish Wrote: hopefully going to university of Hull to do computer science with games development :)

i cannot wait to go to uni ^^

Go on any open days at other unis?

no lol

i knew from the start i wanted to go to hull

Assassinator · 18/04/2010 06:53 PM

(18/04/2010 04:53 PM)PSPkiller Wrote: Just noticed that little price discrepancy myself. I'd rather not go for an un-branded PSU from all the horror stories I've heard. Arianet stuff is't too bad though from what I've heard. It's not actually going to be my computer so if it does go bang I don't really have much reason to care.

I actually had a PSU blow up on me before, when i upgraded my comp about a year ago.  But that was an extremely shitty PSU with really no brand (I spent like 5 minutes looking for the brand, can't find it), that I got from my old computer that wee got many years ago...  Couldn't handle my quad, popped and died.  Now sitting on some 460W Coolermaster CPU that came with the case I bought, works fine.

Branded PSUs of the lower end should still be pretty cheap.  Can get a 430W Thermaltake PSU (the basic one, not the fancy/silent/80+/whatever ones) for like $40AUD (~25GBP) here.

No idea about Arianet.  Never heard of them, don't think you can get that brand here in Australia.

(18/04/2010 04:53 PM)PSPkiller Wrote: As for upping the CPU and GPU would swapping the current Athlon II for it's equivalent Phenom II make much difference? From what I've heard the Athlon II is based on the Phenom II. Also is a Radeon 4670 much of a step up from a Radeon 4650? It's about £20 more but is it worth the extra money?

I think I heard somewhere that at the same clock, Phenom2 is about 10-20% faster than Athlon2, don't know how accurate that is, so you may want to do some research yourself.

As exactly how much benefit the 4670 is over the 4650, don't really know.

ZiNgA BuRgA · 18/04/2010 10:19 PM

(18/04/2010 01:25 PM)PSPkiller Wrote: CPU:
AMD Athlon II X2 Dual Core 240 2.80GHz (Socket AM3) Processor - Retail £44.64

What are the prices of the 245 and 250 etc over there?
Over here, it's like a few $, so if similar, get the higher number and ditch overclocking and keep the warranty.

(18/04/2010 01:25 PM)PSPkiller Wrote: Memory:
Arianet 2GB (1x2GB) DDR2 PC2-8500C5 1066MHz Single Channel Memory Module £46.99

Don't need 1066MHz, stick to 800MHz. Up to 4GB if you can, otherwise, probably doesn't matter much.

(18/04/2010 01:25 PM)PSPkiller Wrote: Graphics:
XFX ATI Radeon HD 4650 XXX 512MB DDR2 PCI-Express Graphics Card £35.24

4670 is like double performance of the 4650. Also check prices on the 5570, should be comparable to a 4670.

(18/04/2010 01:25 PM)PSPkiller Wrote: PSU:
OCZ StealthXStream 500W Silent SLI/Crossfire Ready ATX2.2 Power Supply £44.64

Yeah, you can cheapen the PSU if you want.

I'd agree with the CPU cooler - AMD stock coolers suck.

Otherwise, it sounds that performance isn't an issue, and quite frankly, Athlon IIs are like damn fast for most things.
If there's a store which builds stuff, you could do that if they offer warranty services for their builds (= less hassle for you later on).

Assassinator · 18/04/2010 10:36 PM

(18/04/2010 10:19 PM)ZiNgA BuRgA Wrote: I'd agree with the CPU cooler - AMD stock coolers suck.

They aren't great, but they work, and this is a budget build.

+ I'm overclocking a quad, on an AMD stock cooler, and nothing blew up yet, so it'll be just fine.

(18/04/2010 10:19 PM)ZiNgA BuRgA Wrote: Otherwise, it sounds that performance isn't an issue, and quite frankly, Athlon IIs are like damn fast for most things.

Dump the money on the GPU instead, since this is a gaming machine, and GPU's what counts most for gaming.

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