[awgw201]

Hi there.

I need to buy a new PC baseunit, keyboard (wireless, 'pretty'), the best sub £100 sound system...I was wondering if you guys could help me with the best packages available for the baseunit (£350) and keyboard (max £40)...I am not too fussed Re. processor as my current sempron has been great but I was wondering about best place to buy (custom or not etc)...In terms of spec I need 150gb+ HD and would like at least 1g ram...

Any help MUCH appreciated

Alex

[slipend]

Try pcspecialist.co.uk

Have you considered building it yourself?

[skinnyman9000]

For £350 you could build yourself a very nice little system, or someone on here could build one for you.

Having said that i find the pcspecialist website to be very well priced, it would only cost you slightly more to have them build you one than it would be to build your own

[alex]

Had a nosey at the pcspecialist website for a build, and came up with this.



Processor (CPU)
INTEL® Pentium® DualCore E2140 (1.60GHz)800MHz FSB/1MB L2 Cache
Memory (RAM)
1024 MB CORSAIR DDR2 667MHz - LIFETIME WARRANTY! (2x512MB)
Motherboard
ASUS® P5VD2-VM: DDR2, S-ATA II, 1 x PCI-E x16, 2 PCI, etc
Operating System
WINDOWS® XP Home (inc. Genuine CD & License) (£59)
USB Options
6 x USB 2.0 PORTS (4 REAR + 2 FRONT) AS STANDARD
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
250GB SERIAL ATA II HARD DRIVE WITH 8MB CACHE (7200rpm)
2nd Hard Disk
NONE
RAID (HDD 1 & 2)
NONE
1st CD/DVD Drive
20x DVD±RW/RAM/Dual Layer + Lightscribe (48 x CD-RW) (£16)
2nd CD/DVD Drive
NONE
Graphics Card
256MB RADEON X1550 PCI Express + DVI + TV-OUT
2nd Graphics Card
NONE
Sound Card
6 Channel SoundMAX High Definition Audio (Standard on P5VD2-VM)
Modem
NONE, I WILL BE USING BROADBAND
Network Facilities
ONBOARD 10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT
Floppy Disk Drive
NONE
Memory Card Reader
NONE
Case
Stylish Black/Silver Sigma case + 2 front USB
Power Supply & Case Cooling
STANDARD 350W PSU with CASE FAN
Processor Cooling
STANDARD CPU COOLER
Firewire & Video Editing
NONE
TV Card
NONE
Monitor
NONE
2nd Monitor
NONE
DVI Cable
NONE
Keyboard & Mouse
NONE
Mouse
NONE
Speakers
NONE
Printer
NONE
Surge Protection
NONE
Webcam & VoIP
NONE
Media Center Kit
NONE
Anti-Virus
NONE
Office Software
NONE
Warranty
1 Year Return-to-Base incl 1 Year Free Collect & Return: £5
Delivery
Standard Insured Delivery to UK Mainland (Mon-Fri 8am-6pm) (Free)



Don't be fooled by the fact the cpu says "Pentium" This is just Intel reviving the name. This cpu has exactly the same architecture as a core 2. So it's basically a Core2 duo with a different name.

Getting Vista Basic instead of XP home would save £4. I mention this as I'm conscious I've gone slightly over your budget for the base unit.

You also get one year free collect and return should any problems arise. Much better than a RTB (Return To Base) warranty.

[alex]

Built this up on Dell's site. You can't not select a keyboard and mouse unfortunately.

You also get a card reader with this build, I de-selected it on the pcspecialist build. Don't know if that's important to you but thought it worth mentioning.

The gpu is an integrated solution on this build though, but to be frank it's much of a muchness with the X1550 quoted in the other build.

You can't have XP as your o.s though with Dell, and you do get MS Works 8.0.

£315.99

PROCESSORAMD® Athlon™ 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 4400+OPERATING SYSTEM GenuineWindows Vista® Home Basic - English MONITOR Monitor Not included MEMORY 1024MB 667MHz Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM [2x512]HARD DRIVE250GB (7200rpm) Serial ATA Hard Drive with 8MB DataBurst™ cache GRAPHICS CARD Integrated nVidia® GeForce® 6150 LE graphics OPTICAL DRIVE16x DVD +/- RW Drive KEYBOARD Dell™ Entry Quietkey USB Keyboard - UK/Irish (QWERTY) MOUSE Dell 2 Button USB Scroll Optical Mouse - Black Accessories SOUND SOFTWARE Integrated 7.1 Channel High Definition Audio SPEAKERS No Speakers FLOPPY/MEDIA DRIVES 13-in-1 Media Card Reader MODEMS No Modem MICROSOFT SOFTWARE Microsoft® Works 8.0 - EnglishServices & Software HARDWARE SUPPORT 1 Year Base Warranty - Collect & Return ACCIDENTAL DAMAGE SUPPORT No Accidental Damage Support SECURITY SOFTWARE No Security/Anti-Virus Protection - English
Also included with your system
Dell System Media KitResource DVD - (Diagnostics & Drivers)Shipping DocumentsEnglish Documentation with UK/Irish Power CordGedis Bundle ReferenceList D08515 Inspirion 531Order InformationInspiron Desktop Order UkStandard Warranty1 Year Base Warranty - Collect & Return

[alex]

Found This build, very nice cpu.

The only downside to it, in my opinion, is the customer service...or lack thereof. Lousy company for that.

[alex]

...Or if building yourself (so you know exactly what is going in the pc-I'm rather dubious over the Mesh build, considering it's cpu and the price, I'm concerned where they're compromising to keep the price down on the whole build).


Akasa Zen Case - Black Silent Cool Midi-ATX Computing case w/2 silent 12cm fans w/o PSU £28.78
Pioneer DVR-112BK 18x DVD±R, 10x DVD±DL, DVD+RW x8/-RW x6, DVD-RAM x12, IDE, Black, OEM £17.99
256MB Gigabyte 7600GS PCI-E(x16), Mem 800MHz, GPU 450MHz, 12Pipes, D-Sub/DVI-I/HDTV SLi Silent-Pipe £48.75
250 Gb HGST (IBM/Hitachi) 0A31636/OA33423 Deskstar T7K250, SATA300, 7200 rpm, 8MB Cache, 8.5 ms, NCQ £38.53
2GB (2x1GB) CorsairTwinX XMS2, DDR2 PC2-6400 (800), 240 Pins, Non-ECC Unbuffered, CAS 4-4-4-12, EPP £66.96
Asus M2A-VM HDMI, AMD 690G, S AM2, PCI-E (x16), DDR2 533/667/800, SATA II, SATA RAID, uATX £43.46
AMD AM2 Athlon 64 4400+ Windsor Core, Dual Core 2.3GHz, 2x 512KB Cache, Energy Eff'' Retail. £53.80.

Total: £300.01 with carriage coming in at £9.93. So £309.94 overall.

For the money, the case is superb.
Best, imo, optical drive out there.
Good low latency ram.
Decent chipset on the mobo. Decent mobo saying that.
New EE version AM2 cpu, nice speed.
Good graphics card for the money. Good balance as well considering the cpu. HDMI as well.
Best 250gb hdd out there, bar none.

Of course, the downside to this is you'll need to buy a windows disc as well, so it does take you, again, slightly over budget depending on which o.s and which version you purchase.

[leonhutton]

Originally Posted by skinnyman9000

For £350 you could build yourself a very nice little system, or someone on here could build one for you.

Having said that i find the pcspecialist website to be very well priced, it would only cost you slightly more to have them build you one than it would be to build your own

I built a nice computer for only £270 and its excellent, some of its features are...

• 500GB Hard Drive
• 2GB RAM
• AMD Athlon 64 x2 Dual Core 3800+ Processor
• DVD-RW
• iCute ATX Gaming Case (with 3x fans with blue LEDs)
• 500W PSU

Thats just some of it, I got the case of eBuyer.com, the PSU of eBay and everything else from overclockers.com

So yeah maybe build your own system and it is good to get someone to help you if its your first build, i did.

[alex]

Bugger. I omitted to quote a psu in the "build it yourself" build.

Forget that one for now then. Apologies.