Before buying PC please ask our advice first!

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Reply 100

james101

What does everyone think of the ATI X800GTO 256MB graphics card?

Reply 101

PieMaster

The x800GTO/GTO2's are the best mid-range choice at the minute.

Reply 102

Mad Vlad

I concur with PieMaster.

Reply 103

james101

Thats good as i bought it for £105 a few weeks ago, i believe its the cheapest price around.

Reply 104

Sasuke!

hi all i am thinking about getting a new computer and i was wondering how much knoledge do you need in order to build a computer, im talking about with a budget of say £200, i dont need it too fast approximately about 2.2ghz, i mean im at 0.7ghz right now so anything is better right!! and i heard that AMD is cheaper but is it ok for the long term becuse i dont intend on changing the computer, i mean my computer has lasted me for 6 years. oh and i know a littlt bit about the components but not anough to know compatibility!

Reply 105

PieMaster

vincent

i heard that AMD is cheaper but is it ok for the long term becuse i dont intend on changing the computer

AMD is probably better in the long term, but at your price point you'll be buying into an older platform (as in s754 where all the current new chips are s939)
If you can stretch a little bit more, you'll be in 64bit Sempron teritory which are incredibly good budget processors.

Whats your current full spec, and do you require a screen / keyboard etc

Reply 106

Sasuke!

nah i have a LG Flatron monitor, nice keyboard and mouse the the pc has the following spec:
processor: Intel Celeron 701 mhz
RAM: 384 (SD i think)
Hard drive: 8GB

the other things i dont know about. its a pretty old packard bell computer!

Reply 107

PieMaster

Can't really salvage anything from that.

I'll knock up a specification now :smile:

Reply 108

PieMaster

Antec SLK1650/mt 350w Smart ATX Black Case £40.49
AMD Sempron 2800+ 64Bit Architecture 1.6ghz Skt 754 Box £42.48
Asus K8U-X Skt754 ULI M1689 +SATA RAID +LAN SPDIF +6Ch.audio £27.22
Corsair (VS512MB400) 512MB, DDR400 / PC3200 £23.82Western Digital WD1600JS Caviar SE 160GB 7200RPM SATA2/300 8MB Cache £46.94
NEC ND3550A 16x DVD±RW Dual Layer Internal IDE (Black) £24.29
MSI Fx5200 8x AGP 128MB TV-Out Retail Box £22.12

Cart Total: £227.36
Shipping Band: £7.24
Shipping Surcharge: £1.20
SubTotal: £235.80
VAT: £41.31
Total: £277.11

You could probably hunt around for a few cheaper things like onboard video etc, but thats a pretty decent spec.

Reply 109

Sasuke!

what did you mean by salvage? oh cool you live in norwich, my cousin lives there, random i kno jsut though that id mention!! what you study?

Reply 110

Sasuke!

i was considering getting one from ebay which ia approximately 300, but thing is i dont trust it that much and if i was to get one i would like to pick it up just in case!! what do you think?

Reply 111

PieMaster

Be very weary of the ~£300 systems on eBay, they normally use really bad componenets and are poorly built. If you have the knowledge build your own, its really not that hard.

By salvage I mean hardware you could keep and put in the new system.

I do computing science by the way :smile:

Reply 112

Mad Vlad

vincent

i was considering getting one from ebay which ia approximately 300, but thing is i dont trust it that much and if i was to get one i would like to pick it up just in case!! what do you think?

If you're going to do that, you might as well buy a Dell computer - which I'd recommend as much as getting repeatedly beaten over the head with a 50 tonne weight.

Reply 113

Sasuke!

i thnk that building my own computer is too much for a person like me, if it goes wrong then it wont be good, i have decided that i might buy a computer off ebay, i ahve spoken to the guy on the phone and he has said that he has a lot of computers and wants to get rid of some, is this too good to be true, i mean he has said that i can come and collect it, and he is giving me a TFT montot too, is this too gooe to be true? also he mentioned a dual processor and that many computers have this, its is a 3.2 but he has said that it is made up of two 1.7 procesors!! im not a genius in computing so could anyone explain this and is this the norm?
thanks you guys really do know your technology!!! and what are you processing speeds?

Reply 114

PieMaster

Have you got a link to the auction?

If its a dual core Intel, start running now or the fireball will engulf you. I heavily doubt you'll get an AMD X2 PC and a TFT for £300, the processor alone costs nearly that.

Reply 115

Sasuke!

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=8759308445&rd=1&sspagename=STRK%3AMEBI%3AIT&rd=1
here is the link

Reply 116

Sasuke!

oh and the other one that i was considering was this one, but the specs are not that great, i could get this for £100

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=8756814757&sspagename=ADME%3AL%3ARTQ%3AUK%3A1&rd=1

Reply 117

PieMaster

Hell no, youre getting scammed if you buy the 'dual core' one - they weren't made a year ago. The seller is confusing dual core with HT (HyperThreading) which does nothing except get a P4 back upto the speed it should be running at if it didnt have a stupid design.

The second one is far from a 'gaming pc', but at least it has a picture of the actual PC.