MrMonkey Posted October 30, 2005 Report Share Posted October 30, 2005 (edited) Okay, your challenge, if you wish to accept it, is build me a tower unit for <£500, nothing stupidly great or nothing but needs to be good for playing games. I was going to have a go but motherboards stump me as do all these new PCI-Express graphic cards etc, any help would be muchas appreciated (Y) Thanks my lovelies. Edit: AMD 64 CPU, 120GB+ HDD, decent graphics card etc, you all know the drill. Edited October 30, 2005 by MrMonkey Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tomm Posted October 30, 2005 Report Share Posted October 30, 2005 Wanna buy my shuttle for £350? 3200+ A64, 9800Pro, 1Gb etc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TomN Posted October 30, 2005 Report Share Posted October 30, 2005 This maybe? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrMonkey Posted October 30, 2005 Author Report Share Posted October 30, 2005 Wanna buy my shuttle for £350? 3200+ A64, 9800Pro, 1Gb etc. Nah, want a full size thingy majigga. This maybe? And for the money that's absolutely pants, or maybe the extra bit makes alot of difference (Y) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tank_rider Posted October 31, 2005 Report Share Posted October 31, 2005 heres a quick one i knocked up, its a little over budget and you would need a case (anything cheap would do as i have specced a decent psu anyway) theres no opticle drive in there but you could downgrade the gfx a little to factor in a dvd writer fairly easily, the thing with that graphics card is that it can be unlocked to run at the speed of an X850XTPE which is one killer card. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Krisboats Posted October 31, 2005 Report Share Posted October 31, 2005 Theres actually an article in one of the computer magazines that have come out this month and they make a gaming pc for under £500 and i think it was a pretty decent computer as well. they even tell you the cheapest places to get all the parts from as well. It would definately be worth a look at as it should be in any decent newsagents. And you can always got to somewhere like whsmith and find the magazine, read the article then write down the names and prices of the shops they list. people always do that in my local whsmith and no-one gives a shit, one of my mates works there and she says that people will easily spend 30 minutes reading and walk out with nothing. (Y) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joe_Elding Posted October 31, 2005 Report Share Posted October 31, 2005 Wanna buy my shuttle for £350? 3200+ A64, 9800Pro, 1Gb etc. I do! Will have to wait 'til nearer christmas though Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrMonkey Posted October 31, 2005 Author Report Share Posted October 31, 2005 Limit has gone upto £600 now. So feel free to have a mooch around for more stuff. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Danny Posted October 31, 2005 Report Share Posted October 31, 2005 Limit has gone upto £600 now. So feel free to have a mooch around for more stuff. Andys list but with a 3200/3400/3500+ slapped in then ;) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrMonkey Posted October 31, 2005 Author Report Share Posted October 31, 2005 (edited) Andys list but with a 3200/3400/3500+ slapped in then ;) Andy said that I could probably overclock the 3000 upto speeds of the 3200, maybe a bit more, just through the BIOS, so I was wondering if there's anything else that may be upgrade worthy? Or is it all fine and dandy the way it is. CPU AMD® ATHLON® 64BIT 3000 (Winchester) 512kb L2 Cache (939 pin) Memory 1024 MB DDR400 PC3200 WITH LIFETIME WARRANTY! Motherboard ASUS® A8N-E: DUAL DDR, S-ATA, x16 slot, 3 PCI etc Hard Drive SATA 160 GB HARD DISK @ 7200rpm 8mb cache (Special Offer) DVD ROM/Combi Drive 16X DVD ROM WITH 48X CD ROM Graphics Card 256MB RADEON X800GTO PCI Express + DVI + TV-OUT Sound Card SoundBlaster Audigy SE 7.1 24-bit (Digital & Analogue) Power Supply & Cooling Silent 550W PSU + 120mm internal Fan I got all that priced upto £588. I dunno if it's good or not, way over priced or Ok? Edited October 31, 2005 by MrMonkey Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tomm Posted October 31, 2005 Report Share Posted October 31, 2005 Yeah, those Venice 3000+ are supposed to be awsome at overclocking. If you wanna give it a try, I would probably spend a bit more on RAM that is capable of PC4000 speeds or something. And then spend the rest of that extra £100 on a better graphics card. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrMonkey Posted October 31, 2005 Author Report Share Posted October 31, 2005 I already have 1GB of PC3200 RAM, so would I need to get new RAM at PC4000 or would just another GB of PC3200 be ok? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tomm Posted October 31, 2005 Report Share Posted October 31, 2005 Well if you wanted to overclock it you'd want RAM that is capable of faster speeds. You may be lucky and get decent PC3200 that will do faster speeds (My bog-standard PC3200 will do 215MHz, I would expect that Geil stuff to be good for more). Or you could just buy a faster CPU and use your current RAM. That's what I would do. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrMonkey Posted October 31, 2005 Author Report Share Posted October 31, 2005 Hummm diddly dum, I'm not sure what to do. I got a month to think about it though, so I should be able to get it all fine tuned by then. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Danny Posted November 1, 2005 Report Share Posted November 1, 2005 And not to mention in a month all the prices will have dropped ;) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fishwog Posted November 1, 2005 Report Share Posted November 1, 2005 (edited) You dig into Monkey, yet you start the damn arguement in the first place, whether or not you were trying to impersonate his existance on this forum or not, it still isn't a very good attitude towards it, being a Senior member and all? And as for that Flipkickbs dude, you sound like a bit of a conceited willy, trying to blend into the ever increasing amount of twats that surface Trials-forum, sitting on there computers bored at all hours of the day, trying to argue, for the f**k of it. AND, now my post seems absolutely inept, because Danny has deleted all the previous posts...... ;) Edited November 1, 2005 by Fishwog Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
the666ers Posted November 1, 2005 Report Share Posted November 1, 2005 I know it's not the right attitued but it's the only kind he responds to. It's just what he does at the end of the day - and I even stated that in one of my posts. Yes yes I know I'm meant to set an example - I apologize. Your avatar isn't doing you any favours if you want to be a sm one day by the way ;) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fishwog Posted November 1, 2005 Report Share Posted November 1, 2005 That's the whole point ;) I don't care in the slightest about being a senior, it is a bit of an anti-climaxed and overrated status, in my opinion (I feel I have to write that after every post, in case of arguementability..... is that a word?) just put it on there as a bit of a joke :P getting boring now though, don't know what to change it too.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tank_rider Posted November 1, 2005 Report Share Posted November 1, 2005 I still stand by me previous spec, its £50 under your budget but you need to factor a case into the equation, so a nice well built one of those should cost you around £50. As for the A64, make sure whatever speed you end up going for you go for a Venice core rather than a winchester as they overclock much better and have a better memory controller. RAM wouldn't really be as much of an issue with the A64's for overclocking as it can be run on a divider with minimal hit in performance due to the on chip memory controller. Obviously running the RAM at the same fab as the cpu is desirable to increase RAM bandwidth, however overclocking RAM often costs quite a lot. Monkey, if you already have a gig of PC3200 RAM do you really need another gig? If not it may be better to sell your existing stuff and get some overclocking RAM such as the Geil ONE and get a better overclocking motherboard such as the DFI LANParty Ultra NF4. As it is, unless you make the jump up to a 7800GT graphics card, you won't get much better performance than a flashed Sapphire X800 GTO2 as they are based on the same core as the X850 XTPE and so can be flashed to the same pipe configuration and/or overclocked up to very good performance levels. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Swize Posted November 1, 2005 Report Share Posted November 1, 2005 What exactualy is overclocking? :( Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dann Posted November 1, 2005 Report Share Posted November 1, 2005 Im in a bit of a pickle, tempted to buy an Alienware Area 51 after Xmas, or a new Imac, please dont give me you opions on the imac. but a little help to what to do would be good, i know the area51 is a shit hot piece of kit when you spec it up to the maxx! thats very very tempting! :( Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tomm Posted November 1, 2005 Report Share Posted November 1, 2005 Im in a bit of a pickle, tempted to buy an Alienware Area 51 after Xmas, or a new Imac, please dont give me you opions on the imac. but a little help to what to do would be good, i know the area51 is a shit hot piece of kit when you spec it up to the maxx! thats very very tempting! :( No, don't waste your money on an Alienware, unless you hate money or something. There are other alternatives which are far cheaper and just as good. In fact, some of the Alienware laptops are identical to other laptops costing hundreds of pounds less. Overpriced to the maxx! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tank_rider Posted November 1, 2005 Report Share Posted November 1, 2005 overclocking is the art of running componants faster than standard. It usually makes any warranties invalid, and can cause problems unless componants are correctly cooled. For instance, my CPU (AMD athlon XP mobile 2500+) has a default clock speed of 1.8GHz, however with some very good cooling i have it running at 2.5GHz and still keeping it well within normal operating temperatures. The degree to which you can overclock processors usually is dependant on what motherboard you have and what this allows you to control, as for large overclocks it is necessary to feed componants raised voltages to allow them to perform. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Danny Posted November 2, 2005 Report Share Posted November 2, 2005 And have a stupid mobile cpu :P Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tank_rider Posted November 3, 2005 Report Share Posted November 3, 2005 Hey Monkey, going by your revised max spend, this is what i recommend. You will still have to add a case, but i'll leave that down to your preferance (you should have at least £30-60 to spend on it so should be able to get a prety damn good one as you don't need it to have a psu in it, as i specced one of those already) Danny you know you want the mobile in my media pc (Y) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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