Help with Upgrade

[TheTranquilEye]

I need a bit of advice from the forumers.

I will be upgrading a mate's PC in the next few days and don't have the time to research what's good and what isn't. I'm asking for the best bang for buck I can get and I know you lot have the skinny. I'll be re-using the HDDs, optical drive and PSU (NT 450W). He's decided on the case which is ATX. The rest will be bought from NT, so I need:

Mobo
CPU
RAM
GPU

Budget is £175.


PC is used for office tasks, internet and lightish gaming. His current rig has my old 9600 Pro which just about copes. He runs the PC on a 32" TV so ideally I'd like good playback for DVDs etc. OS is sorted already.

All advice gratefully received!

Cheers,

TTE

[snakedoc]

Moved to spec me forum.

[TheTranquilEye]

Ah, cheers. well out of touch with the forum layout it seems...:confused:

[InFiNiTy]

http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/specpage.html?MBB-2402G

http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/prods/Components/Graphics-ATI/ATIHD5400Series/Asus/EAH5450D11GD3.html#

[TheTranquilEye]

http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/specpage.html?MBB-2402G

http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/prods/Components/Graphics-ATI/ATIHD5400Series/Asus/EAH5450D11GD3.html#

Nice and simple!

I did look at the bundle route but one of the drawbacks is that the mobo only has 2 RAM slots. I'd like him to have the option to up the RAM without losing what he's already bought. I have a stick of 1gb 667 going spare, so was going to buy another to save money. If the mobo had 4 RAM slots that would provide an upgrade path.

My initial thoughts were:

http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/prods/Components/Cases/Cases/Novatech/IRISBLACK.html

http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/prods/Components/Motherboards/Intel775AllChipsetMotherboards/Asus/90-MBB72F-G0EAY0KZ.html

There seems to be some errors on the NT spec page for this mobo. It states that the Northbridge is an ICH9 and it has an 8 pin 12v socket. According to the Asus site, it's an ICH7 and 4 pin. I'm assuming Asus is correct...

http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/prods/Components/Memory-PCAndLaptop/DDR2-PC2-5300/667MHz/Novatech/RAM-671GB.html

http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/prods/Components/Processors/IntelPentiumDualCore/Intel/BX80571E5400.html

Which leaves me with about £40 for a GPU.

TTE

EDIT: Possible GPU choice: http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/prods/Components/Graphics-ATI/ATIHD4600Series/Novatech/4650512MB.html

It gets the Tom's Hardware thumbs up at least.

[TheTranquilEye]

Well, thanks for all the replies....:(

Picking up the kit I specced myself today, so I'm hoping I've chosen wisely. Only change being that I've gone for the 1GB 4650 with the thought that more memory would be beneficial given the size of the monitor it's going to run.

TTE

[Jonny2Bad]

Yes the 4650 is a more than capable card tte. Got 1 for a mate of mine and plays all new games on a 19" monitor at decent enough fps coupled with a intel 5300 overclocked to 3ghz.

[TheTranquilEye]

Cheers Jonny.

With a couple of tweaks, I managed to squeeze a stable 3.2GHZ O/C out of the E5400 even with generic 667 RAM. The rig seems very nippy and my mate is very pleased, so job's a good 'un.

TTE