New build!!

[michael]

(I've already posted this in the general hardware forum until I realised that here would be more suitable)

Hello again.

I am on the hunt for advice about a computer that I am building for someone.
He will be using the computer mainly for work, which will be work with engineering programs. He won't need a super graphics card for this but probably decent ram as the programs will be using a lot, a few open at a time.
The budget is around £400 - £450.

I was going to put a 500gb F3 samsung in there,
Antec VSK 2000 Case,
OCZ 500w power, would it need that much? Or a cheaper option?
Would I be better off putting an AMD Athlon II X4 630 Quad Core 2.8GHz Socket AM3,
or better off sticking with a dual Intel Dual Core E6600 2 x 3.06Ghz 2MB Cache 1066 FSB Dual Core Processor?

MOBOs are where I get a bit stuck, there's so many!!
Should I only be looking at DDR3 as this will be a long term investment and I will be upgrading it every few years for him?

Cheap graphics cards also lose me, it's easy to chose expensive ones!
Novatech GeForce 210 512MB GDDR2 VGA/DVI PCI-Express - Retail with PhysX, CUDA & 3D Stereo Something like this I guess!??!
I already have the OS sorted

I think that that's all for now!

Really appreciate any help, thanks:D

[system7]

Hi mate. You may not even need a graphics card with these AMD boards and an Athlon II X4 630 since onboard is really quite good:

Asus M4A785D-M Pro supporting DDR2 memory if you already have some.
http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/prods/Components/Motherboards/AMDAM3AMDChipsetMotherboards/Asus/90-MIB920-G0EAY00Z.html


Asus M4A88TD-M EVO/USB3 supporting DDR3 memory.
http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/prods/Components/Motherboards/AMDAM3AMDChipsetMotherboards/Asus/90-MIBD05-G0EAY00Z.html


Both have a good upgrade path and even support 6 core CPU, but naturally the 880G is newer and has all the latest goodies:
http://www.asus.com/product.aspx?P_ID=GieCoWs1Eigeef6i&templete=2

OCZ 500W power supply is good value, but the 400W would do. I'd get the quad by preference these days.

[Andrew Moore]

I have a system for sale :P

However, failing that cheek...
I second what steve has said above... the latter 880G is the better bet in terms of what you can get out of the system however it is debabtable if you will see any gains over the 785. The fact it has ddr3 is a bonus too as ddr2 is becoming old tech and is almost on par price wise for a lower performance.

That X4 may worth being ditched in a bud to look at phenom2 550. Its a much better cpu in games
and wont be much slower in windows tasks or many programs your friend may be using for work unless he uses heavily bias to multi thread programs. A list of programs he uses may be of use here?


Andy

[michael]

Thanks for the help!!

This is how far I have got,
Stick with the case, go to a 400watt PSU,
Go with the http://bit.ly/aALvnA MB,
http://bit.ly/a9HLjS ram, looks like the best value for money, and will convince him to buy another at some point.

Now, Processors.

Either http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/prods/Components/Processors/AMDAthlonX2AndX4/AMD/HDZ555WFGMBOX.html
Or http://bit.ly/besMvr
Leaning towards the quad. Unless anyone has any suggestions.

He has asked for a graphics card so I'm looking for one around the £35.00 mark, got this for now
http://bit.ly/a0Xknr

Also a cheap DVD drive,
price to include Office.

The programs will be very simple, not sure what they are but they can run on his average Dell laptop so should be fine on this!

Would anyone make any changes to what I have said?

[system7]

All looks pretty good to me, my friend. As it goes, that setup will also overclock pretty well, the benefit of a good motherboard! :thumbs:

If it was me, I'd look at a 80 SP Radeon HD 5450 graphic card. It should Hybrid Crossfire with the 40 SP onboard graphics for a perfomance boost. Very similar to a GT210 really.

http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/prods/Components/Graphics-ATI/ATIHD5400Series/Sapphire/11166-01-20R.html

[michael]

Thanks!

I figured that the MB was the thing I didn't want to be replacing so made it a good one! I think I will convince him to go with that.

Looks like I'll be going to novatech on friday and picking it all up,

Thanks loads for all the help!!!
Really appreciated:banana:

[system7]

A quality PC, Michael, with an upgrade path. Wouldn't mind that one myself. :thumbs:

[michael]

Thanks, do you know how would it cope with 64bit XP?

[system7]

Wouldn't expect a problem, but you can look up XP 64 downloads at Asus for that motherboard. Server's too busy at the moment though. :D

Windows 7 retail ftw though. :thumbs:

[michael]

I know! The reason that I am being forced to put xp in is that some of the programs he uses aren't 7 compatible yet, will upgrade him when they are!!