Hi, I'm looking to upgrade my computer (i.e build a brand new one). I'm personally a software person so my knowledge of hardware is pretty rubbish (although I know how to put everything together). I've got around about £300 to spend and was wondering what I should get for my money (and the best place to buy it for the UK). What I use my PC for: I'm a web developer and as such I usually have about 5 or 6 pieces of software open at any one time (photoshop, dreamweaver, fireworks, ftp program, multiple browsers for testing etc etc) so RAM will probably be quite high on the list. I don't usually play games but would like to have the computer power to install the latest and greatest if needs be (as well as install Vista). Ideally I'd like a computer with enough grunt to see me through for the next year or two. Thanks in advance!
Hi, on a budget of £300, you will deffenitly struggle to run the latest and greatest in pc games, and i think you will proberbly struggle with running Vista too. Windows Vista is set to be using over 1GB of ram just for itself , so your going to really need around 2-3gb, possibly even 4GB with all these applications and Vista. 2GB would be fine in Windows Xp though. I am going to try my best to make a selection of Hardware for you, but i really think that you should save and upp your budget to around £600 - £800 for something good. I am going to select the parts form overclockers.co.uk, you dont have to buy form here, but i would reccommend it personly, really good service, fast delivery aswell. Are you planning on using some Hardware from your old machine such as HDD and DVD Drive? I am going to list the basics for a system. Infact, your really are going to struggle at £300, also, never buy from pc shops, especially small ones, they charge sky high prices, pc world are one of those, so imagine what small highstreet shops have to charge to compete with the likes of PC world. Online shops are the way to go :good: Ok, i am going to piece together 2 systems, on which 1 of them i am going to try to squeeze into the budget and then i will list the parts for a reccommended system. Budget System (AMD) (Windows XP, partial Multitasking) CPU:AMD Athlon 64 3000+ (Socket 939) - OEM Mobo: Components » Motherboards » AMD 939 Micro-ATX - Overclockers UK Ram:Crucial 1GB DDR PC2700 CAS 2.5 (CT12864Z335) 1GB of ram should be suffice to run most applications like Macromedia Fireworks. GPU:Sapphire ATI Radeon X1300 XT 256MB DDR2 AVIVO TV-Out/DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail PSU:Akasa AK-P040FG8-BKUK 400W Green Power 80+ Decent PSU, good quality, will be sure to give good performance. This all comes to £273, this is not including Postage, this is also the bare stuff required to run a computer appart from the Hard Drive. The above system wont be suitable for running the latest and greatest games, and in no way suitable for Vista. Reccommended System (Intel) (Games, Windows Vista, Multitasking.) CPU:Intel Core 2 DUO E6300 "LGA775 Allendale" 1.86GHz (1066FSB) - OEM Core 2 Duo, this is the latest CPU's from Intel, there also preety much beat AMD, even the lowest end Core 2 Duo does. Mobo:Abit AB9 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard Ram:Corsair 2GB DDR2 Value Select PC5300 Dual Channel Kit (2x1GB) (VS2GBKIT667D2) 2GB ram should be good enough ro run all your programs to a good standard in Windows XP, you should be able to run Windows Vista at ok levels, i reccommend upgrading ram later on for Windows Vista though. GPU:BFG GeForce 7600 GT OC 256MB GDDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail PSU:Seasonic M12 Modular 600W Silent ATX2.0 Power Supply Never cut corners and buy a cheap PSU, you'll be sorry, a cheap 600w psu will perform worse than a decent 450W psu from a manufacturer thats got a good reputation, like Hiper, enermax, antec, PC P&C < The Best, Seasonic < another one of The Best, tagen, thermaltake. The total comes to £568, this is an ideal setup, later on though you might want to upgrade Ram as i said. The CPU, Motherboard and GPU Also could be upgraded later on to cater for more advanced games but this is a good start, it will run vista and i am failry certain you could play top games like F.E.A.R, Oblivion, Call Of Duty 2 at fairly high settings.
