PC for £1800 - What parts would u buy??

[MrMacca]

Ok I have been floating around many Forums asking this same question and I havent really found an end to my Final Spec. So Im asking you guys now.

If U had £1800 to spend on a New Computer. what would you spend it on?? Im a gamer so I want it to play games with eaze. So please post me parts you would buy.

Heres the one I am thinking about Purchasing.


MOBO - Abit KT7 Raid Mobo - £139 - Dabs.Com

CDRW - Plextor - Internal IDE,Read Speed 32x,Write Speed 12x,Re-Write Speed 10x - £180 - Dabs.Com

Monitor - Mitsubishi DiamondPro 19inch - about £400

DVD - Creative Encore 12x Infrared - £130 - Dabs.Com

CPU - 1 Ghz Athlon Thunder Bird - £163 - CCL Computers

Hard Disk - 45 Gig IBM 7200rpm UDMA100 - £153 - CCL Computers

RAM - 2 X 256mb Ram - £112 Each = £224 total - Dabs.Com

Sound Card - SB Live 5:1 Retail = £56 - Dabs.Com

Speakers - DTT 2200 5:1 = £90 - Dabs.Com

Mouse - MS Intellimouse = £30 - CCL Computers

Graphics - ATI Radeon 64mb VIVO = £225


Thanks In Advance

MrMacca

[Silent Bro]

>>If U had £1800 to spend on a New Computer. what would you spend it on?? Im a gamer so I want it to play games with eaze. So please post me parts you would buy.<<

Forgive me for not shopping with you but for £1800 you can make a fairly good kit or even get one built for you, have a look at http://www.pcindex.co.uk/ for some guides to best prices.

What I find most useful are the parts that can be moved to the next PC and there is always the next PC if you’re a serious gamer as the requirements go always upwards.

Monitor – I might like something bigger than my current 17 inch monitor, it was good at the time (most PC's came with 14 inch those days) but today :| I saw this rather nice Sony 24 inch going at half price @ PCWorld, only £980. If I could have carried it I might have splashed out on it and it would have lasted quite a few upgrades I think :) A 19 inch may end up as my 17 inch in a few years?

Hard Disk – Well another expensive option is SCSI, but like the monitor it’s a buy now save later investment. At the moment I use IDE HDD’s, IBM’s, and one of them is the one you mention. I had a Seagate but got fed up with it breaking down (be my third now that's died) so I’ll never get another Seagate HDD again, still it can be used as an expensive door stop! But you might want to try a RAID setup with 2 45Gb IBM HDD's?

Mouse - MS Intellimouse = £30 - CCL Computers, I found out recently that my MS Intellimouse Explorer isn’t network compatible, you never know, you might want to run a LAN one day so it may be worth checking up on this?

[Muttman]

I recently built my first PC

spec is:

CPU - 1.2 AMD Tbird (cooled with a FOP38 downgraded to a FOP32-1)

Mobo - KT7-RAID

HDD - IBM 45 gig UDMA100

RAM - 2x Crucial 128mb PC-133 CAS-2

Sound Card - SBLive Platinum 5.1

Mouse - RazorBoomslang2000

MousePad - Everglide attack pad

GFX - GF2:Ultra

DVDrom - Creative Labs 12x (sent back coz it was picky about what CDs it would recognise)

Monitor - Sony E220 17" (Havent tried it yet, should be delivered later)

Speakers - DTT5300 (Again will turn up later today)

Case - GlobalWin 802 (with additional YS-Tech fan in the front, and Sunon in the back)

PSU - Enermax 431w (loads of cables)

Floppy - LS120 (cant remember what make, I ripped it from my old PC)

Got no idea how much it came too, but it runs like a dream.

[[HLnC]Jay-Dee]

don't get a creative dvd rom drive
they are very dodgy and renound for breaking down/scratching discs etc :(
pioneer is a good brand :)

[Muttman]

Oh yeah forgot to mention that Im going to replace the Creative DVDrom with a nice spangly Pioneer 16x 40x one.

[Fragpot]

pioneer one is also region free :shakin:

This place is the cheapest in the UK and they match and beat prices :) (http://www.silicon-group.co.uk)

[Fandango]

CPU - Anything AMD and Socket A is nice :)

MOBO - abit KT7A RAID

DVD Drive - get a Pioneer, they're fantastic, espeically the 16x one.

Monitor - Mitsubishi DiamondPro 19inch - about £400
Nice monitor, there's also the Iiyama 19" (I forget the model number) which uses the same tube, but has more features for about the same price. (twin d-sub inputs, etc) I wouldn't bother spending any more than that cause in the next few years LCD's will come down a lot in price and improve in res as well - and a 20" LCD is quite a bit lighter than a 20" CRT :)

Ram - get 2x 256mb Cas2 direct from Crucial (www.crucial.com/uk)- they're £81.59 + VAT a piece last time I looked.

HDD - IBM is good :)

I found out recently that my MS Intellimouse Explorer isn’t network compatible, you never know, you might want to run a LAN one day so it may be worth checking up on this?
Hmm, don't know where you heard this but I can definitely say its not true, we've got both versions of the Intellimouse Optical (the huge silver one and the smaller white one) working fine on a LAN with no problems whatsoever.

GFX card - Geforce2's are cool and by far the fastest cards, but be prepared for a lot of faffing around trying to find drivers that will be stable - I still haven't got it working with everything, but god does it look sexy when it does :E

Fand

[END PROGRAM]

Get a guaranteed overclockable Duron or Thunderbird from OcUK (http://www.overclockers.co.uk) for a very decent price.
These are socket A and will fit your Abit KT7 Raid.
Other Mobo options are the new Abit KT7 Raid 133 and Asus A7V 133 for about the same price. These will take the newer version of the Thunderbird which will reach higher speeds. The cost of a Duron 700MHz guaranteed to 900MHz is just £58 on OcUK.

I agree with Fandago on the memory. Get 2x256 PC133 CAS2 either from Crucial (http://www.crucial.com/uk) or from Dabs (http://www.dabs.com) for under £100 a stick.

As for your monitor - I bought the 19" IIyama VisionMaster Pro 451 for £398 from Dabs and it's the business. It's the best monitor I've ever seen. Although it still has the two faint horizontal lines you get with the Aperture Grille screens - it isn't really noticable.

The Hard disk is a great choice but look at Dabs first its much cheaper there now.

I found out recently that my MS Intellimouse Explorer isn’t network compatible, you never know, you might want to run a LAN one day so it may be worth checking up on this?I haven't got a clue what Silent Bro is on about I've got one of these and I've had no problems whatsoever. I think it's a good mouse but if you're heavily into gaming have a look at the Razor Boomslang2000 it's even better - but costs a bit more :-(

Good luck - It'll be one hell of a PC :eek: when you've finished

[END PROGRAM]

Oh and I forgot to mention - the screen has built in 4 port USB hub which is handy :-) and built in speakers which are useless :-(
I've checked the Mitsubushi screen and it's virtually the same as the VM Pro 451 - except that VM Pro 451 has slightly better refresh rates - although these won't really be noticable.
Good luck !

[Silent Bro]

re MS Intellimouse Explorer network compatibility.

From it's very own help files

"I'm having difficulties installing IntelliPoint on a network drive

Installing IntelliPoint on a network drive isn't supported. If you have a previous version of IntelliPoint on a network drive, you can't perform an upgrade on that drive. Microsoft does not recommend installation of IntelliPoint on a network drive. "

The mouse still works in most programs, but you lose the TSR that runs it's little extras in none MS supported applications. Another thing it collects fluff in it's belly hole, took me a while to figure out why it was acting so funny during an online game a while back.

[Fandango]

Silent Bro, a network drive is a drive that isn't in the machine you're using but is available elsewhere on the network - what the helpfiles are basically saying is install the drivers on the local machine (i.e. the one you're using the mouse with), and not on a remote disk in some other machine. You can still quite happily use the intellipoint software on a PC connected to a network.

As for getting fluff in the lens hole, use it on a mouse-pad, not the sleeve of your jumper :)

End Program - thats the monitor I was on about, cheers for the model number.

As for the RAM, dabs now has a crucial shop with exactly the same prices as the crucial webby. After seeing this I just had to order some to test it out :)

Fand

[Edited by Fandango on 01-02-2001 at 04:19 AM]