my mums birthday

[trigger]

hi everyone ive had a look through the forum and decided this is the place to be as everyone seems very helpfull. Im wanting to build a motherboard,processor and memory bundle for my mum for her birthday so far ive got an interest in a q6600 chip with a biostar or asus board and corsair mem. ive got a budget of around £300 any ideas would be great thanks

 

[zak4994]

Your mum isn't necessarily a keen gamer is she?

I doubt she'll need a quad core so imo you should get a dual core. Maybe an e5200?

I'll get you pondering.

 

[trigger]

naa she likes maa jong lol but she does do a fair bit of encoding dvd ripping and burning etc so i guessed quad was better deal ??

 

[zak4994]

Ah then I guess a quad would be good.

How big is your case? We need to know what kind of motherboard would fit in to it.

And if you want to go reaaallllyyyy cheap then buy this http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Bios...(x16)-DDR2-667-SATA-3Gb-s-SATA-RAID-Micro-ATX

 

[trigger]

i may get some laughs at this but its a server tower case big old thing but she loves it ill find out what make it is tomorow

 

[d1abl0]

I would suggest the P5Q Pro motherboard, E8400 and corsair 4GB ddr2 800

all of this is on ebuyer for £292 the links are bellow.

RAM

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/130429

Motherboard

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/145751/show_product_specifications?spectype=extended#

CPU

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/139971

 

[trigger]

cheers peoples theres some good deals on ebuyer so ill prob get it all from there. the asus p5q series of boards looks good and either crucial or cosair is good in a 4gb combo for mem. any other ideas more than welcome

 

[trigger]

ok got a bit more info on what her current rig is.

1x seagate baracuda 500 gb sata hd

1x wd caviar se16 500 gb hd

artic cooling 64 freezer pro

jeantech jnp 500ap 500w p/s

winfast 760gxk8mc-rs socket 754

amd athlon 3400+ newcastle

1.5 gb ddr pc 3200

2x dvd multi burners

as for the case i found out that its a vip zb01 server chassis

 

[Mul.]

Not too bad a setup actually. If she does a lot of media encoding and dvd ripping/burning then she'd stand to gain a lot with even a faster Dual Core or a Quad if it's within budget.

Three setups I'd have in mind

Cheap and Cheerful, but a huge improvement.

Intel Pentium Dual Core E5200 2.5GHz £54

http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebProductId=860613

4GB Corsair Value PC2-6400 £42

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/4GB-Corsair-DDR2-Memory-800-MHz-2x240-DIMM-Unbuffered-CL5

Gigabyte P31 DS3L £52

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Giga...(x16)-DDR2-1066-667-800-SATA-II-SATA-RAID-ATX

Total - £148 + Delivery

More Expensive - AMD Based

AMD Phenom II X3 720 Black Edition £118

http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebProductId=965904

Biostar TA790GX 128M £72

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Bios...6)-DDR2-1066-SATA-3Gbps-SATA-RAID-OnBoard-VGA

4GB Corsair Value PC2-6400 £42

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/4GB-Corsair-DDR2-Memory-800-MHz-2x240-DIMM-Unbuffered-CL5

Total - £232 + Delivery

More Expensive - Intel Based

Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 3.0GHz £136

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Inte...30-GHz-1333MHz-6MB-Cache-9x-Multiplier-Retail

4GB Corsair Value PC2-6400 £42

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/4GB-Corsair-DDR2-Memory-800-MHz-2x240-DIMM-Unbuffered-CL5

Gigabyte P31 DS3L £52

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Giga...(x16)-DDR2-1066-667-800-SATA-II-SATA-RAID-ATX

Total - £230 + Delivery.

----

The first one represents best value for money and should be adequate for your mum's requirements and I would say that she'll be impressed. The second and third setups perform very similarly, with the AMD setup having the advantage of having future AM3 CPU support, while LGA775 is destined to end production at the end of the year.

Do be aware that motherboards these days will have 1x IDE port at best as IDE support has been dropped from today's southbridge chipsets and now third party controllers are used instead. This'll be a problem if you have plenty of IDE equipment to reuse.

 

[trigger]

thanks mul thats a good list of stuff didnt think about the ide. both the dvd burners are ide so may b an issue. do u think a quad is better/worse that a dual for this build ?

 

[Mul.]

I think if your budget allows, then it might be worth considering a Quad Core but at the same time I would not do it at the expense of a clock speed deficit over a similar Dual Core. With the sort of money I think you're spending, the two CPU's I'd be considering given current pricing would be the Core 2 Quad Q6700 2.66GHz and the Phenom II X4 940 Black Edition 3.0GHz.

 

[trigger]

ok i found a setup im gonna run past everyone to c if its any good ?

ebuyer.com/product/145748[/url] motherboard

ebuyer.com/product/148816[/url] memory

ebuyer.com/product/131950[/url] processor

 

[Mul.]

I personally do not feel that money is being well spent. £160 is simply too much for a Q6600 and I don't think either the CPU or RAM you've picked commands the use of a £145 P5Q Deluxe. Realistically, in the way that this computer will be used I do not think that your mum would be able to tell the difference between a £145 P5Q Deluxe and a £52 Gigabyte P31 DS3L where both will serve the same tasks just fine. Heck, even if you wanted RAID support and some integrated firewire/e-SATA, such boards can be had nearer the £100 mark.

If you wish to take the Quad Core route, the Phenom II X4 940 Black Edition is excellent value for money at around £165. It's priced similarly to the Q6000's and Q8000's but performs around that of the Q9400 and Q9550. Similarly, motherboards to complement it such as the Biostar TA790GX cost around £70 and the RAM around £40.

 

[trigger]

thanks mul this is the info i need i dnt want to end up wasting my money on stuff she wnt use/need

 

[Mul.]

To be frank, I'm not too sure what she needs as such but I can see that multiple cores will come in handy so long as the apps that she uses takes advantage of them. My point is more to do with spending money on things that won't make a difference performance wise like the motherboard or spending a certain amount on a component when something better can be had for similar money (case in point, Q6600 vs Phenom II X4 940).

I would say that the E5200, Gigabyte P31 and 4GB approach would be best value. Clock for clock, the E5200 should be about 25% quicker than the Athlon 64, a tad less or more depending on how much the Socket 754 single channel memory controller hits performance, then factor in a 100MHz clockspeed benefit and a second core. Should make a significant difference so long as you can confirm that the applications that she uses are multithreaded.

 

[trigger]

she uses nero mostley and xp not vista allthough i have given her windows 7 as a trial

 

[trigger]

ok new plan lol

amd phenom 2 x4 940 black edition £160.18

Corsair 4GB (2x2GB) DDR2 1066MHz/PC2-8500 XMS2 Memory CL5 2.1V £50.05

Gigabyte GA-MA770-UD3 AMD 770 (Socket AM2+) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £67.80

total £278.03

 

[Freak]

That looks a much better bet, just check to make sure the ram and motherboard like each other.

 

[trigger]

cheers freak and thanks to mul too. just making sure the memory, the board and chip all sing together and im gonna buy it tonight

 

[Mul.]

Looks good to me. You'll be able to reuse your Arctic Freezer 64 Pro too