First time build (budget, uk)

[lukijo]

This is my first post and first build! Been looking around the forums for a while and with holidays coming up thought it would be a good time to build.

My bg: uni student with easter holidays coming up (usu don't go abroad cos ticket prices tend to be more expensive - i do those trips on term-time weekends ;) )

Im thinking of building a pc for web browsing, graphic design (nothing heavy but I plan to use photoshop and illustrator a lot) and playing starcraft 2 (when it comes out). Got a 19" monitor (1280x1024 ) and not planning to upgrade it atm. Original budget was under £500.

So this is what I came up with:

CPU: (£96.12) Intel Core 2 Duo E7500 2.93GHz Socket 775 1066FSB 3MB L2 Cache
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/158339

mobo: (£34.19) Gigabyte GA-G31M-ES2L iG31 Socket 775 mATX
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/152225

Case: (£41.71) Antec 300 Three Hundred
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/143854

PSU: (£28.13) Arctic Power 500W PSU With PCI-E 2x SATA, 20+4 ATX12V 8pin +12V Connectors
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/124922

GFX: (£54.74) Sapphire HD 4670 512MB GDDR3
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/173705

Keyboard: (£13.67) Logitech Black Ultra-Flat
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/108408

Mouse: (£11.11) Logitech RX1000 Laser
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/188211

RAM: (£94.99) Corsair 4Gb (2x2GB) DDR2 1066MHz/PC2-8500 XMS2 Memory CL5 (5-6-6-18) 2.1V
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/166818

HDD (£124.99): Kingston SSDNow V-Series 64GB SSD
http://www.play.com/PC/PCs/4-/11924385/Kingston-SSDNow-V-Series-64GB-SSD-2-5-Internal-SATA-Hard-Drive-With-Desktop-Accessory-Kit/Product.html?&_$ja=tsid:11518%7Ccc:%7Cprd:11924385%7Ccat:Hard+Dr ives

OS: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/173791

Optical drive: (£15.67) Sony AD-7240S 24x DVD±RW DL & RAM Internal SATA Black Bare Drive - OEM
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/164449

Total:£592.32

Put the prices up, so other newbies looking around the forums get an idea of the cost. I'm planning to get a WD 500GB hdd down the line (or something similar) when the ssd gets filled up.

a few thoughts:
-didnt go down the ddr3 and clarkdale/lynnfield (ie i3/15/i7) route cos i thought it would be too expensive (factoring in prices of ram and mobos)
-if use e6500 instead of e7500 will i notice any difference (it would save me about £40)
-also the same with the ram - could i use 800mhz instead - are there any noticeable practical differences? (would save me £20-£30), also could i get away with just 2gb ram?
-is graphic card adequate (used toms hardware as a guide)?
-is the PSU good enough (in terms of watts and quality)
-i decided on the SSD, since after reading around, i found that the hdd provides the biggest noticeable improvement in practical speeds (booting up, installing/opening programs etc.)


So what do you guys think? Any help is much appreciated.

[The Wise Monkey]

Hi lukijo, welcome to the forums - fellow UKer here, so well aware of extra expense!

That is a good graphics card, and good performance at that price. If you wanted to spend a little more, you could get a 4850, which gives excellent performance, but I realise that you are trying to save money!

The memory is really much too expensive. You could probably get away with using 2GB -
try it and see how you go, as it is really easy to upgrade if necessary.

One of the benefits about being a student is that Microsoft do some very good student deals - Windows 7 Professional for £43:
http://www.software4students.co.uk/Microsoft_Windows_7_Professional_64_bit_Upgrade_Ed ition-details.aspx

If saving money is paramount, then you may want to consider a slightly cheaper case. You will sacrifice build quality though, so it really is up to you.

[lukijo]

Thanks WiseMonkey! I don't know if i can get that deal since I only have dell customised versions of windows xp (i dont know if they'll install on a different pc, and i think i need existing windows to use the upgrade).

I think that's a good idea with the memory. How about this:
Crucial 2GB DDR2 800MHz/PC2-6400 Ballistix Memory CL4 2.0V - £45.00
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/166117

or should i get this: Crucial 2GB (2x1GB) DDR2 1066MHz Memory Kit CL7 1.8V - £48.99
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/190903

(ie higher mhz, which will match cpu fsb, or lower cl - im not that clued up on ram)

i found this card:
MSI ATI 4850 512MB DDR3 PCI-E GRAPHICS CARD (£45.63)
http://www.lambda-tek.com/componentshop/index.pl?origin=gbase25.3&prodID=B209984

and i was considering e6500 (will it be a significant performance hit compared e7500) at £58 from ebuyer?

[The Wise Monkey]

That is a superb price for the 4850!

Definitely go for the first RAM you mentioned - your motherboard only supports up to 800MHz, so anything above that would be under-clocked to work correctly.

As for the Windows 7 problem, there are several ways around it. Firstly, you could download, say, the trial version of Windows Server 2008 and install that, then immediately "upgrade" it to Windows 7.

Alternatively, and I'm not condoning piracy here, you could "obtain" a copy of XP from somewhere, install that and then install Windows 7 over that.

The third option would be to download the Windows 7 ISO direct from Microsoft at this link: http://msft-dnl.digitalrivercontent.net/msvista/pub/X15-65805/X15-65805.iso, then buy the upgrade edition and use that license key. This is probably the one I would recommend.

I wouldn't recommend going for the E6500 over the E7500, simply because it is a few generations out of date, and so will be missing several of the newer features that have been introduced.

To be honest, for a budge build I would recommend going with AMD. For less than your original price, you can get:

AMD Athlon II X3 435 (£61.54): http://www.ebuyer.com/product/176043
MSI AM3 Mobo (£41.40): http://www.ebuyer.com/product/177224
2GB Crucial DDR3 (£46.99): http://www.ebuyer.com/product/159919

This CPU really is excellent, and can overclock really well if you ever decide to go down that route. Toms uses it in their recent budget build if you want to check out some specs.

[lukijo]

cheers. unfortunately the 4850 went out of stock so I'm gonna wait uptil monday to see if its restocked anywhere for a good price before going ahead with it.

Your amd build seems really tempting - im just trying to figure whether the e7500 is worth the extra cash (im thinking not - since from what i understand it's sort of in between e6500 and e7500, except that it also has an extra core. Also, your build provides a budget conscious way of getting ddr3 - espcially considering ddr3 and ddr2 ram are similar prices).

I downloaded and burned the iso, so im gonna buy and install windows 7 using that method. Thanks for that - I wouldn't even have considered the upgrade option otherwise.

edit:
how about this cpu since its only a fiver more? (£65.98)
AMD Phenom II 550 3.1GHz 6MB L2 Cache Socket AM3 Retail Box Processor
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/191957

[The Wise Monkey]

That would be an excellent addition - didn't realise that it was so cheap!

That 550 would definitely be better than the e7500, especially in games and applications that support multiple cores.

[lukijo]

Ok thanks. I'm on a hiatus with my build but i'll be back to the forums when I get back to it. Thanks for the help wisemonkey.