hi i need advice on building a new media center/gaming pc, will be spending between £500-£600 ($750-$900) on it. this will be my first build so any advice given will be most welcome
APPROXIMATE PURCHASE DATE: need it before xmas BUDGET RANGE: £500-£600 ($750-$900)
SYSTEM USAGE FROM MOST TO LEAST IMPORTANT: gaming,watching movies/tv,surfing the internet
PARTS NOT REQUIRED : keyboard, mouse, monitor,have windows media center 05 OS,HAVE A BRAND NEW CORSAIR VX450W PSU
PREFERRED WEBSITE(S) FOR PARTS:ANY BRITISH WEBSITE
PARTS PREFERENCES:ati graphics card
OVERCLOCKING: Maybe, have never tryed overclocking yet SLI OR CROSSFIRE: Maybe if i can afford it in the future
MONITOR RESOLUTION: have a grundig 26 inche lcd 1368x768
ADDITIONAL COMMENTS: I would like a quiet PC if possible and be able to upgrade as needed in the future
This one would let him stay under his £600 budget:
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/159071 AMD Phenom II X3 720 2.8GHz Socket AM3 6MB L3 Cache Black Edition Retail Boxed Processor -£104.22inc vat
As far as I can tell, your box should be handle an single ATI Radeon 4890. However, you are going to start running into power issues if you add alot of disks or you attempt to run a cross fire configuration.
The limiting factor in the quality of video card you can currently have is your budget, not your PSU.
The above config doesn't have the tv tuner cards. I have no idea what the appropriate card is for the UK, but looking at the ebuyer.com site (which is a UK site I believe), the most popular card is:
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/113946 Hauppauge WinTV Nova-TD 500 Dual digital DVB-T PCI TV Tuner card - £55.40inc vat
have had a look at the ebuyer site and everything is free shipping so that has saved me some money,so in total so far it would cost me£550 with the tv tuner card so have a little money to spare for a graphic card as i wont be adding no more to the system any suggestions on what to get as i dont mind going over budget a little.... thanks
a 4850 would be plenty enough for 1368x768 if you want a lil more get this http://www.ebuyer.com/product/169208 but i'd say wait till ati release the 5xxx series ina few days there will be a price drop across the board on current graphics cads
Message edited by obsidian86 on 09-17-2009 at 08:43:57 PM
------------------------------I took a step back to look at the bigger picture and realized i needed better glasses
Reply to obsidian86
have had a look at the ebuyer site and everything is free shipping so that has saved me some money,so in total so far it would cost me£550 with the tv tuner card so have a little money to spare for a graphic card as i wont be adding no more to the system any suggestions on what to get as i dont mind going over budget a little.... thanks
Actually, if you add up the cost of everything listed below, the total cost is closer to £650, but that includes everything, including the TV Tuner card.
thanks for the suggestion obsidean86 that dose look like my best bet to go with :-)
bashful9033 not sure how you got to £650 in your total but by adding up all obsideans first recommendtions and your tv runer card i make it as follows
total price includeind shipping from overclockers and tv tuner card is £546
so have a bit to spare if i can inprove on that system..........thanks for the replys
Ah. When Obsidian posted his link, he didn't include the processor in the build list but he did in the total price. I hadn't noticed his edit, which is why I added the £100 processor cost to get £650ish. Mea culpa