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"Building A Pair of Computers on a (Tight) Budget"

Basically, my current budget is £0. But hopefully tommorow that'll change, and I'll have an unspecified ammount, probably around £540.

But my general plan is this, two computers, one for work and one for play. (I tend to get distracted.)

Two computers = a (Work), b (Play)

Reuirement for a:
Silent / Very quiet, Intel CPU (HP Tech.), comfortable keyboard and mouse, 200GB HDD.

Requirment for b:
Powerful : Good GPU, good CPU, 1GB+ of RAM, good speakers, large capacity HDD(s).

Components already: ASUS ig7 mobo (2x SATA, 4GB RAM Capacity, Intel), Intel P4 3.2Ghz, Gigabyte Titan mobo (intel), ATi Radeon 9600XT, Creative Live! 5.1 Sound Card, MS Multimedia Keyboard, PB optical mouse, Speakers, 19" monitor, Coolermaster centurion 5, Tagan TG-U01, Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 200GB HD, Hitachi Deskstar 40GB HD (IDE), 2x CD ROM (48x), 1x DVD-RW.

Components for a:
Intel Mobo*,
Intel CPU*,
256 GEIL Value RAM - £19 (+ 256 already, 512 DC)
200GB HD*,
Keyboard + Mouse*,
CD drive*,
VideoSeven H17PS 17" LCD Monitor - £147

Components for b:
MSI K8N Platinum - £88 (Is Diamond version worth it?)
Athlon 63 3500+ - £158
nVidia 6600GT - £143(Worth buying the 6800GT for £60 more?)
GEIL Value 2x512MB - £71 (+ 2x512 already owned)
Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 160GB - £63
Altec Lansing 2.1 Speakers - £14 (Can pay more, just not sure. Will be listening to music, however may buy Creature 3s at some point.)
MS Natural Multimedia Keyboard - £12
Logitech MX510 - £29
DVD RW*
Monitor*

* = Owned

Total cost of a: £166
Total cost of b: £568

Total cost combined: £734
Over budget by: £200

Which is a bit much. Any help on cutting it down??

Memorandum! wrote:
> here is my suggestion to save you money:
>
> keep this:
> "Components already: ASUS ig7 mobo (2x SATA, 4GB RAM Capacity,
> Intel), Intel P4 3.2Ghz, Gigabyte Titan mobo (intel), ATi Radeon
> 9600XT, Creative Live! 5.1 Sound Card, MS Multimedia Keyboard, PB
> optical mouse, Speakers, 19" monitor, Coolermaster centurion 5,
> Tagan TG-U01, Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 200GB HD, Hitachi Deskstar
> 40GB HD (IDE), 2x CD ROM (48x), 1x DVD-RW."
>
> Buy: AGP Geforce 6800GT = £200
>
> It'll keep you within budget, and 3.2GHz + 6800GT will be much faster
> than an AMD 3500+ and a slower graphics card.

But I'll have 1 PC.

Which kinda ruins it.

Or, I could just buy the following:

Intel Celeron D 325 - £47 (2.53GHz)
80GB Barracuda - £41
256MB RAM - £19
Case, Keyboard, Mouse, PSU - £20
Monitor - £60

Total: £187

With a 6800GT (AGP - £200)

Total: £387

2 systems. Perfecto...

J Nash wrote:
> [URL]http://graphics.tomshardware.com/graphic/20050705/images/image017.gif[/URL]
> Are we looking at the same graph.

NO!

You're looking at the AGP comparison, I'm looking at the PCI-E comparison. Difference.

here is my suggestion to save you money:

keep this:
"Components already: ASUS ig7 mobo (2x SATA, 4GB RAM Capacity, Intel), Intel P4 3.2Ghz, Gigabyte Titan mobo (intel), ATi Radeon 9600XT, Creative Live! 5.1 Sound Card, MS Multimedia Keyboard, PB optical mouse, Speakers, 19" monitor, Coolermaster centurion 5, Tagan TG-U01, Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 200GB HD, Hitachi Deskstar 40GB HD (IDE), 2x CD ROM (48x), 1x DVD-RW."

Buy: AGP Geforce 6800GT = £200

It'll keep you within budget, and 3.2GHz + 6800GT will be much faster than an AMD 3500+ and a slower graphics card.

SLi is pointless unless you MUST play in 1600x1200 with max AA and AF.
Plus a single 7800 will be way faster than SLi'd 6800s.

The PCI-E charts are really weird. The 6600GT performs about the same as its AGP counterpart, but the 6800 is way slower for no apparent reason.

[URL]http://graphics.tomshardware.com/graphic/20050705/images/image017.gif[/URL] Are we looking at the same graph.

Why would you bother getting SLi?

Would the fact that I'm going for PCI-E make a differance? I mean, look at tomshardware.co.uk - the 6600GT overtakes the 6800 in most cases.

I'll probably go for the 6800 though - 256MB makes too much of a differance, and it's better SLi.

Right the 6800 it is then, and seeing as it's on special at OCuk i'll order it tomorrow...

I'd definitely go for the 6800. My ranking:

1) 6800
2) 6600GT (a close 2)
3) 6800LE

The 6800LE is the card for people on a very tight budget who have BALLS. They're usually good overclockers and may unlock from 8 pipes to 16. I've seen some unlocked and overclocked 6800LEs that offer near-6800GT performance (unlocked to 16 pipes and 400MHz on the core, 800 or so on the memory). But that's generally quite unlikely.

[URL]http://www.videocardshop.co.uk/product.asp?productcode=PV-T40L-NAF[/URL]

6800 LE?

Anyway on OCuk - 6800 is £108 the same as I found the 6600GT on the previous site. 6800 the obvious option?