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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??

Coin wrote:
> Also where do you recommend? OCuK?

I like their site because it's quite easy to snoop around and find things, so it's handy to get a general idea of things from there and then shop around a bit. I'd definitely go for the 6800, because performance will be basically range from identical to slightly faster to quite a bit faster (eg Doom 3) and because there's the chance of unlocking it from 12 pipes to 16 using RivaTuner, which will provide another decent performance boost.

edit: actually, scratch that unlocking stuff if it's PCI-E, and the PCI-E version is quite a bit more too (£146 rather than £117). Again, wouldn't be easier to just upgrade your existing P4 system?

Coin wrote:
> Two computers, 1 for work, and 1 for games / music / downloading.
>
> So I don't have the distraction of a BF2 etc whilst writing essays.

Also to play LAN. LAN roxor.

gerrid wrote:
> Anyway, why do you need 2 computers?

Fair 'nuff.

So 6800 is better then, overall, agreed?

Having said that - don't think I'll go over 1024x768 for games. AA/AF is important though, so...

Also where do you recommend? OCuK?

Coin wrote:
> And Memorandum! - 6800 is better than 6600, 6600GT is better than
> 6800, and 6800GT is better than 6600GT. 6600 = £70, 6800 =
> £110, 6600GT = 140 , 6800 = £200.

6600GT doesn't = £140 though, even the PCI-E version shouldn't be any more than about £110, and I've seen it for less than that price.

And the 6800 has a 256-bit memory interface as opposed to the 6600GT's highly clocked 128-bit memory. When you go past 1024x768 and start using AA/AF the 6800 is faster.

Pah.

I was going by Tomshardware.co.uk too.

Only 6600GT is better when you have PCI-Express... Dunno why though.

Tho' according to [URL]http://graphics.tomshardware.com/graphic/20050705/vga-charts-pcie-06.html[/URL] there's not too much difference between the 6800 and 6600GT, but the 6800 does edge it slightly...

Coin wrote:
> VideoSeven H17PS 17" LCD Monitor - £147

Oh and if you must get a TFT get a LG from ebuyer for about the same price...

Exactamundo.

Coin wrote:
> And Memorandum! - 6800 is better than 6600, 6600GT is better than
> 6800, and 6800GT is better than 6600GT. 6600 = £70, 6800 =
> £110, 6600GT = £100 , 6800GT = £200.

I think if we're on a budget the 6600GT is the one to go for based on that logic...

Two computers, 1 for work, and 1 for games / music / downloading.

So I don't have the distraction of a BF2 etc whilst writing about why Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's use of language increases tension (5 page essay due: tomorrow, 1 page done.)

But yeah.

And LCD takes up less room. I have a tiny work area for it...

And Memorandum! - 6800 is better than 6600, 6600GT is better than 6800, and 6800GT is better than 6600GT. 6600 = £70, 6800 = £110, 6600GT = 140 , 6800 = £200.

See my logic?