budget hardware compatibility advice

Hi, my dad has £150 to spend on upgrading his pc. he needs;
1) Motherboard
2) CPU
3) RAM
4) CPU cooler
5) Hard drive
And I'm looking for advice if;
a) The hardware is all compatible together
b) Could I do better for price/performance (pref. hardware from same site)
Here is the hardware I'm looking at;
1) Motherboard http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-028-AK&groupid=701&catid=1903&subcat=1483
2) CPU http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CP-261-AM&groupid=701&catid=6&subcat=1825
3) RAM http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-296-CS
4) CPU Cooler http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HS-028-CM&groupid=701&catid=57&subcat=1395
5) Hard Drive http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-118-WD&tool=3

I'm have built Pc's before, but it was a while ago and I'm not up to date on compatibility of hardware.
I'd appreciate any advice
Thanks jon

 

What does he currently have? You have to be careful with budget upgrades in case they're no faster than the previous system, or not fast enough to be worth it.

 

He has a 10 year old pc!
I have a spare PSU, gfx card and ATX case, so literally he just needs the mentioned to be compatible with each other mainly.
thanks

 

GFX card? PCi? PCI-E?
Does your spare PSU fit in your spare case?

 

He won't need a graphics card, as the board posted has integrated graphics.
That setup, whilst rock bottom performance by modern standards is reasonably priced except for the hard disk which is massively overpriced.
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-120-WD&groupid=701&catid=14&subcat=940

As you see, this 500GB is the same price.

If you can stretch the extra 7 or 8 pounds for this CPU, it's miles better value, as it's a considerably faster CPU.
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CP-248-AM

While B-Grade components can sometimes be a liability, on a low budget I'd suggest trying this board:
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=BG-196-GI

B-Grade though it might be, the AMD boards are far better than the geforces.

 

GFX card is pci-express and yes the psu will fit thanks.


@sammorrisThanks for advice. It may sound silly but the reason I chose the smaller HDD is because it will just be quicker to do stuff like defrag, format etc. my dad will not store anything on it as such. I noticed one has 16MB cache and one has 8MB though. Is that a big factor in what I should buy?

I think I'd like to take your advice and go with the CPU you mention. But I'd like to keep with my original Mobo to be safe. Could you confirm your choice of CPU will fit my choice of mobo?

Also, as a last question, my choice of RAM, will it be compatible with my choice of mobo(ASRock)?
Thanks so much for advice, it's all appreciated

 

1. Quickformat takes about the same length on any drive size. No need to full format, unless you have data surface problems you want to check.
2. Defragmentation is quicker/better on larger drives as there is more free space to manoeveur the file fragments. It does not take longer on bigger drives, only if you have more data stored on the drive.


Going with a bottom-quality ASRock board new is likely to be less safe than going with a B-Grade Gigabyte.

 

edit: Argh forgot to switch to firefox

 

Ok, what does b-grade mean? Will i get the box and manual/bits?
Will the RAM i mentioned work on the mobo you advise?
thanks

 

Typically you'll only get the board, nothing else.
The memory should be compatible with that board.