WOW! Thats brilliant, i really would be tempted to do all that, but i dont have a spare £236.607! Im a 16 year old kid helping his dad out lol. It seems the bulk of that is the video card. im not playing games or anything on it, is there a way i could get away with a cheapo one, for a quickfix? Wait a second, he has two crappy comps, but if im buying new processor and mobo then i can use either one i like, right? I could keep one of them as a first build for me at home! About the case, is it just a case of swapping everything over?
well, if you don't plan on gaming, then there are, of course, many cheaper cards! you could go with an older-style motherboard and get an AGP card...at this point, that would probably be cheaper. yeah, as long as you have the towers, you can do whatever you want. you just swap the parts in, maybe sure everything's connected properly, fire it up and install windows. seeing as you're basically just trying to get experience in building computers, pick the one of the two you want your dad to have. look around through newegg for a decent motherboard and processor, and give us some links. we'll give you the skinny and see if we can find some UK links for you. there are even some motherboards sold to the consumer with onboard graphics, and as you're building a budget machine, that may be the way to go. find some ram, swap the new parts in, add a new hard drive, and you're windows ready. with that experience, you can build up the second compie for yourself as you get cash.
Is there anything I can say that hasn't already been covered? As long as the cases use the microATX or ATX standard they can be kept, if you want to of course. There are some fine looking cases about for very little these days.
thing is, if he gets new cases, he might as well be starting entirely from scratch. i think he's trying to reuse these old compies as much as possible. unfortunately, there's not much that can be done with that old hardware. i still say, if we can find some good enough deals, he *should* start from scratch and use those old things as Linux servers.
you guys!! Im so exited, youve helped so much it looks like im all set!! One last request. With the mobo and processor provided, what shall i search for, for a compatible chhhhheeeeeaaapppp graphics card?????? Or if you want to cut out the middle man, can somone provide me with a link to a ccchhheeeappp one???
thank you, thank you very very much!! Soo my shopping list is: Graphics card: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814130009 processor: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819103535 MOBO:http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813131530 And any 40gb harddrive, to start with. I guess any harddrives compatible?
looks good. but like said earlier, just get an 80 gig drive, as the ata drives cost about the same, whether 40 or 80, and that's twice the space! most of the connectors should come with the equipment, but don't forget you'll need some new ram. make sure you have adequate cooling. at least 4 80 mm fans or 2 120 mm fans. you may want to invest in a better heatsink than the one that comes with that processor.
Can you go lower than that? Still, it is so that's all that matters. However, not to confuse you but I'd recommend something like this. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814121544 Put simply, any time that Graphics card has to do some work, it nicks 256MB of your system memory, or in your case, half. Considering that GPUs still very slow, its not worth it. With a dedicatd memory GPU, you get to keep your system RAM and get more performance from the card too. Plus its the same price, just without the rebate. You could get a 40GB hard drive, or you could get this for about $5 more... http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822148107 Just a few suggestions mate. Edit: You're a UK user? Then I'll find you the stuff. Hold on. http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/104775 - X550 GPU, £29 http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/88109 - A64 3200+, £87 http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/95458 - A8N-E, £63 http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/97632 - 80GB IDE HDD £32 http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/48122 - 512MB good RAM, £28 Plenty of storage, good processor, good mobo (that comes with all the cables you need), reasonable graphics, and enough memory. That just leaves you with power supply (anything 200W or better should run that), case (which you mentioned keeping) and operating system and you're good to go, for just £239+delivery. And you can bet your life that's better than any stock system you'll find.
Oh my! brilliant This will be rushed as ihave to go in 2 minutes to school. So all that sam and a power supply and a case, and thats my whold computer? I might see if my dad buys a computer or something, and build that myself!!! thats great! Thanks, ill post later.
Yeah that'd pretty much it, since you're not after extreme sound or multiple disks etc. If you want a floppy drive I assume you can harvest that too.
I checked all that out. Thats really good and all, and it matches my budget. But 2ghz processor, isnt that quite slow? Would it be better to do that or to wait for a few months until i save up abot £300, and buy a 3ghz processor? And the RAM is 400mhz, should i save up and get an 800mhz one? Just asking, or iff i just got the good RAM and got the 2ghz processor, or if i got that RAM lnk you provided and got a 3ghz processor? just asking which would be better, ta.
The Great thing about the Athlon64 3200+ is that, in a nutshell (don't flame me for simplifying this anyone) it runs at 2Ghz (so puts out a low amount of heat) and yet goes like a 3.2Ghz processor, hence the 3200 marking, making it an efficient yet powerful, and also cheap desktop processor. It's a winner! You can only use 400mhz memory with Socket 939 AMD processors (i.e. what you want), they don't support DDR2, only socket AM2 (which is largely pointless). However, if you just add another stick of 400mhz, they run in dual channel mode, which effectively makes them become 800mhz and still allows you the same amount of storage. A good option is what I gave you. An even better option is to stick with that CPU, and get http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/54472 This will make your system really fly. All depends how big your budget is as to how much further you can go.
@sammorris, Perhaps you would also like to point out and explain the difference in bus speeds (533,800 vs 1600,2000)to our new friend...you word these things so nicely.
