Calza Posted January 20, 2008 Share Posted January 20, 2008 As you some of you might have seen I am on the verge of buying a new pc to replace this hunk of junk. I really do not want to spend a lot of money due to it being given to me by my gran and I do not want to blow it on a computer. I think for £350 I could get a respectable pc that will do what I want to do, browse internet, chat, listen to music and maybe play the occasional game. So I have found two options at the moment and was wondering what you guys think and what you would do. My first option is from Dell which I was actually surprised at, the specs are : PROCESSOR - Intel® Core™ 2 Duo E4500 Processor (2.2GHz,800MHz,2MB cache) OPERATING SYSTEM - Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium - English HARDWARE SUPPORT - 1 Year Base Warranty - Collect & Return MONITOR - No 19" Monitor MEMORY - 2048MB 667MHz Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM [2x1024] HARD DRIVE - 320GB (7200rpm) Serial ATA/100 Hard Drive with 16MB DataBurst™ cache GRAPHICS CARD - Integrated Intel® Graphic Media Accelerator 3100 OPTICAL DRIVE - 16x DVD +/- RW Drive Keyboard + Mouse £279.00 And my second option is from PC Option. PROCESSOR - Intel ® Pentium® Core 2 Duo Dual-Core Processor E4500 OPERATING SYSTEM - Windows Vista 64bit MOTHERBOARD -Asus P5GC-MX/1333 Motherboard MEMORY -2GB DDR 2 677 MHz Memory HARD DRIVE -160 Sata 2 Hard Drive - Seagate GRAPHICS CARD - Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 950 OPTICAL DRIVE - 18 X DVD RW / 40 X CD Writer Drive - Sony CASE -8024 - 400 Watt Colors IT Case SOUND7.1 High-Definition Audio Digital Soundcard - Onboard CONNECTIONS - Front Audio & 2 USB Connectors, Rear Audio & 4-6 Rear USB 2.0 Connectors SUPPORT - 5 Year Warranty - 3 Years Parts & Remaining 2 Years Free Labour £310.61 Both prices include VAT and shipping, I'm not sure but is the Dell a better spec? Sure they both are pretty poor on the graphics front but I will be buying one so that doesn't really matter. I am just a bit wary of Dell because I doubt they will give me all the proper Windows cds and it will be filled with crapware. But I can't deny that it is £30 cheaper and I do a bigger hard drive as well as a keyboard and mouse (which I know shouldn't sway me but it does a bit). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
McPhee Posted January 20, 2008 Share Posted January 20, 2008 PROCESSOR - Intel ® Pentium® Dual-Core Processor E2140 OPERATING SYSTEM - Windows Vista Home Premium 64bit MOTHERBOARD -Asus P5K SE MEMORY -2GB DDR 2 677 MHz Memory HARD DRIVE -160 Sata 2 Hard Drive - Seagate GRAPHICS CARD - Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 950 OPTICAL DRIVE - 18 X DVD RW / 40 X CD Writer Drive - Sony CASE - ASUS TM-210 SOUND7.1 High-Definition Audio Digital Soundcard - Onboard SUPPORT - 5 Year Warranty - 3 Years Parts & Remaining 2 Years Free Labour £294.84 @ PCOption I'd go for that, better motherboard, better case and you can overclock that CPU to at least 2.5GHz (which is WAY more than you'd need to support a £50 GPU) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Slaggis Posted January 21, 2008 Share Posted January 21, 2008 Intel® Core® 2 Duo. (E4500 (2.2GHz, 2MB, 800FSB) , Standard Case , Nvidia 8500GT SILENT/HTP/256M , 160GB Sata 2 Hard Drive , 2GB DDR 2 667 MHz , Vista Premium & Disc , Sony 18 X DVD Dual Layer Writer , Msi P945P Neo5 Thats £344 @ pcoption (Though the case is just a standard one, like the one I'm using from them at the moment). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Calza Posted January 22, 2008 Author Share Posted January 22, 2008 Sorry for taking this long to reply... McPhee I had heard that the E2140 wasn't that good at gaming because of its low cache? That is why I went for the E4500, I know with overclocking it will improve but would the cache not hamper the performance? I am not really that bothered about a graphic card at the moment Haggis, though that is pretty good, I need to work out whether that is cheaper than buying an ATi 2600XT. How does Vista run on integrated graphics anyway, I assume not great? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AshMat Posted January 22, 2008 Share Posted January 22, 2008 Vista itself will run fine, it's when you want to run other stuff with it, i think sometimes it turns Aero off when you open a game or something like that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Jordan Posted January 22, 2008 Share Posted January 22, 2008 It detects Direct 3D applications and automatically goes into Aero Basic untill you've done with the application. Letty just bought some new parts for her machine. Core 2 Duo E4500 GeForce 8600GT (which is far better than the 7600GT apparently after driver updates) 2GB Ram Some MSI motherboard, i know it has an nForce 610i chipset on it.... thats about it. Around £190. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Slaggis Posted January 22, 2008 Share Posted January 22, 2008 It detects Direct 3D applications and automatically goes into Aero Basic untill you've done with the application. Letty just bought some new parts for her machine. Core 2 Duo E4500 GeForce 8600GT (which is far better than the 7600GT apparently after driver updates) 2GB Ram Some MSI motherboard, i know it has an nForce 610i chipset on it.... thats about it. Around £190. It does, big time. Rollercoaster tycoon 3 was being really slow/jerky with the first drivers, but when I updated them, it played really, really well in a large park. (Which my 7600GT on my desktop can't do without jerking from time to time/being all slow). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
McPhee Posted January 22, 2008 Share Posted January 22, 2008 McPhee I had heard that the E2140 wasn't that good at gaming because of its low cache? That is why I went for the E4500, I know with overclocking it will improve but would the cache not hamper the performance? Depends if you want to overclock or not. I've just been reading up on that P5K SE board and it looks like it will take the E2140 up to anywhere between 2.8GHz and 3GHz. The E2160 goes higher and hits 3GHz more reliably for an extra £8. The E2140 running at 2.8GHz destroys a stock speed E4500. Im not sure how far the E4500 would overclock on an Asus P5GC-MX, but given it's a budget board i doubt it would be far (if at all). Take a look at this E2160 vs X6800 comparison: http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/pentium-e2160_14.html#sect0 It pretty much proves that L2 cash isn't hugely important. If you're running the chips at stock speeds then the E4500 is a better buy, but you might still be better buying an E21** CPU and spending the savings on a better graphics card. Also, if you do go for the overclocking option then make sure you buy the DDR 800 RAM rather than the 667. It's only £2 extra and will make a difference. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Calza Posted February 2, 2008 Author Share Posted February 2, 2008 I probably would be interested to overclock them especially if I get alot more performance out of them for a lot less. What motherboard would you suggest on pc option that would be best for oc? Do you think it would be worth then getting the E2160 (1.8Ghz) or E2180 (2.0Ghz) over the E2140? They are only £8 and £12 more expensive respectively so I would assume so yeah? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AshMat Posted February 2, 2008 Share Posted February 2, 2008 If you want to overclock, you can save the 8/12 quid, and OC the E2140 a bit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
McPhee Posted February 2, 2008 Share Posted February 2, 2008 Get the E2160, Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro (tick box near the bottom of the page) and the P5K-SE. The SE isn't the best around, but it's the best value for money that PC Option have listed. Had a quick Google and people are getting that chip up to (and past) 3GHz on that motherboard! The same sites seem to have the E2140 at 2.6-2.8GHz Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Calza Posted February 2, 2008 Author Share Posted February 2, 2008 That is pretty impressive but is it easy to accomplish? or would I have to be pretty experienced to get it up to those marks? It is costing a bit more than I wanted but that is with a monitor and hopefully it will give me a bit more bang per buck. Who knows when I'll actually buy it though, hopefully by the end of next week. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
McPhee Posted February 2, 2008 Share Posted February 2, 2008 Im not sure how difficult it will be, but i can link you to some guides if you like? Overclocking isn't guaranteed either, each individual chip has it's own limits. Just because most people can get theirs to 3GHz doesn't necessarily mean you're chip can get past 2.5GHz. I bought an Athlon BE-2300 and can't get it past that (yet) EDIT: Hang on, is there any reason why we're looking at Intel CPUs here? Just looked at PC Option's AMD systems and they are cheaper and come with better motherboards as standard. CPU: AMD Athlon X2 4200+ Mobo: Asus M2N-MX SE RAM: 2GB DDR2 667MHz HDD: 160GB Opt: DVD-RW OS: Vista Home Premium x64 That lot costs £252.84 IMO that's a better deal. You can either go with the 2600XT and end up more than £40 under budget or squeeze an ATi 3850 in. So on one hand you can get similar performance to the Intel for less and on the other you can get better games performance for the same price (the difference won't really be noticeable on the desktop) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Caris Posted February 4, 2008 Share Posted February 4, 2008 Don't buy 64bit Vista... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Calza Posted February 4, 2008 Author Share Posted February 4, 2008 Why? I fought it is supposed to be better? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Caris Posted February 4, 2008 Share Posted February 4, 2008 It will be in the future, it's buggy and very incompatible at the minute hence why very few people use it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Calza Posted February 4, 2008 Author Share Posted February 4, 2008 I'm guessing you can't run 64bit programs in Vista x32 then? I really only want a half decent pc as I will have to get a laptop for uni which isn't that far off (hopefully) and I want to be able to spend as less as possible now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Caris Posted February 4, 2008 Share Posted February 4, 2008 Why don't you just get a really high end laptop? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
McPhee Posted February 5, 2008 Share Posted February 5, 2008 You can't run 64-bit programs in 32 bit Vista, no. As a whole though Vista x64 is the better product. It's faster, more stable, more reliable and more secure than Vista x86 (the 32-bit one). The downsides being the driver support isn't quite as good as x86 yet (although not far behind) and you can't run 16-bit applications (basically really old stuff, but some programs use 16-bit installation programs and as a result won't install). Most stuff has 64-bit drivers now, but it's worth checking before you buy. If you're worried then play it safe and buy x86 instead. EDIT: Check out this thread for a pretty up to date view on Vista 64: http://techreport.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=55764 Had a read myself and it doesn't look like any of them were having driver issues. Given that was in December things should be even better now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Caris Posted February 5, 2008 Share Posted February 5, 2008 You can't run 64-bit programs in 32 bit Vista, no. As a whole though Vista x64 is the better product. It's faster, more stable, more reliable and more secure than Vista x86 (the 32-bit one). The downsides being the driver support isn't quite as good as x86 yet (although not far behind) and you can't run 16-bit applications (basically really old stuff, but some programs use 16-bit installation programs and as a result won't install). The best way to decide between the two is to simply check for drivers for everything you use a lot. If everything you need to use is x64 compatable then get x64. You can't run 64-bit programs in 32 bit Vista, no. As a whole though Vista x64 is the better product. It's faster, more stable, more reliable and more secure than Vista x86 (the 32-bit one). The downsides being the driver support isn't quite as good as x86 yet (although not far behind) and you can't run 16-bit applications (basically really old stuff, but some programs use 16-bit installation programs and as a result won't install). The best way to decide between the two is to simply check for drivers for everything you use a lot. If everything you need to use is x64 compatible then get x64. How can you say it's better, its terrible at the moment. Why do you think when you go into proper Tech forums no one runs it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
McPhee Posted February 5, 2008 Share Posted February 5, 2008 Proper tech forum like...? I've not heard of many problems recently in the forums i visit. Heck, people are even starting to recommend buying it! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Calza Posted February 9, 2008 Author Share Posted February 9, 2008 Phee what AMD processors would you recommend then? I thought that they don't offer as much OC potential as Intel's but they are a lot cheaper. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
McPhee Posted February 9, 2008 Share Posted February 9, 2008 They aren't as powerful as Intel, but they sometimes offer brilliant value for money. AMD processors are pretty simple, the more you spend the faster the processor. Basically go for whatever will fit inside you're budget. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Calza Posted February 10, 2008 Author Share Posted February 10, 2008 I've decided I am going for the Intel Core Duo, their overclocking potential just makes them far more appealing than the AMD's. Sure I doubt I will be reach 3Ghz but I reckon I will (hopefully) be able to 2.8Ghz easily but I'm just not sure on what one to get. Although Tom's Hardware managed to get the E2160 stable at 3.2Ghz I think thats a bit too far for me. So I'm just deciding my final build which comes to £320 (if its the E2180) including shipping. CPU: Intel E21xx Mobo: Asus P5K SE RAM: 2GB DDR2 800MHz HDD: 160GB Opt: DVD-RW OS: Vista Home Premium x64 I'm not sure on the processor, the E1280 is only £4 more than the E2160 and would give me better performance straight away but I'm not sure if after overclocking their would be much difference. Then again it is only £4 so might as well. I'm also not sure about the case, should I upgrade it or just stay with the one them provide? Graphics card I am not bothering about at the moment, I will see how it runs first before doing anything but I doubt I will play any games on it for a while. Just out of curiosity would it be worth salvaged my olde Radeon 9600 from my old PC? and would it be better than the intergrated graphics? (I would presume so but I'm not sure). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Calza Posted February 12, 2008 Author Share Posted February 12, 2008 Ha in the end I just went for a Dell. It was £289 and had a the E4500 and a bigger HDD and matched the spec every where else. Sure it's memory be at a lower speed and the componets may not be as good but it is cheaper and I doubt I will need to do anything to it since I use my 360 for gaming and the pc just for internet and music. Plus I got another £12 off it from quidco so it works out pretty good. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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