PC for a friend - Budget £450

Link to us!

Monday 8.9.2025 / 09:27

Search AfterDawn Forums:

Browse by topic

Forums

PC for a friend - Budget £450

Jump to:

Posted

Message

doomdiver

Inactive

8. February 2009 @ 15:17

Link to this message

Hey all, I came here for advice a while ago when I was building my first PC which (thanks partialy to some guys on here) turned out great, so I decided to come back again for more help.

Anyway my friend is wanting a cheap gaming PC. The main reason being Empire: Total war.

With a budget of £450 (this really is the limit, I had to push him to put a bit more money into it already) this is what I came up with:

Intel E5200 dual core 2.5GHz - £57.37
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Intel-Pen...MB-Cache-Retail

Asus P5KPL-AM iG31 - £42.54
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Asus-P5KP...TA-RAID-ATX-VGA

512MB HD4850 - £122.97
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/512MB-Asu...x-DL-DVI-I-HDTV

4GB Corsair DDR2 RAM (800) - £43.57
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/4GB-(2x2G...ed-CAS-5-5-5-18

550W Powercool PSU - £36.69
http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebProductId=953275

320GB Hitachi Deskstar HDD - £37.25
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/320-GB-Hi...Cache-85-ms-NCQ

LG DVD drive - £15.51
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/LG-GH22NS...-SATA-Black-OEM

XClio Coolbox case - £28.69
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Xclio-Coo...t-Panel-w-o-PSU

Vista Home Basic 64Bit OEM - £70.71
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Microsoft...t-1Pk-OEM-(DVD)

That brings the total to about £455.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance all.

AfterDawn Addict

4 product reviews

9. February 2009 @ 00:08

Link to this message

CPU, Graphics, DVD and RAM are good. The rest of the hardware is not.
The motherboard is unlikely to be at all reliable. Get this one instead:
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Gigabyte-...I-SATA-RAID-ATX
The PSU is positively dangerous - get this instead:
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/400W-Cors...3-year-warranty
400W is plenty for this system, don't worry.
Hitachi HDDs have had reliability issues in the past, go with one of these:
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/320-GB-We...-8MB-Cache-9-ms
The case isn't especially well made or cooled either, despite the big fans. You will actually do better with one of these:
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Coolermas...im-Case-w-o-PSU
and adding an extra fan for the back:
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/120mm-Aka...-Retail-Package

If that works out slightly overbudget, drop the graphics down to an HD4830 - you'll save money, ad it's still a good performer.

Afterdawn Addict // Silent PC enthusiast // PC Build advisor // LANGamer Alias:Ratmanscoop
PC Specs page -- http://my.afterdawn.com/sammorris/blog_entry.cfm/11247
updated 10-Dec-13


		User name	Password

		Not registered yet? Register here. Lost your password? Click here.