PC For a friend of mine

[FilipM]

Right, a friend of mine, he's from UK wants to build a new PC for ~ 500 pounds not including a monitor. I told him I would help him so I went on to www.scan.co.uk and came up with this:




--- Gigabyte GA-EP43-DS3, iP43 Express --- 70.14 - pounds inc. vat

--- Intel Core 2 Duo E7200 --- 82.83 - pounds inc. vat

--- Gigabyte HD4870 --- 173.89 - pounds inc. vat

--- 2GB (2x1GB) Corsair TwinX XMS2 DDR2 800 // 4-4-4-12 --- 34.83 - pounds inc. vat

--- Corsair TX 650W --- 65.79 - pounds inc. vat

--- Coolermaster RC-331 Elite --- 29.99 - pounds inc. vat

--- 250 GB Western Digital WD2500AAJS --- 33.78 - pounds inc. vat

--- Optiarc (Sony/NEC) AD-7200S-0B --- 15.03 - pounds inc. vat

--- 120mm Silverstone FN122 Black Fan Extend bearing design (for intake fan) --- 5.28 - pounds inc. vat




NET TOTAL - £435.35

CARRIAGE - £9.57

VAT - £77.86

GRAND TOTAL - £522.78



What do you think of it? Any recommendations are welcome. If you have anything better as a suggestion, please keep in mind the price.

 

[oli_ramsay]

Eerything there looks good, maybe could add an aftermarket CPU cooler if he's overclocking.

 

[FilipM]

I don't think he'll be overclocking, need to ask him...

 

[JrRacinFan]

May want to add the few extra pounds for this ....

http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebProductId=839037

... It will add crossfire functionality in case at a later time another HD4870 will want to be added. Everything else looks good IMO. Oh and I do understand it currently is a pre-order item but you may be able to find it elsewhere.

 

[oli_ramsay]

If he's doing xfire in the future then x38/x48 is the only viable option as PIC-e running at 8/8 (in all P45 chipsets) handicaps the cards

http://www.tweaktown.com/articles/1472/intel_p45_vs_x48_crossfire_performance/index.html

 

[JrRacinFan]

If he's doing xfire in the future then x38/x48 is the only viable option as PIC-e running at 8/8 (in all P45 chipsets) handicaps the cards

http://www.tweaktown.com/articles/1472/intel_p45_vs_x48_crossfire_performance/index.html

I understand that. If there was crossfire on the brain from the get-go I would have said X38/X48.

But if there is only a slight chance, then a P45 in crossfire would more than likely be plenty. Also another item to think about is that P45 is PCIe 2.0, which means the slots in 8x 2.0 get roughly the same bandwith as 16x in 1.0a/1.1.