Components Compatibility Check

J

jcalla

Geek Trainee
Hey all,
I was initially planning to spend an additional £100 or so, but I've had to limit my budget due to a general lack of cash, as the other stuff I needed to buy for starting university cost more than I expected it to!

If you people could check out this system build and confirm that it is all compatible I would appreciate it, whilst any last minute recommended amendments are also welcome:

CPU: AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ AM2 (XTSIT.com - £94)
Mobo: Gigabyte GA M55Plus-S3G (ADVANCETEC - £58)
RAM: 1GB Corsair Value Select, DDR2 PC5300 (WESTAVON - £60)
HDD: Western Digital Caviar SE 250GB 16MB (EBUYER - £52)
PSU: Sansun Arctic 500w Modular (EBUYER - £35)
Case: NZXT Trinity Silver (EBUYER - £39)
SPU: TRUST 5.1 SOUND EXPERT OPTICAL (EBUYER - £16)
DVD: LG GSA-H10NBAL 16x16DVD±RW (EBUYER - £25)
LCD: HANNS G HW191D 19" (SAVASTORE - £130)
Keyboard: Zippy WK-9000 (EBUYER - £8)
Mouse: MLK 10 Button Wireless Optical Mouse (EBUYER - £7)

TOTAL: ~£524 (Plus any P&P costs)

I'll then have to buy a tuner card and printer with anything left up to £600 and will probably then buy some speakers separately, as I was going to buy a cheap hifi system to take with me anyway.

Upgrade paths:

1) An additional 1GB of DDR2 RAM.
2) A graphics card, come christmas I think the likes of the 7900 will have come down a lot, allowing them to be a realistic consideration for a poor student.
3) Additional SATAII HDD, probably 250-300GB once more, I'll probably consider this when I hit 200GB used space.
4) Maybe a soundcard, however I will consider putting the trust 5.1 into my current system and moving my audigy 2 ZS into my "University system" for the added sound quality.

Thanks in advance for any advice or help on this matter. I'll probably be ordering the components in a few hours, so just need the compatibility of these parts confirmed.

Kind Regards
John
 
Ok thanks for your confirmation mate, it's appreciated. There is nothing you would change there for around the same price range?

Nice to hear it is a nice system for the price. It's amazing what you can get these days in "low-end" PC systems if you build one yourself and do you research, eh? :)

I think I will give it another 30 mins, to see if anybody comes up with any uber problems, and if not, it may well be time for me to get ordering! :D
 
I would wait for some more replyes, i may not be right, but i think its all ok, but i am still learning :), might have missed somthing.

I wouldent call that PC your building Low end, with a decent graphics card it will be preety good, mid end i would say :). Yea it is amazing for what you can get these days, the price is so much lower when building a PC, i rekon if that was Pre Built and you bought it from a shop, it would be more like £700+
 
Yeah I was looking around a few shops, and if I threw in a 7300GS graphics card, this kind of system is going for anywhere between £700-£900 from what I could see from a brief look... which is quite nice! :)

I'm going to start ordering now, just unsure whether to buy speakers now, and potentially save on the delivery, or just keep looking around to find the best option?

These decisions are never-ending lol!
 
save untill you can get some decent PC speakerts! :)

7300GS, they should be really cheap, thats if there is a 7300GS.
 
If you can stretch that budget upto £700 migh aswell get this Gfx Card instead of getting that 7300GS. Now if you really like that 7300GS bcoz of the price, you might consider geting a 17" Tft rather than 19", that is if you are gaming. You might also want to upgrade your PSU in the future, have a look at BigB's sticky here for PSU brands.

Do not trust cheap wireless mouse!!! -that only me :D

Since you are a student, i have a spare Creative SB Live lying around, i can just give it to you if you want.
 
The Power supply he has chosen seems to be quite good, 17A/20A on the 12V rails and 500w.

:o Damn that 7900GT is cheap :o :o :o, but its 256mb :\
 
For the moment I really cannot stretch any further. This is all the cash I have spare, and a little more, so.. :(

Although I do plan to upgrade the graphics card as soon as possible and I will certainly keep your advice in mind.

As for the soundcard, I leave next Friday, so I will order all of my parts now, or else I will be heading to university rigless and depressed.

By all means though, if you are not planning to use the card, and the card would be better than the one I have chosen, I'd happily take it off of your hands and use that instead.

Thanks a lot for the offer, and for the support you guys, you've been a lot of help! :)
 
Were here to help :), you got some nice gear for the cash though, i should of said, if you tried to go a little lower on more of your components, you could of got a Core 2 Duo 6300 i think it is for £130, but you would need a diffo mobo and those things overclock alot and are allot better than the 3800+ by ALOT!, but the 3800+ is still v good and should do you fine :)
 
Well for the C2D the motherboards available in the UK in the low-end are very limited and it would still mean adding another £25 to the cost of the PC.

Do you *really* think it would be worth it? I'd need a motherboard for £50 with 4 back panel 2.0 USB ports and onboard video (as good as nividia 6100 onboard in the AM2 systems).

Otherwise I will just proceed to order the Am2 system in a short time.
 
I'm going to go with AM2, just read around, and the cheaper C2D models have some problems booting with Conroes and also they seem to have some SATA issues.

I should have at best 3-4 days to get this system up and running, so I need to avoid any problems. Thanks for all your help, I'm placing my orders now ;)
 
PM me you address where i can send the sound card. ;)

Oh BTW, good thinking for AM2 rather than sticking with 939.
 
Damn i have only just realized how much mroe mobos cost than about 2 yr ago, my DFI Infinity 865PE cost about £50 yet had almost as much features as all of these AM2 boards + more and the Bios was excellent, it was a shame it was faulty :'( if it wasent faulty i would of had a beast of a skt 478 rig :P could get that think to 3.8ghz.
 
Yeah, some of the prices are stupid, and the only low-budget Conroe motherboards face the problem of needing a bios flash before they post.

So I've went with the above system, and I think it is really good for the price. I've spent a little extra and have ended up with all of the aforementioned components together with the following for a little over £630:

A) Freecom DVB-T USB Stick
B) Epson Stylus Photo R240

Not bad at all if you ask me :D
 
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