build a c2d for under £460(help me select)

[vcas5]

hi i need a new system for a friends little brother.so it needs a gfx card and the whole works as i have no intel parts i can donate

help me select the components, if it overclocks it would be a major bonus too

thanks for your time :)

[powerBar]

Gigabyte S3 - good oc board
E6300 ev. e6400 - depends on budget e6300 is def good enough
1GB or 2GB - same as above, depends on budget, DDR2 800 value ram (7x400=2.8GHz min OC)
400-500W psu

[Lithan]

That's like $850 if I remember right.


e6300 $200
s3 $125
2gb cheap 800 $225
7900gt $200
200gb+ sata Hard drive $75
PSU: FX700-GLN $125
Case: Any cheap case that fits it all On this budget dont be picky. $25

Already overbudget... damn. I wouldn't go cheaper on anything. Go cheaper on PSU and ya wont handle a GFX upgrade, cheaper on GFX and gaming will suck, You CANT go cheaper on mobo/proc and get anything decent, Go down to 1gb ram and you'll notice it in a lot of current apps and games.

If I had NO choice, I guess I'd go to 1gb and expect to upgrade in less than six months.

[vcas5]

lol lithan i know how hard it is but its for an 11yo.im selecting components like i want and then im saying im over budget lol:D

[Charloz24]

E6300
Gigabyte S3
1gb value ram
X1600 pro

Pretty nice cheap rig for a 11 yo child IMO

[specofdust]

Know I'm newish here but I have to disagree with Lithan on the PSU. A good 600W PSU should easily be enough for a single disk C2D system, even with an 8800 in it at a later date. Bit-tech.net's testing of a bench C2D system with an 8800 and single disk showed that even under full load the sytem only used a little over 300W, and SPCR's testing shows that most systems don't hit much higher then that either. I'd probably go so far as to say that a 500W PSU would be enough if it was a high quality make.

[Lithan]

Know I'm newish here but I have to disagree with Lithan on the PSU. A good 600W PSU should easily be enough for a single disk C2D system, even with an 8800 in it at a later date. Bit-tech.net's testing of a bench C2D system with an 8800 and single disk showed that even under full load the sytem only used a little over 300W, and SPCR's testing shows that most systems don't hit much higher then that either. I'd probably go so far as to say that a 500W PSU would be enough if it was a high quality make.



Well, since single core A64 rigs with 6800gtx's were testing nearly 375watts during 3d stress back in the day, I'd have to say that bit-tech's method must be flawed.
Fact is, a STRONG 700watt will get by with dual 8800's and not have much to spare based on reports I've seen from guys running them. But if we have members with dual 8800gtx here onn 500w psu's and no dipping, please correct me.


My 400w fortron (puts on 470ish watts in testing iirc), starts to dip on the 12v with 1x 7800gtx, 2x HD, 1x optical, 2g ram, and e6400 with 965 board and e6400 @ 3.33ghz. I highly doubt it could run two 7800gtx. Probably not even a single 8800gtx.

Now a year down the road when 2x 8800gtx or 1x next gen, 4gigs ram, a chip that clocks 3.6-4ghz and maybe has 4 cores... that'll be stressing the 700w. It'd be a joke to try and keep a 500w at that point.

But since it's for an 11 year old, Hell You could give him a $300 socket a rig and it'd be enough.


tier 1-2-3 PSU 400w+ $50
S3 $125
e6300 $200
2x512 800 ddr2 value $100?
7900gt $200
cheap case $25


You wont be able to upgrade it much beyond ram, cpu and a minor gfx change... You'll probably have to trash the whole thing when/if he ever does a platform change, but the kid's 11... so yeah. Just seems a waste of money to me to drop $700 on that rig, when $300 more can get you a real good gaming rig. I say go budget or go performance... dont set a price in the middle and try and blend the two.

[specofdust]

Well, since single core A64 rigs with 6800gtx's were testing nearly 375watts during 3d stress back in the day, I'd have to say that bit-tech's method must be flawed.
Fact is, a STRONG 700watt will get by with dual 8800's and not have much to spare based on reports I've seen from guys running them. But if we have members with dual 8800gtx here onn 500w psu's and no dipping, please correct me.

Well, I disagree that just because the card is of a later model that it must be using more power. Specific Nvidia cards have been terrible for sucking up power. Add to that the fact that C2D is designed as a lower power CPU and DDR2 also uses less power, I don't see why its a certainty that the specced rig would require greater power.

I agree that a dual 8800 system would be stretching/not run on a 500W PSU, but the kid this things for is 11 and having a low budget rig built for him. Maybe he's going to move to a single 8800 at some point, but two? I have to doubt it.

It seems wastefull to spend extra money on covering that eventuality right now when if at a later date he's got £500 or whatever 2x8800's cost at that time to blow on some SLI graphics he could sell on a decent 500W PSU and upgrade to a 700W model for maybe an extra £20-50. Hardly a big extra when he's having to spend so much to get SLI 8800's.

You can find the power consumption page for Bit-techs review of the 8800 here: http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2006/11/08/nvidia_geforce_8800_gtx_g80/18.html. You can find the test setup they used on page 11 of the same review. I'm sure if you have any questions you could email or PM the reviewer on the forum and he'd be happy to answer them.

Oh and apoligies if linking to an outside review site is against rules, it seems relevent to the thread, if it's not allowed I'm happy to remove the link

[StealthyFish]

Intel E6300 - 180 USD
Gigabyte P965 S-3 - 125 USD
2gb DDR2 800 anything - 250
Nvidia 7900GS - 150
cheap case - 25
Antec TruePower 480W - 70
200Gb+ Hard drive - 75

- 875 USD, slightly overbudget. If you want, drop to 1gb DDR2 800 at 150, and you've got a little bit left. btw, that 7900GS is capable of getting to around 7900GTX speeds.