Page 1 of New PC - Buy or Build????

It's been a little over 3 years since I built my current PC (Athlon XP2500, 1GB ram, 80GB HD) so I need a new one. With the price of pre-built systems coming down I'm not sure whether it's better to buy or build a new system?

What I need a PC to do! - Basically mainly for internet and downloading lots of stuff. I don't play games but I do want a quick machine which would be good for occasional video converting and multitasking.

Money - I have a budget of £300 for hardware as I have the software covered (doing a dual boot with Vista & XP)

I have had three AMD Pc's now and would like to stick to them. I have built my last 2 PC's from parts from Ebuyer so I have looked again and found the below system which looks good for my budget.

It's been a while since my last PC build so I need to know if the change to SATA hard drives is going to be as easy as IDE? Do I need a floppy drive to load the SATA drivers?
Do I load XP or Vista first?

Is there a better system for my budget? - pre-built or parts?

Any info appreciated

What I have found so far - http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/103566

1 x AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+ Socket AM2 (2.2GHz) L2 1MB (2x512KB) Retail Boxed Processor 118226 £39.02
1 x Coolermaster Centurion 5 With Blue Trim - No PSU 103566 £25.52
1 x MSI K9N Neo-F V3 Socket AM2 nForce560 7.1channel audio ATX Motherboard 131187 £34.03
1 x Kingston 2GB KIT (2X1GB) DDR2 667MHz/PC2-5300 CL5 Non Ecc 1.8V 91124 £34.54
1 x Asus Extreme N6200TC/TD 256MB supporting 512MB DDR2 DVI PCI-E Graphics Card 116452 £18.68
1 x LiteOn DH-16D2P 16x52 DVD-Rom Black Bare Drive - OEM 129551 £8.16
1 x Sumvision 450W 20+4pin SATA PSU - Retail Boxed - £10.20
1 x Hitachi Deskstar T7k500 HDT725032VLA360 320GB SATAII - 3.5in 7200RPM 16MB Cache - £39.48
1 x Samsung SH-S203B 20X DVD1RW/RAM / DL Serial ATA Black Bare Drive - OEM - £15.61

Prices not including VAT but the total Including is about £265

This item was edited on Monday, 1st October 2007, 00:25

if thats a PCW product code it doesn`t exist on the website.....?
Or are these just various items at reasonable pricing? :D

Jimbo : oÞ

"Making Teenagers depressed is like shooting fish inna barrel"

OK no wyer whole post is showing Lololol
Anyways, it`s what you`re comfortable with. IIRC and you`re with PCW then there has to be a stupidly high spec clearance machine somewhere under 300 notes....check the clearance reports on Eclipse ;)

Otherwise....I know of a comet Clearance centre that`s usually good but you`ll need to be near Glesga ;)

Jimbo : oÞ

"Making Teenagers depressed is like shooting fish inna barrel"

Your Quick - I hit the wrong button ;)

I`m surprised you can get that much kit for that price - nice one.
I will probably be switching to Intel next - a Core 2 duo. Only thing I would say is steer clear of the IBM drive. Get a Seagate or WD.

Ste

Yes, I prefer the Seagate Barracuda drives but saw the Hitachi one with some good reviews

http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/117757

Also like the 16mb cache which should make it a bit faster!

Just notcied the prices you have listed do not include VAT, just incase you missed that.

There are no problems with SATA drives, that I have experienced anyway and have never needed to install a driver from a floppy, just use the windows generic driver then install the correct one from the motherboard driver cd once everything is up and running, you will probably need a molex to sata power converter as the PSU you have listed says it only has one SATA power connector. WD HD drives usually have both molex and SATA power connectors.

Also check how many SATA data cables come with the motherboard, again usually only 1 so you may need to buy another.

And as SJ says might be worth looking at a Core 2 Duo based system, might not cost as much as you think, plus the supplied cooling fans are pretty good for average everyday use.

All the best

Gerald.

This item was edited on Monday, 1st October 2007, 16:20

Quote:
Prices not including VAT but the total Including is about £265 - sorry if I did not make it clear but the £265 is including VAT


Are the sata cables like ide with 2 connections on one lead? If so I would only need the one for both hard drive and DVD writer.

Thanks for the info

This item was edited on Monday, 1st October 2007, 18:51

Yes they are the same idea but I would never put the hard disk on the same cable as an optical drive..

Ste

My mb has 4 SATA sockets. Piece of cake - one device per socket.. no more or the master/slave jumper setting stuff.. Extra data and power cables cost next to nothing.