hi, well im thinking of building a computer but i just need confirmation that all the parts will be compatible.
i will be building a very cheap pc which i wont be using for gaming.anyway here are the specs:

motherboard : http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...oductID=443857

CPU : http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...oductID=522374

RAM : http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...oductID=174815

HDD : http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...oductID=502299

DVDRW : http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...oductID=368150

and a VERY cheap case + psu : http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...oductID=345206

(and i have an os)
thats it, i think it comes to around £170 what do you think?

oh yeah mobo info: http://www.asrock.com/mb/overview.asp?Model=775i945GZ

I would get two of the 512 RAM for 1GB total. Or get one 1GB stick as then you can upgrade to the max 2GB if you ever want to.

You can get Maxtor 160GB drives for the same price (or less) than 80GB.

Get a case without a Power Supply and add you own PSU. This is one of the most important components. In this instance do not be cheap. This is the life blood of all the other electronics involved.

Enermax makes awesome PSU's: http://www.enermax.com.tw/english/index.asp

Here is their 460W: http://www.enermax.com.tw/english/pr...ay1.asp?PrID=7

You did not include a Graphics Card which means you will run off the motherboard?

This will be fine for XP under standard applications. Although it claims to be Vista compliant I doubt that it would run Vista well and certainly not without a Graphics Card and probably 2GB of RAM.



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I built a system similar to that for a friend about one year ago. It is only used for web browsing and Emailing, so far with no problems. As Jephree suggests if you start with a better PSU you will be able to upgrade in the future.

ok, something like thhis :

case : http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...oductID=534748

PSU : http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...oductID=318499

apart from that is everything else ok?

edit: yes i will be running off onboard graphics and i think 512mb ram will be alright for the moment

Looks good to me. Nice PSU and Case!

Again check you Maxtor selection as I just purchased 160GBs for less than the 80GBs.

update:

i was looking around and i cane across the asus barebone P3-PH4 and it looks damn cool!! http://www.ciao.co.uk/ASUS_P3_PH4__6...#productdetail

what do you think of it and in a barebone does the motherboard and psu come assembled in the case or do you put them in yourself?

thanks

In general the Mobo and PSU would be installed.

That only has a 275W PSU. That's the only problem I see but I think it is a major problem.

If you're after a cheap but reliably quick pc, i'd definately give eBay a whirl and find one of the older mesh pc's with a stable & quick Socket-A Athlon, a Ge-Force 4, 160Gb IDE and about 1gb of DDR. I've seen these go for as cheap as £90 - ready to roll. Most people overlook the old Socket-A CPU's and consider them outdated and..well... old!
But in my opinion they are the most reliable little buggers on the market. Cheap as chips as well nowadays! If you're just after a cheap PC thats capable of most things, including playing quite up-to-date games, then i'd highly recommend one.
Expansion is a bit limited to items such as DDR-400, and the best graphics card being a Ge-Force FX/Ti or a Radeon 9800 operating on AGP8x, but for most people its ample power.
At the moment i still run an Athlon 2800+ (2.09Ghz), 1Gb RAM, Ge-Force 4 Ti4200 128Mb, a SATA pci card with 2x 80gb SATA Maxtor's in RAID 0, and it visually performs tasks as quick as my brothers 64-bit Athlon 3000+, 1Gb DDR-2, 120Gb Seagate SATA, and a cheap PCI Express card. Mine plays all the latest games at 1024x768 no glitches (an ample res for most).
All in all, CONSIDER IT! They are cheap, reliable, you can learn a lot from tweaking, messing and experimenting with them, and are not expensive to repair in case of messing too much. Upgrades are as cheap as chips. My SATA card was £10 and the two SATA 80Gb Maxtor's owe me £35. In RAID mode they are very responsive. If you get a base unit for £90, spend the other £70-100 maxxing it out. Buy a pretty case if you wish, buy another 3 sticks of RAM. Cheap, reliable, easy to assemble, maintain, bodge, mess with, inexpensive to repair. Thats just my opinion though - and i'm a skin-flint... anyone else got one?

Originally Posted by jephree

In general the Mobo and PSU would be installed.

That only has a 275W PSU. That's the only problem I see but I think it is a major problem.

well i did the power supply calculator and it finished at around 242 w
so i think 275 should be allright