vestan Posted March 28, 2009 Report Share Posted March 28, 2009 Hi everyone.I was looking for some advice on buying a new computer, so I thought I'd post here as to what p.c. I was looking at.I'm going to need a new p.c. for the OU course I have just started. This is what I was looking at.Eclipse Computers:System Configuration MotherboardMSI P31 Neo-F LGA775, DDR2, SATA2, ATX £13.35 Memory Slot 14Gb (2x2Gb) Dual Channel DDR2 800Mhz Memory £29.75 Memory Slot 2None Graphics Card(s)Sapphire 512Mb Radeon HD 4850 PCI-Express VGA Card £110.25 Optical Device 1Samsung SH-S223F 22x DVD+/-R SATA DVD Writer - Black £15.50 Optical Device 2None SATA Device 1250Gb Maxtor DiamondMax21 SATAI/II 8Mb Cache Hard Drive £31.75 Floppy Drive Bay 13.5 1.44Mb Floppy Disk Drive -Silver Facia- £5.45 Floppy Drive Bay 2None TV TunerNone CaseWizard Deluxe 600W PSU, ATX Case, 25CM LED Fan Side Pannel £38.95 MonitorNone SpeakersNone Desk ManagersBlack PS/2 Standard Keyboard And Optical Mouse £4.95 JoyPadsNone JoysticksNone Steering WheelsNone PrinterNone ScannerNone WebCamNone BluetoothNone USB Storage4Gb USB2.0 High Speed Flash Drive £6.95 Operating SystemMicroSoft Windows XP Home Edition -OEM- £68.95 Application SoftwareNone Internet SecurityNone Anti-Virus SoftwareNone Optical Drive SoftwareNone The total price of this machine is £531.43If some one could give me any info. regarding how good this machine will be, what you would upgrade or even if you know of any deals where the specs are better for the price or any companies you would recommend then I would be grateful.Please bear in mind that I know practically nothing about the building of p.c's and what constitutes as a good system, or even which companies selling computers are considered the best. Thanks guys. B) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rong Posted March 28, 2009 Report Share Posted March 28, 2009 I can't comment on the speck, but I would spend a little more and get a Laser mouse, they are much easier to use Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
catgate Posted March 28, 2009 Report Share Posted March 28, 2009 Having looked at your spec. I think if I were you I would be inclined to add a CPU. They are a fairly important component and I don't see one listed (may be I need my spectacles cleaning).Additionally I am surprised that you are going for a graphics card when you have "none" against speakers and joysticks and other things that indicate, to my simple mind, that you are not interested in games, music etc. although 4Gb of memory is well over what you would appear to need for just plain "computing".But do not be disheartened, someone else could quite easily come along shortly and shoot me down. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vestan Posted March 28, 2009 Author Report Share Posted March 28, 2009 Having looked at your spec. I think if I were you I would be inclined to add a CPU. They are a fairly important component and I don't see one listed (may be I need my spectacles cleaning).Additionally I am surprised that you are going for a graphics card when you have "none" against speakers and joysticks and other things that indicate, to my simple mind, that you are not interested in games, music etc. although 4Gb of memory is well over what you would appear to need for just plain "computing".But do not be disheartened, someone else could quite easily come along shortly and shoot me down. :lol: Sorry about that, I forgot to mention that the cpu will be an Intel Core 2 Quad 6600 2.4Ghz LGA775 Processor (G0/SLACR) £147.71. Cheers guys. :D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
-pops- Posted March 28, 2009 Report Share Posted March 28, 2009 I would always have a second hard drive. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alan2273 Posted March 28, 2009 Report Share Posted March 28, 2009 There is no pont to having 4GB's of memory as XP Home only comes in 32bit and will not use all of the memory.Plus is your motherboard really £13.35?.As the case and PSU are cheap you could have trouble later on with the PSU, cheap PSU's are OK for basic machines but with a 4850 and a quad core it could be sailing a bit close to the wind.Why a floppy, with you also buying a USB flash drive. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vestan Posted March 29, 2009 Author Report Share Posted March 29, 2009 There is no pont to having 4GB's of memory as XP Home only comes in 32bit and will not use all of the memory.Plus is your motherboard really £13.35?.As the case and PSU are cheap you could have trouble later on with the PSU, cheap PSU's are OK for basic machines but with a 4850 and a quad core it could be sailing a bit close to the wind.Why a floppy, with you also buying a USB flash drive.Hi Al.What do you mean by cheap?I was told the MB is the most important part of the machine, so why it's only £13.00 i don't know. It's the only the part of the spec you can't upgrade aswell. http://www.eclipsecomputers.com/cart.aspxHave you any suggestions as to what I should look at as an alternative?Thanks.Pops, I was going to use the harddrive out of my current p.c. as a slave drive. theres a load of stuff I've got on it that I need for college, but wouldn't know where to begin to transfer all my login details for courses from my current p.c. to my new one, so I thought why not just put my old hardrive in my new machine?Cheers for the advice. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
catgate Posted March 29, 2009 Report Share Posted March 29, 2009 This is what comes up on my screen from Eclipse :-Searching 'MSI P31 Neo-F LGA775' found 1 resultMotherboards > Intel Socket 775 > MSI (1)Page: 1 of 1Items: 1-1 of 11 [MSI P31 Neo-F LGA775, DDR2, SATA2, ATX] MSI P31 Neo-F LGA775, DDR2, SATA2, ATXMSI P31 NEO-FNormally in Stock £41.50(£47.73 inc. VAT)Add to Compare List 1....and it looks quite different to your System ConfigurationMotherboardMSI P31 Neo-F LGA775, DDR2, SATA2, ATX £13.35 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vestan Posted March 29, 2009 Author Report Share Posted March 29, 2009 O.K.This is just too confusing for me.I don't even know what I'm looking at. Scrap that build, anyone got any suggestions as to the exact build model and where to buy it from that I should be looking at.Hey, thanks for your time. B) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alan2273 Posted March 29, 2009 Report Share Posted March 29, 2009 When I replied to your post I was not saying the motherboard was cheap as I had already looked up a price for it as i new it could not be £13.35.I was referring to the price of the case and PSU (Wizard Deluxe 600W PSU, ATX Case, 25CM LED Fan Side Panel £38.95), which uses a Winpower PSU, which are not a good brand.These are just my thoughts, apart from the PSU everything else is OK.And Eclipse computers, (the one in Coventry), have had a lot of negative feedback on various forums for some years.You could always try something like this.http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/specpage.html?BB-Q6P2G Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vestan Posted March 29, 2009 Author Report Share Posted March 29, 2009 Cheers Al.I didn't fully understand what you meant about the 4850 and a quad core being linked. Would the cpu risk burn out or something trying to power the card?I gathered you were indicating that the psu was a cheap quality make, and the case also. TBH my brain has turned to goo trying to work out which board will accomodate which processor, what type of power should be used, what type of cooling is needed to adequately cover whats goin on inside. etc.I just wish they could make them simple. :D Thanks though Al, I shall have a looky at that link you've provided and ask around a bit more then report back.Thanks for your time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
catgate Posted March 29, 2009 Report Share Posted March 29, 2009 TBH my brain has turned to goo trying to work out which board will accomodate which processor, what type of power should be used, what type of cooling is needed to adequately cover whats goin on inside. etc.I just wish they could make them simple.I know what you mean it can be a nightmare. There is one supplier who lists boards according to which CPU you want to use. They are CCL http://www.cclonline.com/ . I have used them and they seem quite good.I think you need to first of all decide just exactly what you are going to do with your machine when you have built it before deciding what to build. I have a suspicion that there are very many over specified computers doing very little, just because it is "cool" to have the latest gear. Similarly there are very many under specified machines being unknowingly flogged to death by dissatisfied owners. You also need decide just exactly what you are going to do because of software needs. M$ Windows gives you the basic operating system. but depending what you are going to do you will need other programmes, and these can soon add up when using Windows as your OS. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boris Posted March 30, 2009 Report Share Posted March 30, 2009 You could always try something like this.http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/specpage.html?BB-Q6P2GOr a ready-built Quad core ?http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/extras....PC-1239&v=1Just select whatever O/S you prefer Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bnorth Posted March 30, 2009 Report Share Posted March 30, 2009 O.K.This is just too confusing for me.I don't even know what I'm looking at. Scrap that build, anyone got any suggestions as to the exact build model and where to buy it from that I should be looking at.Hey, thanks for your time. B)dear vestan have you googled Eclipse for customer service and product reliabilty ratings eg on the pcpro/pc advisor sites, ciao and other reviews forums ?good luck Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vestan Posted April 6, 2009 Author Report Share Posted April 6, 2009 Hi Everyone.Thanks for all the responses. B) I was asking around my tutor group and someone kindly came up with this.http://www.ebuyer.com/product/159381It seems like a very good deal to me.Any experts care to comment on if this better to buy than the Novatech models mentioned?Thanks very much guys. :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boris Posted April 6, 2009 Report Share Posted April 6, 2009 This comes with no Operating System installed (or any option for it to be pre-installed) - are you up to installing XP or Vista ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boris Posted April 6, 2009 Report Share Posted April 6, 2009 Also read all the reviews :-http://www.ebuyer.com/product/159381/show_product_reviewsespecially this one :-I was expecting the motherboard to be a little limited being a mini atx size but upon recieving it its more limited than you expect! The motherboard is a foxconn a7vmx-k board that has 2 pci slots 4 serial ata 1 ide and one floppy connector. The bad news is that both of the pci slots are unusable due to the huge cooler on the graphics card, one is completly covered and the second if you put anything other than a short hight card in will block or catch on the fan. If you are after a pc that you are not wanting to add anything to then this will be ok for you but if you want to add any cards for wireless etc you are gonna be out of luck. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vestan Posted April 6, 2009 Author Report Share Posted April 6, 2009 Hello Boris mate. I've just read through those reviews and there are one or two negative comments about the system. I don't think I'll be installing any other hardware so I don't think the pci slots will be needed.Out of interest, I was just wondering if the money saved could be put towards a new mobo and once thats installed you would have a slightly better system than the Novatech models?Basically, would you buy this system? :lol: :D I was going to install xp because I'm used to it now, and I've heard vista isn't all that much better. I was going to try to install xp from my disc that I used to install on my current p.c., but the xp is the type you can only use on one p.c. so I dunno if it'll work. But if it doesn't, the lad that mentioned this system also gave me a link where I can buy a new OS from with very competitive prices.http://www.software4students.co.uk/ Thanks for your time. :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vestan Posted April 9, 2009 Author Report Share Posted April 9, 2009 Just got another recommendation from someone who spotted this:http://www.ebuyer.com/product/159373The major problem is it only has onboard graphics. Could someone tell me if it's difficult to disable the onboard graphics, so I can install a new graphics card?Thanks guys. :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boris Posted April 9, 2009 Report Share Posted April 9, 2009 To change to a dedicated card you normally just change the default graphics source in the BIOS. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vestan Posted April 10, 2009 Author Report Share Posted April 10, 2009 Cheers Boris. Is that easy?I guess there will be some documentation that tells you how, that comes with the p.c.Whats your take on the system I posted?http://www.ebuyer.com/product/159373Do you think this is a good deal?Thanks. B) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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