cheap LAN party rig

L

lost eden

Gawd
Joined
Dec 13, 2006
Messages
546
I'm thinking of putting together a cheap rig at the end of the summer (early September time) for attending LAN parties. I'm going to be overclocking, but I haven't done so since Socket A so be kind about any stupid questions/decisions! I'm planning on Intel, because that'll be better for future upgrades than AMD, but if I can get a decent AMD rig substantially cheaper than an Intel rig then I'll go for that. So far this is what I'm thinking;

Case - Coolermaster Elite 340 with 2x front 120mms & 1x rear 120mm with grills Dremelled out
PSU - 580W HiperPower HPU-4M580 - don't know much about this brand, but it's the cheapest one Scan have that looks semi-decent
CPU - E2180 which I've heard overclocks well?
Motherboard - not sure, need something cheap in matx that overclocks well
Memory - going with 2GiB, but will generic 800MHz stuff be okay or should I go for something a bit better or even with 1066MHz stuff?
Graphics card - what's best bang-for-buck right now, I was thinking a pre-overclocked 9600GT with non-reference cooling?
Hard drive/optical drive - not a huge concern

Something around the £350 mark would be wonderful, because I'm supposed to be saving money from work this summer & I've got upgrades to do to my other rig as well!
 
Well September is a long ways off and things will change between now and then. E5000 series will begin to replace E2000. Arriving sometime in Q3 is E5200 2.5Ghz 2MB L2 1066 FSB 45nm CPU at $84 which will handily outperform E2180. You can expect several G45/P45 mATX mobos to be released before September. And vid card prices will creep down even further. Though HD4850 is the best value now and I expect that won't change. So there's not much point trying to pin down your choices just yet.
 
I concur with ToasterOven. Three months is too early to start planning for a PC IMO. A lot can change in three months as ToasterOven has shown.

Anyway, the best bang for the buck cards right now would be the 9600GT($140), 8800GT ($160) and HD4850 ($200). However in September that might change since those cards might be cheaper then or video card revisions are released.

You should read the two reviews of that PSU:
http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTUxMCwxLCxoZW50aHVzaWFzdA==
http://jonnyguru.com/modules.php?name=NDReviews&op=Story&reid=85

Decide for yourself if that kind of PSU is good for you. If you do decide that PSU is shit (which I hope you do), get this Corsair 550VX:
http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebProductId=664337

That generic RAM will be okay. Micron does make good RAM IIRC.
 
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