Comments on: Zero Hour approaches for my £250 build

By: jazzyjeph

jazzyjeph — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 08:32:13 +0000

@Grimer “There are very few games available on Linux” have you ever used Linux ? which version ? what year ? why say unqualified things like that, sigh….

By: The building begins in earnest | PC Pro blog

The building begins in earnest | PC Pro blog — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 15:42:42 +0000

[...] final shopping list – after taking suggestions from the helpful comments of Grimer, E and Ian Devlin, among others – looks like [...]

By: Grimer

Grimer — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 15:41:33 +0000

Don’t worry too much about the temps. Your colleagues at CustomPC were happy to run a Q6600 at 93C.

http://www.custompc.co.uk/news/601290/36ghz-core-2-quad-for-176/page2.html

By: Ian Devlin

Ian Devlin — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 22:41:48 +0000

Ryan & Mark: the Intel option only costs £5 more and you get double the level 2 cache with the E5200, arguably with a better CPU architecture… certainly the E5200 is a very good chip to overclock, I don’t know about the Athlon but as an energy efficient part it may not be capable of the speeds.

Admittedly the lower running costs may get Mike a few brownie points with Mr. Danton, but so would a decent overclock (it certainly applies to the more recent desktop reviews…I don’t know if the rules will allow the other PC Pro staff to overclock as they’re buying complete systems): and a 110W power draw with the E2200 is still very impressive.

Also the other participants don’t seem to be able to include the E5200 for the money and getting 3GHz with the Intel heatsink won’t be difficult by raising the FSB Bus by 40Hz… something even a cheap board should hopefully be capable of.

By: Second-hand? Several days-hand, more like | PC Pro blog

Second-hand? Several days-hand, more like | PC Pro blog — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 13:04:28 +0000

[...] as his word, it should be with me later this week. Looking across at the systems David Bayon and Mike Jennings are putting together, I think it might measure up rather [...]

By: Ryan

Ryan — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 19:13:55 +0000

At that price you’re better off buying an AMD – you can pick an 4850ee with an motherboard for about 75-80 GBP, and that’s better than the E2200.

I actually build both systems, using the E2200 as an media center and the 4850ee as home server (linux, still busy setting it up).

If you think green the AMD system runs at 55-60watt idle (3*hdds), E2200 at 110w idle (1xhdd) and my E8400 system at 160w idle (3xhdd and an 1950pro)….

By: technogeist

technogeist — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 00:51:36 +0000

Does the £250 have to cover delivery costs as well?

By: Mark

Mark — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 12:31:42 +0000

I would have gone for an AMD approach.

Yes Intel is superior as far as CPU goes but AMD can get you a very nice cpu for a decent price and the difference wan’t be noticed.

By: Kuryakin

Kuryakin — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 12:15:01 +0000

“if you think you have a certain phrase that captures the power, versatility and (probable) incompetence of my machine then please let me know”

How about Mandelson?

By: Mike Jennings

Mike Jennings — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 20:36:47 +0000

Allan – I’ve thought about spending the last £10 of my budget on a CPU cooler. However, I’ve heard good things about the stock Intel heatsink when it comes to coping with a Pentium Dual Core. Rest assured, I’ll be breaking out CoreTemp and Orthos to do some testing with my rig and if it’s getting too hot I’ll consider that as a final upgrade.

Nicomo – I agree, both Grimer and E have put together some very compelling specifications, and so I’ve taken inspiration from both of them to improve my rig. I was going to post an update this afternoon but the PC Pro website had some technical difficulties. I’ve ordered the components now, and I’ve taken advice from both Grimer and E as to what should be in the final rig: Grimer’s suggestion of getting a 1,600MHz motherboard and HD 4350 graphics card and E’s suggestion of upgrading to a larger hard disk to heart – all this will be appearing in the final build.