Matth

Trying out a comparable parts list to the 500$ budget build at Ebuyer UK, I'm sticking with a 790 motherboard for comparison, this is more a pricing example than a build that I would actually suggest putting together.

LiteOn LH-20A1L-14C 20X DVDRW DL & RAM 20x20x12 SATA LightScribe Black - Retail Multi Bezel & Software - Ebuyer - £17.92
EV Black Mid Tower Gaming Case with Massive 14cm Front Fan - No PSU - Ebuyer - £21.99 (comparable to the Rosewill?)
Western Digital WD2500AAKS Caviar SE 250GB 7200RPM SATAII/300 16MB Cache - OEM - Ebuyer - £32.75
MSI K9A2 CF-F Socket AM2+ 790X DDR2 7.1 Channel Audio ATX Motherboard - Ebuyer - £54.88
Hiper 425W PSU - 120mm Fan, 20+4pin, 1x 6pin PCI-E, 2x SATA, 6x Molex - Ebuyer - £22.89 (a corner too much? Hiper is a name that is known, possibly not up to TT though)
Kingston 4gb Kit (2x2gb) Ddr2 800mhz/pc2-6400 Memory Non-ecc Cl5(5-5-5-15) - Ebuyer - £60.00 (Kingston - could also go for OCZ, Corsair at a little cheaper)
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4450e 2.3GHz Socket AM2 Energy Efficient 1MB L2 Cache Retail Boxed Processor - Ebuyer - £40.68 (this is a 2.3GHz upgrade versus the original spec)
Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium - Licence and media - 1 PC - OEM - DVD - 64-bit - English - Ebuyer - £59.99 (Vista Premium - they didn't have basic)

Totalling it all up = £311.10

Alternately, switching to the Intel camp
Intel Pentium Dual Core E2180 2GHz Socket 775 800MHz FSB L2 1MB Cache Retail Box Processor - Ebuyer - £41.87
And take your pick of G31 chipset motherboards, actually, as they are cheaper than the 790 AMD, the Intel CPU could be bumped to an E2200, maybe even an E5200
The other possible motherboard is Nvidia Geforce 7050/7100/7150 based


Well I throw open my attempt to match the $500 spec - at current exchange rates plus a bit of "rip-off Britain", it's not that far off, given that it's got Vista Premium instead of basic, and a slight boost to the CPU, though I'll admit I went a bit cheapskate on the case & PSU.

__________________
Mary had a little lamb,
Her father shot it dead
Now Mary takes her lamb to school,
Between two crusts of bread

temeteus82

Thanks Matth for this list

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kris23

if you need a budget build, you simply cant beat AMD, they have some powerful integrted graphics chips....

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Matth

For a better Intel onboard, the GMA X3500 (DX10 capable) , a G35 chipset is needed.
ASUS P5E-VM HDMI iG35 Socket 775 onboard VGA 8 channel audio mATX Motherboard - Ebuyer - £75.06

But a cheaper motherboard and a graphics card such as
ASUS HD 3450 256MB DDR2 VGA DVI HDCP HDTV out PCI-E Graphics Card - Ebuyer - £23.14 or
MSI 8400GS 256MB DDR2 DVI VGA HDTV out PCI-E Graphics Card - Ebuyer - £22.26
Would probably outclass the Intel onboard
The card paired with a P35 board would be about the same price or cheaper, and wouldn't eat main memory for graphics - actually, the budget build could probably be trimmed to a 2GB memory kit to save a bit more.


Some other possible switches, the case and PSU for this:
Coolermaster Elite 330 Black Case With CM eXtreme Power 460W PSU *SPECIAL OFFER* - Ebuyer - £58.01 special offer, a bit dearer, but a Collermaster case and PSU

EV Black Mesh Mid Tower Case With Mesh Side Panel - Front 12cm Blue LED Fan - No PSU - Ebuyer - £19.99 - a black mesh panel case, if you like that style (poor man's Antec 300?)

Or if you want to go really cheap on the metalwork....
Casecom KB-7720BK Black ATX Midi Tower Case - No PSU - Ebuyer - £8.69 for a case!!! - no fans with it, and the specs are a bit messed up, side & back take 80mm, front takes 80mm or 120mm.

The other cases should probably be fully fan-filled as well, but a ready fitted front fan in some of the others saves a lot of messing about as the front postion often requires fascia removal.

__________________
Mary had a little lamb,
Her father shot it dead
Now Mary takes her lamb to school,
Between two crusts of bread