What you think?

[Virtualbody1234]

Processor Athlon 64 2800+ Boxed Socket754
Motherboard MSI-6702 K8T Neo-FIS2R VIA K8T800 S754
Memory 512Mb PC3200 DDR RAM
Case SunTek TH-654 ATX Case 300W
Hard Drive Seagate 160Gb 8Mb SATA
CD/DVD Drive NEC ND3500A Dual Layer DVD+/-R/RW 16x DVD IDE Drive
Graphic Card MSI RX9600 SE 128Mb AGP + DVI/TV Out

£385.69 ex. vat
£453.19 inc. vat

This looks good to me. You could add 512MB more now or even later if you really need it.

[Smurfette]

Yeah not bad but I don't need a HD that big, however I do need RAM
The above one I posted is £460 with 1gb of ram

What ya reckon?

btw, muchly apreciated your help

Jonno

Sorry, it took me a long time to put that together (daughter & her homework interruptions!) and I didn't see your last system (AMD64) posted.
It looks good; is that with 512MB or 1GB?
I had looked at the specs of both MSI mobos and IIRC the one you list has onboard video but only stereo sound (this may just be mis-labeled) and the one I included has no video but 5.1 sound. If you're truly not bothered by video quality and don't mind the possibility of plain ol' stereo sound, the one you picked would mean you don't need the Radeon (who's gonna miss 64MB from 1GB RAM for the onboard video?) so that money could be spent elsewhere - say, on a faster CPU or larger HDD.
Other than that, I'd say go for it... you're not gonna need a high spec gfx card and of the rest of the parts picked, there doesn't seem to be a crap item or anything that couldn't be upgraded very easily.

[Jon L. Obscene]

The one I listed at £399 was 512mb, but for another £50 could have 1gb. altho I could get another Ram chip cheaper than that elsewhere so I guess 512 will do for now.
As for the graphics, to be totally honest I'm not up on this stuff as I said I don't play games etc, but for the sake of £20 or 30 quid I would'nt mind it as someone has offered me some games which require fairly high stats.
Like I said I'm more interested in being able to store large amounts and run several progs without creeping to a standstill.

As things are with my puter if I open aol 8, photoshop 7 it's slow, if I then open Gif animator aswell it will freeze for approx 5 mins before I get the chance to even move my mouse, which as you can imagine is really annoying

Stereo sound etc does'nt bother me, I mean there's little point in having 5.1 with a 20 quid pair of speakers , besides I use headphones most of the time anyway

Ok lets put it like this.

The last config I posted, will it be happy running several progs at once, be capable of storing say 60% of HD space without getting real slow and able to handle latest games?

I'm after one which will do it all if I want it to, no point in buying something then having to add to it later when I could have it all in 1 go

Again thankyou for taking the time to help

Jonno

[Virtualbody1234]

I would suggest you go for a larger hard drive. When you get into DVDs they can take up room quite quickly. Larger drives aren't that much more money.

[Jon L. Obscene]

Yeah I know, but I wont be keeping movies on my HD, they will be burnt asap

I'm REALLY trying to keep the price as low as possible

Jonno

[clocker]

Please. please, please...don't get the MSI board.
Find a comparable nForce3 replacement.

[Smurfette]

Yeah, I would say you're not going to be disappointed with that, considering you're upgrading from a 1.3GHz/256MB system.
You shouldn't have any troubles, but install XP Pro and take a look at Rossco's guide for tips on streamlining it and you'll be well happy.

[Jon L. Obscene]

Ok I just been told that prices will drop after xmas, would you think it's worth the wait to find out?

Jonno

[Smurfette]

Please. please, please...don't get the MSI board.
Find a comparable nForce3 replacement.

Normally I'd say the same, but that's all that's on offer where Jonno is shopping.

[Smurfette]

Ok I just been told that prices will drop after xmas, would you think it's worth the wait to find out?

Jonno

Yeaqh, it's only about 6 weeks away.