Building a cheap but powerful pc

[lonewolfxix]

hi everyone, your resident tech-head here. i have set a goal for myself in my newest pc build, anyone can spec the ultimate pc where money is no object, but i have set a goal for myself, it may take me weeks as i am pretty young and therefore don't have a job, my goal is to build a cheap pc that can perform in the latest games at respectable details, i have also set out terms for this, all except one part must be new and the used part must be reliable... the aim is to build a pc that is well within satisfactory results on the gaming scale if i have to overclock it (with no mods) to get it upto speed. here is a list of goals.

I must build a cheap, reliable pc with whatever money i can make
I cannot modify the pc in anyway to get better performance from it that could void the warranty (e.g. changing the heatsinks on parts or performing "voltmods") this needs to be a pc practically anyone can build.
The pc must fall within affordable or atleast second thought worthy on a price scale.

so what am i looking at? i've already done some research comparing the two major processor companies out there.
AMD and Intel, everyone would say intel and say clock for clock they beat amd's and they use less power and bang per buck they're cheaper.... but i have conducted research of performance and cost... both using the same ram which costs ?65 for 2gb on their mid-range boards, for the amd, nf570 (?60 avg.) and for intel, the P35 (?100 avg.) now we know the board is cheaper by about ?40 give or take depending how much, might even be worth upgrading to a top of the range amd board for an extra ?30... now, what about cpu's? you'd expect they'd probably price around the same for similiar performance... let's test that theory with the intel core2duo e4500 which sits pretty at ?83now... similiar price amd... ahh the athlon64 X2 5200 sitting at ?80. now, i can't upload the picture because the site doesnt seem to want to work, but i had jasperking look it up and the 5200 seemed to just be behind the E6600 which costs ?132... look it up. so, with that in mind, by using Scan as my place to shop i specced a pc...

Now, I'm going dead cheap on this pc and i am buying these components, but here's what i've chosen.
Motherboard: Foxconn N570SM2AA here for ?46
Processor: AMD Athlon64 X2 4200+ here for ?46
RAM: Corsair XMS DDR2-800 2gb here for ?61 (the 4gb for ?160 is tempting )
Graphics: MSI GeForce 8600GT here for ?66

this is all i need for my build, but all other parts are pretty cheap, you can get a decent power supply now for ?25 and a 250gb harddrive for ?40, i hope this little article has inspired some people to build their own pc's, it saves a lot of money, makes you seem smarter to others and the performance is alot better

[Jasperking]

What about the case? it must have a nice case rofl.. so is this going to be the pc your going to use after the one that broke?

[LiNuX]

wow sounds complicated but good luck, make me one and ship it over here lol, shipment only costs around $100 for 3 weeks lol

good luck with it, let us know how it turns out and if you are broke

[lonewolfxix]

I have ?600 ($1200) in my bank so I won't go broke :P

And Jasperking, yes it will, I was thinking of getting a "sharkoon rebel 9" gaming/value case which can be found at Scan for under ?30, but since i already have a case right now I was thinking of sticking to it for a little longer.
Also,I have found the motherboard I want for a lot cheaper on ebay brand new with a warranty, so I'm thinking of going for it, ends in 2 days time Also, change on the graphics card, I went to ebuyer and the cheaper and better card I wanted is now sold.. the Inno3D GeForce 8600GT for ?67 so I'm ordering that from there (?10 off from google check out and free postage... ?15 saving!)

[Jasperking]

lol the sharkoon rebel 9 looks like a mini atx on scan lol but dw i know its not.

So you only got 2 days to think about if you are going to do this?

[lonewolfxix]

I'm doing it, but i need to make the money
had ?20 in wallet, brother has paid off 1/3 of the harddrive cost (?5) plus i sold jasperking a game for ?5 i now have ?30 which leaves me ?27 away from getting the gpu plus i'm selling a ps2 for an expected ?30, a radeon 9700pro for an expected ?30 and 2 other cards for an expected ?8=/
which is ?98... enough for the board on ebay and my new gpu

[LiNuX]

lol wow lonewolf, ur quite the business man, sell jasper 5 more games and u'll be that much closer to that gpu lol

[Jasperking]

rofl sell me 5 more games i dont think so lol i dont have the money to throw away . He didnt give me a used game though..well he did but he didnt use it himself

[LiNuX]

lol wtf, so he was the middleman for the game? thats pretty weird, maybe he found it in a dumpster beind ur house and sold it back to u lol

[Jasperking]

rofl nah he just bought it off ebay.. well he bought 2 of the same game because i said that id buy the other one