Building a cheap but powerful pc

[lonewolfxix]

The building part is easy i've been building pc's for the last 5 years I just need to get the money, by the end of the week I should have ?74 which is ?17 more than i need for the first thing so I'm on my way to building it.

[Jasperking]

So are you getting the graphics card first then the hdd and then the motherboard?

[lonewolfxix]

gpu first, yes, simply as the soon as i have that i have a working pc that i can use to play games on and sell more things on ebay. The harddrive is a replacement by seagate and i'm just waiting for them to ship it now. then I have to plan how to get the money for the motherboard cpu and ram and i have found out I am ?33 out. I'm also considering getting Half Life 2 Orange Box (anyone want buy hl2 and ep1 off me for ?8?) but that boosts it upto ?58 need minus the ?8 for selling the games that's ?50 :P I will also be willing to sell my ps2 for ?25 since it's slightly faulty.... last owner done ghetto console servicing and ripped the cable for the LEDs in the front.

Game or money towards upgrade?

[lonewolfxix]

alrighty.. update time:

progress: 98%

I have now basically fully built the PC and i'm using it right now, currently at stock except the graphics card which is running in "energy efficient mode" though it only uses 45watt anyway right now it's using about 30watt

PC works great and came to a (based on comparable components as some of my parts were from my old system) ?300! (about $580.. and remember.. I'm in britain) I can run TDU and HL2 etc. at max spec and at full load it uses a total power of 209watt which equates to about.. 1.8pence/hour to run in britain (3.2cents) or if you were running in america.. about 1.8cents/hour depending where you are.
But right now in energy efficient it's using something like 190watt. soon as i get my ram back i'll clock and underclock my processor see how low and how high i can get it :P

Total spec:
CPU: AMD Athlon64 x2 4200+ Energy Efficient 65w (?42)
RAM: Kingston ValueRAM ddr2-667 2x1gb (?37 now ?35)
HDD: Seagate S-ata150 250gb -- comparable drive : Seagate S-ata3G 250gb 16mb cache (?43)
mobo: Foxconn N570SM2AA 8EKRS2H (?45)
GPU: Inno3D GeForce 8600GT 256mb (?64)
PSU: Antec NeoPower 480watt -- comparable psu : Arctic Power 600watt (?32) -- better to get 700watt v.