PC Spec for a 7 Year Old

Associate
Joined
26 Jul 2003
Posts
1,352
Location
Loughborough
Trying to spec up a PC for my 7 year old son who has up to now been managing with my old laptop.

It will need to play games, but only the older ones like Unreal 2004, Quake 3 etc at a comfortable frame rate and perhaps have the tech features to play current ones at reduced detail levels. A 17" TFT is about the right size for his desk, although 19" would be nice. Silence is golden so perhaps a Zalman would hit the mark. Everything will run at stock and I'd like at least 18 months before an upgrade becomes necessary(!).

Price is key here and I need to be on the comfortable side of £450, preferably closer £400 in fact if such a thing is possible.

I have a 160gb Samsung Spinpoint SATA HD I will donate to him which should help the price....

It's been a long time since I did a PC upgrade and the choice of boards and processors has become bewildering so any help is much appreciated. I am on Nvidia with my main PC but I don't really have a preference if ATI can offer a better bang for the buck.
 
Soldato
Joined
18 Feb 2006
Posts
9,573
LN10546 AMD Athlon 64 3000+ Socket939 , Venice Core, 1.8GHz , 512KB Cache, Retail £58.18 £68.36
LN11240 1GB (2X512MB) Corsair Value Select, DDR PC3200 (400), 184 Pin, Non-ECC Unbuffered, CAS 2.5 £49.50 £58.16
LN12214 Gigabyte GA-K8N51GMF-9 NF4, S939, PCI-E (x16), DDR 400, SATA II, SATA RAID, uATX, On Board VGA £34.19 £40.17
LN13550 LG GSA-H10ABAL Black 16x16 & ±RW/RAM Dual Layer DVDRW Writer OEM UK £20.59 £24.19
LN13202 256Mb Sapphire ATI X1600PRO DDR2 VGA TVO DVI PCI-E Retail £59.63 £70.07
LN11807 Aspire X-Qpack Black Silver uATX Aluminum Case with 420W v2.0PSU £58.17 £68.35
LN12539 80 Gb Maxtor 6V080E0 DiamondMax 10, SATA300, 7200 rpm, 8MB Cache, NCQ, 9.0 ms £26.82 £31.51


Net Total £307.08

Carriage £10.00

V.A.T. £55.49

TOTAL £372.57



Did that price include the screen? To be honest, I would change the card to a Nvidia one, due to the annoyances of the ATI drivers, and possibly have a different PSU in there.


Edit: Ahhh, missed the hdd bit.
 
Last edited:
Soldato
Joined
18 Oct 2002
Posts
3,787
Location
The Viking Hideout
CP-130-AM AMD Athlon 64 3000+ Venice 90nm (Socket 939) - OEM (CP-130-AM)
£59.95 £59.95
MB-042-GI Gigabyte K8N51GMF-9 nForce 6100 Micro ATX (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-042-GI)
£41.95 £41.95
MY-005-GL GeIL 1GB (2x512MB) PC3200 Value Dual Channel Kit CAS2.5 (GE1GB3200BHDC) (MY-005-GL)
£56.95 £56.95
GX-026-BG BFG 3DFuzion GeForce 7600 GS 256MB DDR2 TV-Out/DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-026-BG)
£64.95 £64.95
CA-004-AS Asus TA-210 Series Midi Tower (Black) - 360W PSU (CA-004-AS)
£34.95 £34.95
HS-011-ZA Zalman CNPS7700-ALCU Ultra-Quiet CPU Cooler - Retail (HS-011-ZA)
£18.95 £18.95
CD-025-SO Sony CRX320EE CDRW/DVD Combi Drive (Black) - OEM (CD-025-SO)
£16.95 £16.95
KB-051-MS Microsoft Wireless Optical Desktop 1000 Black - Retail (BV3-00007) (KB-051-MS)
£23.95 £23.95
Subtotal £318.60
VAT £55.76
Total £374.36

Does mean you need to source yourself a monitor but the rest should be good to go and will meet your upgrade timeframe quite nicely.
 
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