Buying New PC - and selling old one.... Suggestions??

[GoatyGoat]

I want to buy a new PC sometime in 2004. My current one is getting behind the times (has been upgraded many times - almost at full capacity), and a new one is best choice (in 2004 PC will be 4 years old). So can anyone give me advise in these 2 areas please?

1) Can anyone recommend a good site (UK only please) where I can completely custom build a PC? I mean I don't wan't to have to pay for things I already have (i.e. I don't need a new Video Card, HDD or CD-ROM Drive....) so I wan't to be able to not buy these things with the Custom PC.

2) Can anyone give advise on what price I am likely to get for my current PC (I'll probably sell it on eBay or seomthing)?

Here are the things that will be sold (I will want to keep some items):

ECS K7VZM 1.0a Motherboard
AMD Athlon Thunderbird 1.2GHz (200MHz FSB)
512MB of PC100 SDRAM
56K V90 Modem
2 IDE Cables (ATA 100 Max. - although motherboard only supports ATA66)
**Possibly** 50x CD-ROM
CD-RW Drive (USB) 24/4/4
Standard PS/2 Mouse and Keyboard

ITEMS NOT INCLUDED (WILL BE KEPT):

64MB GeForce2 MX400 Graphics Card
20GB ATA66 HDD
80GB ATA100 HDD
Floppy Drive
17" Monitor


**Any advise appreciated**

 

[craigey]

Your best bet is to buy the parts you need / want and build the new pc yourself.

http://www.scan.co.uk

&

http://www.ebuyer.co.uk

are a couple of online shops that I regularly use for parts.

 

[jrbarnett]

Hi,

If you go to

http://www.carrera.co.uk

you can specify a custom box with a fair number of components, certainly more than most.

As for selling your existing PC, remember that with no hard drive and video card it won't work out of the box, so any recipient would be using it for parts or upgrading.
I would suggest when you get your new pc to get a new video card to go with it, as the Geforce4 mx is now behind the times, and you will find that new Geforce FX5200 or low end ATI Radeon cards are very affordable while offering a huge performance increase over the old card.
Also take into account new machines are likely to have ATA133 or serial ATA controllers for hard drives, so your 80Gb drive wouldn't perform at its best connected to the new controller (I would be tempted to leave the 20Gb drive in the old machine for this reason, and have the 80 as a second drive).

John

 

[paparazi]

I would say the bits total around £95
Moby £20
CPU £15
Memory £30
Modem £5
CDrom £7
Writer £15
Mouse and Keyboard £3
Custom built PC's, good service and prices:

a-dcomputers.co.uk

Your 80gig will be just fine in your new PC, it is likely to be a fast 7,200 drive and believe me, unless you are going 10,000rpm WD raptor then things haven't moved on too much as far as this drive and what you would fit in a mainstream PC.
The graphics card is old now and useful for old games and display only.
Martin

Replying helps further our knowledge, without comment leaves us wondering.

 

[GoatyGoat]

So you suggest I leave teh 20GB HDD and the video card in with the sale? And keep my ATA100 80GB Drive?

That's all very well, but I don't need a new video card...all my games look great and 64MB is not bad considering a new one would be 128MB (the very new 256MB ones are way too expensive)

 

[paparazi]

Well then you've answered yourself the question, if you are happy with the games you are currently playing and the performance your present graphics card is giving then thats fine but I can't imagine a 15year old not wanting to run the latest releases when you get them and a GF2 MX400 just won't cut the mustard.
Martin

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[GoatyGoat]

Well I can buy the latest PC (like the following) for under £600 if I buy it all seperately:

Gigabyte mainboard
AMD 2800+ Processor
1GB 333MHz DDR RAM
160GB ATA133 HDD
128MB ATI Video Card
PC 400W Case
52x32x52 CD-RW (internal)

all from

http://www.ebuyer.com

- all are either just below top of the range or cheaper versions thereof (like the PC Case or Video Card)
So if I sell almost everything from my old PC for £100-£150, the new one will come to under £450. Cool

 

[norty303]

The memory on a card is NOT the only factor. A 32mb current card will still outdo your 64mb card because the hardware itself has progressed so much too, not just slapped on some more RAM! Support for DX 8 & 9 also enables more features to be used (although 9 not really integrated fully just yet, give it some months) Sapphire do a great range of ATI cards for silly money. I bought a 9100 vivo (rebadged 8500, but still runs all the games i want PLUS vid capture and TV out and dual head support)

Make sure you check some of the threads on here about 9600 compatibility with some boards first though. I couldn't help noticing there are a few problems but you can check it out first and avoid the problem combinations

Happy building

 

[ceh4702]

If you want an Intel Processor wait a few weeks for Price drops. Personally, I kind of like AMD prices on processors. However the Intel 800Mhz Bus motherboards and processors look nice too. A lot depends on what you can afford at the moment. If you want a second hard drive maybe a big SATA drive might be nice. That is the direction to look in for hard drives. There may be drives with twice as fast data transfer in less then 12 months. I cant see how the reads and writes can keep up with that. I think that if you buy a new video card, that I would not buy any of the newer FX video cards from Nvida. ATI is making a better product. As with everything look for specifics about the exact item you plan on purchasing.

If you do not like my post feel free to point out your opinion or my errors.

 

[edemiere]

Only thing I would add to what others have said is if you do any gaming (with new games coming out all the time) I'd get a new video card, the one you have is darned substandard by todays game standings.

Unless you like playing Age of Empires 2 all day and only that game...

Cheers!

 

[jrbarnett]

Hi GoatyGoat,

Why not buy a DVD rewriter for your new system? CD-RW drives are now outdated technology (although still useful), and with the multiburners from the likes of NEC and Sony, the different media type problem is a thing of the past now.

John

 

[paparazi]

I have to smile when I read all the above, GoatyGoat is a 15year old that only last week was posting about replacing his old heatsink/fan with a £3.67 ($5) cooler when he could afford it.
I really don't mean to be rude but I think DVD writers and 800fsb P4's are something of a wish list for our young friend.
Martin

Replying helps further our knowledge, without comment leaves us wondering.