Geezer

Friend of mine just sent me this link for a PC on eBay.

Looks awfully cheap, is the spec any good? He doesn't want to spend loads, but then again he doesn't want a pile of sh1te either!

Geezer

staffs Mike

It's ok..the graphics card is rubbish..don't be expecting to play games on it. Never heard of "Via" motherboards but it seems to have foxconn on the picture which are fine.

You don't know what power supply they are using so I bet they have used a pile of **** and that's the most important part not to skimp on with a pc.

It's ok for a couple of hundred quid but i wouldn't spend much more as dell's can be had with a better spec than this for about £350 - £400 and they come with decent warranties.

PeteBrant

Via are an alternative chipset supplier to Intel, in the same way nVidia Nforce chipsets are. Lots of budget Motherboards will use a Via chipset rather than the "official" Intel one.

So this motherboard won't be a Intel 965 or 975x it will be a via.

BlkKnight

for the money it's fine.

Don't worry about the VIA chipset previous posts are inaccurate. The chipset controls network, Sound etc - not processor. In reality there are only 2 choices, VIA & Nforce. Given a choice I'd go with Nforce. VIA are fine though.

As it's using an E6600 processor, the motherboard will be a socket 775

CPU is good, Memory & disk should be fine.

Graphics card - as long as he's not doing anything fancy (like gaming or using it as a HD Media canter PC) he should be fine.

Only bad points I see are:
- Case is horrible
- PSU is pants

DOES NOT COME WITH AN OPERATING SYSTEM

But for 275 assembled, I don't think you can go far wrong. The processor alone if about £120.00.

PeteBrant

Eh?

Are you saying that in terms of chipset there are only two choices - nForce & VIA?

What about Intel? A Via or nForce chipset won't 965/975x because that's an intel chipset, the processor is irrelevant.

Example - you will need to download chipset drivers for VIA chipsets from VIA, Intel ones from Intel and nForce ones from nVidia.

Socket 775, as you probably know only refers to the footprint of the processor die - nothing else. At no point did I say that a VIA chipset meant you couldn't have a Intel Core2Duo processor. I just said it was a budget alternative- which it is.

Typically 965/975 outperform VIA chipsets - And a chipset controls all sorts of system elements - not just sounds and network. It incluse the memeory hub controller, USB, SATA - all sorts.

The chipset and has a definite impact on system performance.

BlkKnight

sorry, not sure which planet i was on there. Think I was in AMD mode.

Tracked down the motherboard though:

Foxconn P4M9007MB-8RS2H Socket 775 Intel Pentium 4 DDR2 Integrated Micro-ATX Motherboard

staffs Mike

when it comes down to it..it's built out of the cheapest parts money can buy apart from the cpu.

You get what you pay for.

InvisibleMan

gotta love pc upgrading when nVidia 7100 512MB is rubbish. No wonder ive given up on it...