Question?

Mashed1316 · 20 Feb 2011

Yes, you could buy a Windows 7 Home Premium Family Pack and tell you family members if they want a licence, then you'll divide the cost between them.

Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium Upgrade Family Pack for XP or Vista users, 3 User Licence (PC DVD) *(3 copies per customer limit): Amazon.co.uk: Software

The price is £108, divide that by 3 and you'll be paying only £36 for a licence.

And you can install the upgrade as a clean one:

Clean Install with a Upgrade Windows 7 Version

mc995599 · 20 Feb 2011

Punkster said:

Hello there. Well, £600 could buy you a decent PC

CPU: AMD Athlon II X4 640 Quad Core 3.0GHz Socket AM3 - Retail £76.98
MoBo: Asus M4A87TD/USB3 AMD 870 (Socket AM3) ATX DDR3 Motherboard £80.30
RAM: G.Skill Ripjaws-X 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit £39.98
PSU: Corsair CX 600W ATX2.2 Power Supply £53.99
Case: Antec Three Hundred Case - Black - No Psu £49.99
HDD: Samsung Spin Point F3 SATAII 1TB 32MB Cache Hard Drive <8.9ms 7200rpm - OEM £40.98
Video Card: XFX ATI Radeon 6850 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card - Retail £156.28
SSD: Crucial RealSSD C300 64GB 2.5inch SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive - Retail £94.98

Total Price: £593.48

I think that would be the best bang for the buck! :)

EDIT:

Yes, the OP could go with a HD5850 and still be in the budget!

Video Card: XFX ATI Radeon 5850 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card - Retail £163.39

New Total Price: £600.59

Here's the comparison between the HD6850 and the HD5850: AMD

Would it not be better to perhaps go for 8gb ram or a better gfx card rather than a ssd or do they really increase performance? Many thanks for the time youput aside to source those links

On top of this I need to add a cooling system?
I was looking at the collermaster v8 would that be sufficient?

Mashed1316 · 20 Feb 2011

Let's see.. you could go with 8GB but most end users won't need them, and since your budget is 600 pounds, i'd rather spend a little bit on a SSD, which is hell of a lot faster than a HDD, you'll DEFINITELY notice the difference, cooling solution? depends, if you're overclocking, yes. BUT, those AMD Athlon II X4 don't run hot on the OEM fan/heatsink. a cooler master V8 would be a little bit overkill.. Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus is more than enough and a lot cheaper, but again, the OEM heatsink is just fine, with the proper airflow on the case, you won't have high temps.

Better GFX card, you'll definitely need a bigger budget and a bigger PSU, but i'm already suggesting you a really good graphics card, the HD 5850/6850 is a high end card.

Zepher · 21 Feb 2011

Personally, I would drop the SSD and get 2 more drives, another 1TB 7200rpm and a 500GB or larger drive for the OS and programs.

Mashed1316 · 21 Feb 2011

I have to agree with you, but only if you have a LOT of programs installed.

I mean, there's no point for having a 500GB HDD for OS/Apps and you're only using 30GB

I have a 500GB HDD for the OS/Apps and i'm only using 11.6GB, LOL

of course, i only have the basics!

But again, unless i really need a BIG Hard Drive, i'd consider actually switching from a Small SSD because that would limit my choices and freedom of heavy apps that can be installed, and if that's the case, i could only have the OS installed and the basics, and another HDD to install your apps

SSD is so much faster than a HDD and i really think there's at least 1 member here who can state that. hehe