Non-gaming computer for university

Hey,

I'm going to university in 11 months (hopefully 12 months) and will need a computer for when I'm there. However, to combat my CS addiction I do not want a computer capable to play CS that well.

Budget is £900 though since I don't require it to play games I doubt I'll come close to this bearing in mind this is excluding monitor, mouse, keyboard and headphones.

Despite how it seems I would not need a very good graphics card I would like to be able to watch TV on this computer so I presume a good graphics card is required?

So, here's what I was thinking:
- >200 GB HDD
- 512/1024MB RAM

Unsure about what processor (I was thinking Intel Dual-core but that's a little overkill for me, so most likely the next series down) and a motherboard to suit the processor.

I have a graphics card (Radeon 9250 128MB) and most other things.

Other things I will need are a case and power supply. A monster like the CMS is not required so I was thinking something smaller and lighter like a Lian Li case (one of the cheaper models).

What do you guys think of this?

Thanks in Advance
Tom

no need for a graphics card (even though ya want to watch TV....you need a card that can do hardware acceleration (which is every card now!). You can keep your current card but most likely you'll want to get a PCI-e motherboard.

With that budget and what your looking for I would say get an X2 with a gig of RAM (512??? heck no, the question is 1gb or 2gb these days!)
For TV tuners, the winfast deluxe is cheap and awesome...50 bucks in the US....you can probably get one used in UK for like 30lbs.

I think this sounds like a case where an Intel would work best. I think an X2 will blow out his budget however, I know nothing about what Intel platforms are out there with an AGP video slot. I'm sure the Intel folks will chime in with some help.

I know with my budget I can easily afford a pair of the fastest 512MB sticks but since I'm not gaming I doubt I'd need it.

I only need to browse, chat, work, watch TV and program on my computer.

Assume the budget to be £600, I was thinking of something like this:

- PCI-E Supported Motherboard - £120
- 512MB RAM - £50
- AMD Athlon XP - £100
- Lian Li Case - £70
- Antec TruePower 550W - £70
- Western Digital SATA 250GB - £80
- DVDRW - £30

This leaves me with no graphics card since my current GFX card is AGP. Is it possible to not have a GFX card at all?

As long as the mobo has onboard graphics....

A laptop might be a good bet. It lets you sneak off to a quiet spot to write papers.

Gnufsh said:

A laptop might be a good bet. It lets you sneak off to a quiet spot to write papers.

Click to expand...

I would consider this as well.. Although you might loose out on the ability to watch TV on it.. but newegg does carry some pcmcia TV tuner cards - so there are options...

If you really need all that space, theres always external drives (or external enclosure with big drive picked up cheap on rebate days).

It seems you are not going to do much taxing work.. what kind of programming are you doing? Are you going to be doing huge compiles? Because you could probably get away with buying an older used laptop on the cheap.. I bought an IBM Thinkpad T22 (900mhz p3, 256mb ram) for $310 shipped. The reason? I didn't want to be lugging a computer around at college for a while. This lappy served me perfectly. For doing simple stuff, you dont NEED very much power.

So, lets say you search ebay for a while - you could pick up a Thinkpad T23 w/ 1.2ghz P3, 512mb ram, 30 or 40 gig hard drive for definatly less than $450 shipped. Then, you watch the rebates (slickdeals.com is great) and buy something like a 250 gig drive for say $60 or so. External enclosure for about $25. Tv tuner for the lappy for $50.

We're at $585.. so for around $600, you should have a setup that can do the things you want, and be much more portable.

According to google, $600 is about 350 pounds, or 500 euros. This brings you way under the budget, with the benefit of portability (great for college.. trust me ;-] )

Now, you have a nice wad of cash for other things - go buy a nice mp3 player (I suggest the creative zen touch), maybe some nice speakers / headphones (swans for speakers, grado or sennheisers for headphones) , or just cool stuff for your dorm room (posters, lamps, comfy chair, etc).

Since you don't need to game, and MAY not need "awesome" performance (as long as your programming compiling wont take DAYS ON DAYS with an older system) this may be a good way to go. Consider it...

I dont think you can put togeather a computer out of new parts that wont play CS...

But a used laptop with integrated graphics might not... especially if it runs linux.

Pentium-M + ASUS ct-479 + ASUS MB, you also can use your AGP video card.