My trusty AMD XP2200+ PC has served me well for many years now.
I'm looking to build a new one, that will last me a while and fir not much money.
So I'm looking for MB+CPU+Memory and I am so out of touch with what's what!
I like the odd game, but it's not got to be the most screaming graphics, sound as it comes.

We have a decent enough shop not far away, but internet is fine if it's not the very latest spec at cheap money
Will need a new case as well, rest of the peripherals I can swap or pick up as I go.

Any clues for much less than £200?

Cheers

Oh and I'm still on XP and like it but......

VISTA or WIN7?

Win7 definatly. What sort of games do you want to use it for? If you have to replace the motherboard, ram and cpu all at the same time it usually best to get a bundle. Most computer places will do them, Maplins always have them on offer too. Think you may have to stretch you budget quite a bit to get anything decent especially if you are going to upgrade your operating software.

[Edited on 17/12/11 by Davegtst]

Just built myself a new rig and Scan were still coming out the cheapest for nearly all components. Something like this Scan 3XS bundle would be a good bet within your budget, gets you an up to date core i3 processor and plenty of RAM. As you say, you can add other nice bits and bobs over time. Win 7 the way to go, software4students do an upgrade version which will upgrade from XP for £38 Link

If you don't want to spend too much go to ebuyer and buy one of their Zoostorm offers here. The onboard graphics are fine for everyday use, my mate uses one for autocad and it is quite good.

You aren't going to find Windows 7 for much less than £70 for the home version, which leaves very little for the motherboard, CPU and RAM. If you are buying new then you'll probably have to live with integrated graphics for that money.

If you want to use your old hard drive and it's a standard parallel IDE type then ensure the motherboard has a suitable interface, plenty of modern boards have dropped these now in favour of SATA drives.

perhaps more than you wanted to pay but i built a nice asus barebones for around £300 but that included a samsung screen that was with the budget amd processor sempron i believe, which can have its latent cores unlocked i am told.

If your hard drive is SATA I think you can just about do it with the Intel Pentium G620 CPU and a basic Intel H61 based motherboard (e.g. Asus P8H61-M, though the cheap ones are all mATX) and 8GB of RAM (you need plenty to run Windows 7, and presumably you'll want to migrate to the 64 bit version). Looking at the prices on Aria that lot can be had for about £150, which leaves some toward the OS. Aria have Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit listed for £70.

The Pentium G620 is a budget dual core CPU with the 1155 pin interface but is still a fast CPU. This CPU has an integrated GPU as well ("Intel HD Graphics") which has acceleration of HD playback (e.g. bluray) but has not got 3D acceleration, so the more modern games are unlikely to run very well. Using the 1155 interface gives you the option to upgrade to the Intel "Core" CPUs, e.g. i3, i5 and i7 in the future.

If you have an IDE hard drive you have to spend quite a lot more to get a motherboard with a suitable interface, it would almost certainly be cheaper to buy a new hard drive as well in this case.


[Edited on 17/12/11 by MikeRJ]

Yes I'm allready on SATA and the £200 is for hardware not the OS. ATEOTD I have XP that could get me going.
Cheesr so far

Don't know if you have bought anything yet, but saw this offer today which looks like a pretty good deal. Also leaves a bit in the budget to put towards a graphics card if you want one.