What pairing do ppl suggest i get? i only want mid range because i only want it for the following things in order of importance.

1 internet, email n rarely online vids.
2 recording digital tv but not doing anything else at same time because i'd only do that if i was out anyway
3 backing up dvds and writing dvd.
4 word, excel etc sometimes.

I never really play games so nothing on that side of things is really necessary, and i only really need normal number of usb etc.

cheers for any help. oh and i'm from uk if anybody wants to point me in direction of any shops.

Hello Rena Welcome to PCHF

I know this is kind of a cheesy answer...but it's accurate

There is nothing you can buy today that won't perform those functions superbly. My advice is pick your budget, then just buy what you can to fit it. With $200 USD, you could get a solid motherboard/cpu/memory/video card combo to fit your needs.


To give you some direction...

By far the best budget board I've seen lately (and it's the one I'm using currently for my gaming computer) is this - Newegg.com - BIOSTAR NF520-A2 AM2 NVIDIA nForce 520 MCP ATX AMD Motherboard - AMD Motherboards

It is only 50 bucks USD. tt has great specs. It can support any Athlon X2 AM2 cpu which is the current standard socket for AMD cpus. It can support up to 8 gigs of DDR2 800, which right now DDR2 800 is dirt cheap.

It has 2 drawbacks. One is that you must get a video card with it cause it has no on-board video (but I recommend one anyways, especially that you want to record TV) Its other drawback is that it only has 2 - SATA ports, so you are forced to go with IDE optical drives. For most people, that is ok...there is nothing special about SATA optical drives in my opinion.

Other than that, unless you want SLI for gaming, overclocking functions, or tons of PCI slots, it really is a great, simple board. I doubt you are concerned with those features.

Then with that board, you can get any Athlon 64 X2 AM2 socket cpu. They range on Newegg from 44 dollars to $165 dollars. Again, with what you are doing, you can go with an Athlon 64 X2 4000+ (which is the cheapest and slowest in that series) and get great performance. Then throw in a 25 dollar 1 gig stick of DDR2 800, and you are set.

As far as a video card, just pick any low end TV Tuner/Video card. You won't need any high performance card to do what you are doing. Just stick with one that has a good price that fits your budget and decent reviews.

If you are going to shop around and look for other boards, stick with ASUS, Gigabyte, or Biostar boards. ASUS and Gigabyte are the high end, high quality boards. Biostar is the bang-per-buck brand. I have had 3 Biostar boards now and all of them survived a long time and had no issues.

I know I gave you info from Newegg.com which is US, but I don't know any UK sites. You can probably find that board in the UK though. Biostar is Worldwide.

With that setup you are looking at $50 (Motherboard) + $44 (Athlon 64 X2 4000+) + $25 (1 gig DDR2 800) + $50 (TV Tuner/Video card) = $169 bucks USD + shipping.

If you are willing to spend more, then you can keep that board and get a faster CPU and a better Video card. And in the future, you can add up to 8 gigs of memory, newer PCI-Express video cards, and future AM2 cpus.

Hope that gives you some ideas

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I don't think Biostar are so popular over here.

Look at this thread for some UK PC hardware shops

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Thank you both your replies, they were both v helpful.

i've found the biostar motherboard on this site CCL Computers - Awarded Best Online Retailer 2007 & 2006 for Laptops, Desktops & Computer Hardware it seems to be just what i want so i'm gonna get that one, they've also got a Athlon 64 X2 4200+ there which after seaching around seems to be only few £'s more than the 4000+ so i'm gonna get that too just for the ease of getting them both from same site. i'm just gonna look for tv/video card on there and shop around then i'll be getting started.

Thanx for the help, def inpressed with it and i'll let u know how i get on.

You're going to need memory as well cause I doubt you are using DDR2 800 in your current setup. Unless you have some of it laying around. Like I said though, DDR2 is super cheap right now.

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Certainly is, and I wish it was when I built mine. For £50 you can pick up 4gb now :o

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Better off with separate card, anyway. I realize this isn't a gamer's rig-- but I have yet to see onboard graphics I was happy with.

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Seeing as its not gonna be streched you would most likely be better off with an AMD X2 possibly the 4200 as these are cheap all over the place now. Pair this up with a mid range Asus Motherboard 1 or 2 gig of ram good big HDD and something like a 2600 GFX if you want to spend the extra few quid/bucks