£1200 to spend

stuart38

stuart38

stuart38

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I need to build a machine for a friend and have £1200 to spend which needs to include a ~26" screen and ideally striped disks. He doesnt need an amazing graphics card as he will upgrade it at a later date.

I'd be interested to see your ideas on spec, also I'm not sure wheteher the dual or quad cores are best?

Thanks in advance for any suggestions

Stu
 
24ui9.gif

Here's one with a 24" monitor. I'll next do one with the requested 26+" monitor.
 
That monitor will need a better graphics card behind it, but your friend will update as you say. That spec above is good fro the price.
 
27yx9.gif

This is as well as I could do with the 27" monitor. If I ware buying I'd MUCH rather have the 24" spec with its fast quad core processor, beefier cooling, better case, and RAIDed hard disks.

EDIT: In a mental lapse I also did a spec without the monitor. Peruse it if you're interested. :)
 
Thanks for that, I went a little over budget here but it was just a quick browse!

spec.JPG


Are the quad cores really worth buying, and also what motherboard chipsets are best for the dual/quad cores and why?
 
stuart38 said:
Are the quad cores really worth buying, and also what motherboard chipsets are best for the dual/quad cores and why?
Click to expand...
The quad is worth it if you want a fast machine that's good for a variety of tasts. If I was buying now I'd definitely get one. As for as your spec is concerned you need to make a few changes. That PSU is insufficient if he's going to have high-powered graphics in there in the future. The case too is a little restrictive for such a rig. The RAID controller is unnecessary since a decent motherboard will have winraid onboard. That's really not a very good motherboard. The best chipset nowadays is P35. The one you have there is 945P which is two generations behind the current. I don't even know if a Quad would work on it. The WD AAKS disks I spec'd are faster than the ones you've included as well.
 
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