Advice about a possible upgrade from laptop to desktop.

[GSDog]

About 10 months ago I sold my desktop PC and bought a laptop as a desktop replacment.

The thing is, 10 months later and I am really missing having a desktop PC. Also, my current laptop is really starting to struggle with new games. I can't even play Crysis on low settings as it has a huge resolution of 1920x1200 and a 7900GS which just can't handle Crysis.
I also very rarely take this laptop around the house, or on holiday, etc. It usually just sits on my desk, which I think is a bit of a waste.

So I am thinking about possibly selling this laptop sometime after Christmas and building my own Desktop PC again. I have built them before so I know roughly what to do.

I haven't been looking at hardware recently so I have no idea what is the best CPU, RAM, etc. I reckon I should be able to get at least £500 for this laptop in a month or two and I should be able to put an extra £500 towards the desktop PC bringing the total to £1k max. This has to include a monitor and a keyboard.

The PC needs to be able to cope with games like Crysis, and I will also be using it for photography, browsing, etc, etc. It will also need to be future-proof, so maybe SLi so I can add another GFX card later on if I need to. I want it to last as long as possible.

Any advice on this would be very much appreciated. Also, if some new hardware is about to come out that might be worth waiting for please let me know. I want to buy the hardware at exactly the right time.

 

[GSDog]

Thank you for that replay Skeet, that is a great help.

I can see what you are saying about SLI. It would probably be better to just buy a single good card, wait until it is outdated and simply replace it. I think I will do that.
I have been reading reviews about the 8800GT and it looks awsome! It seems to perform better than the GTS, but it is cheaper?

I am thinking about possible buying 2 X 19" TFT monitor's, but I am not sure yet. I don't understand enough about using two monitor's, but I think they would come in handy and look nice. I didn't realise TFT's had come down in price so much since I last bought one a few years ago. The response times seems to have improved quite a bit since I last had a TFT.

As for the CPU's, I see the Intel Core 2 Quad Pro Q6600 seems very popular. Do AMD64 not make an equivalent? or are they falling behind a bit?
When I had a desktop PC, AMD64 seemed to be better for gaming, but now it looks like Intel seems to be more popular?

I was looking at the Intel P35 mobo's, they look good and the price seems around my budget.

I pretty much know which case, HDD, etc I want. But will a Corsair HX 520W PSU be able to run the CPU above, with an 8800GT, etc?

I have used Vista before which was given as an upgrade with my Laptop from the manufacturer, but I hated it. Games did suffer quite a bit and I found it offered nothing more that I needed. It might have looked a little better, but it was certainly slower than XP at loading, etc. I moved back to XP and I think I am going to stay with XP for a few more months before deciding to give Vista another try.

Thanks agiain for your help.

 

[GSDog]

Thank you SPW. I remember you on here from years ago and it's good to see you still on here helping people out.