Advice on Spec for new upgrade

oneeyedbandit

oneeyedbandit

oneeyedbandit

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Joined
9 Jun 2007
Posts
7
Good evening/morning all.

On Saturday my PC went BANG. and smoke was appearing from the PSU.

Oh dear..

Therefore considering after 5 years of having a Gigabyte AMD Mobo with new upgrades added over the last two years.

I now require a new system spec.

I intend to keep my 2 current IDE HDD's with XP Pro, along with my IDE DVD-RW.

My Computer usage is for web development, programming and Photo editing as well as programming and using MS Access databases with a lot of data.

Therefore I require the following on a £400 - £450 budget with the view of upgrading components again in 2 years time for VISTA Ultimate and SATA.

Motherboard, (Must have 2 IDE connections as I want to use my existing HDD's and DVD-RW, and have some sata connections as I will be looking to upgrade to Vista Ultimate sometime end of next year as well as getting a SATA HDD)

Processor
Heatsink and Fan
Memory (I do have 2GB of PC3200 DDR from my dead system, but I have been told that new motherboard = new memory.
Videocard
Case (Was considering the Antec 900 because of its fans)
PSU with lots of connections

Basically that is it, as I upgraded to a 19" HP flat screen monitor and wireless KB and mouse. And brought a multicard reader, and brought another External HDD.

Thank you all for your time and assistance.

Lee
 
Here`s what i have come up with, slightly over budget:

Intel Core 2 DUO E4400 "LGA775 Allendale" 2.00GHz (800FSB) - Retail
Gigabyte GA_P35C_DS3R (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 & DDR3 Motherboard
CellShock 2GB (2 x 1GB) DDR2 PC2-6400C4 800MHz Dual Channel Kit
OcUK GeForce 8600 GT 256MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail
Samsung SH-183LBEBN 18x18 DVD±RW Dual Layer Serial ATA Lightscribe
Antec Sonata II Piano Black Quiet Case - 450W Smart Power PSU
Total : £488.66

The Motherboard only has one IDE Connector (i haven't actually seen any newer type boards with two IDE sockets?). Anyway i have also put a DVD Drive that has a SATA connection, so you will still be able to use your 2 IDE Hard Disk Drives.
 
stickroad's specification looks fine although to get it a bit closer to the budget you could buy an E4300 and purchase some cheaper Ram, something like Team Elite PC6400 2gb should be suitable but it probably won't overclock as well. Incidentally I think stickroad is also right that the newer P35 motherboards don't come with more than 1x IDE socket. :)
 
Thank you very much guys.

I believe that there are Sata to IDE converters available, so the requirement for the DVD/RW is not required.

If OcUK do not have any in stock, then I shall pop to another well known electrical component store and obtain one.

I am very impressed with the case, especially in terms of having the PSU and the inbuilt CPU fan. Infact the guys I work with at work are more than inpressed and these are gamers.

As I wondered why there was nothing listed in terms of the PSU and Heatsink and Fan.

A total of £410.01 inc VAT. I shall let you know how I get on.
 
Just found out that the case "optional" items are dependant on the manufacturer, therefore I hope I am lucky in getting a case that includes the fan for the CPU.

However I'm more than happy to go the extra bit for good CPU cooling.
 
Ok another question, whilst I awaiting a re-delivery of my goods.

With me using my existing harddrives (IDE), would I have to install a raid driver for this motherboard from CD bootup, or would my harddrive automatically boot up into Windows ?
 
If you are using an existing Windows install then it might ask you to reactivate because you have just performed a major change of hardware (the motherboard) and Windows sometimes doesn't like that, however all you need to do is ring up Microsoft and request a reactivation key I believe. You shouldn't need any drivers for an IDE hard drive either, if you have a Raid array set up on your old system then the chances are that you can't transfer it though. :)
 
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