Completely out of the loop

[Pez]

Hi guys,

Having not looked into new hardware for some time now, I've found myself in the position to replace the core parts of my system, ready for replacing other parts at a later date.

I'm currently running the following:

Shuttle ST20G5
AMD Athlon 64 3200+ Venice
1Gb Geil Ram
1x Maxtor 200gb SATA
1x WD 180gb SATA
Radeon Saphire x800 GTO

I'm looking to move away from the shuttle models, and return back to ATX. This is mainly because of heat reasons, and the ability to make system changes with less fuss.

But I'm struggling picking out a Motherboard/Ram/CPU combo that suits my needs!

I play a little BF2, maybe a little half-life, and the Mrs plays the sims. Other than that I'll be browsing the forums, downloading random rubbish, and writing eMail.

I've no preference of AMD/Intel, but I must admit that I've been tempted recently to move over to intel, having played with a few laptops.. but in turns of heat and power, I'm totally new to intel chips... the last I owned was a P3

If anyone could help me out, I'd really appreciate it. I dont have a hard and fast budget, but given the light load of tasks I need it to do, I would ideally like to stay lower than £400.

Many thanks in advance

 

[Pez]

i assume so, or he already knows what he wants in those departments , i say this because he only asks for help with mobo, CPU and RAM

Quite right!

BOD:

Sounds like some mighty fine suggestions!, I'll take the next hour to read over them and see what I think.

About the RAM... I'm currently only running a gig (as you can see) and moving to 2gb was really just a whim more than anything else . I am tempted to move onto vista home premium in a few months, so I was more future proofing than anything else.

But, I do think you have a valid point, 1gb of fast ram could well be more than enough in my case?

I'm not going to be overclocking. I used to, but I really cant be bothered with it anymore

If you've got anything else to add, I'd love to hear it! you've been most helpful so far