Going to order this or similar this evening

BlackSpy · 15 Feb 2009 at 11:49

Any views on how to best improve it without spending more than an extra £50, look OK as it is?

I quite fancy setting up a RAID, but only because I've been mucking around with PCs for years and never done one before.

The machine will be used for games and photo-shopping. I'd anticipate keeping the mobo and processor for three or four years and probably upgrading the RAM and GPU in two.

Gainward ATI Radeon HD 4850 "Golden Sample" 1024MB GDDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI/HDMI (PCI-Express) - Retail £167.89
Intel Core 2 Quad Q8200 LGA775 'Yorkfield' 2.33GHz 4MB-cache (1333FSB) Processor - Retail £148.34
Gigabyte GA-EP43C-DS3 Intel P43 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 & DDR3 Motherboard £97.74
Samsung SpinPoint F1 750GB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (HD753LJ) (two of) £68.99
Corsair 4GB DDR2 XMS2 PC2-6400C5 TwinX (2x2GB) Corsair 4GB DDR2 XMS2 PC2-6400C5 TwinX (2x2GB) £45.99
Samsung SH-S223F/BEBE 22x DVD±RW SATA Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM £16.09
TOTAL £614.03

Happy to hear any thoughts!

Apem · 15 Feb 2009 at 11:55

Looks nice what case and psu you using?

95thrifles · 15 Feb 2009 at 12:00

Well you can get a 1 gig 4870 for £15 more, here, and a q6600 for £18 more, which is not only faster but has double the cache, though personally Id look at a dual core like the E8400. Your mobo RAM etc looks good

BlackSpy · 15 Feb 2009 at 12:01

The case is being selected by Mrs BlackSpy this evening, my bet is on the Akasa Omega but she might want a HTPC one. Bottom line is that it has to be discreet and quiet.
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-028-AK

PSU is from my current machine, I think it should work, it's a 600w Enermax Noisetaker from about four years ago. Never given me any grief so I'm going to stick with it.

95thrifles · 15 Feb 2009 at 12:02

for that money Id look at an antec P182 or one of the Lian Li's

BlackSpy · 15 Feb 2009 at 12:10

95thrifles said:
for that money Id look at an antec P182 or one of the Lian Li's

I'll be sticking those under her nose too, the P182 would probably be my shout and with a crawling infant the door looks like a solid bet.

Why the duel core over the quad core? I'm on XP at the moment, but will probably go to Windows 7 Beta on the new machine (all downloaded and such already). I thought the quad core would help on that but I'm not going to claim any expertise.

95thrifles · 15 Feb 2009 at 12:56

Well you said your main use is gaming, the overwhelming majority of games cant take advantage of the 4 cores, theyre just not coded for it. They can make use of the faster clocked 2 cores, thers nothing wrong with going quad, and some people will say you should, but imo for your needs dual would be better. You can get the Q6600 which is 4 cores @ 2.4 or the E8400 which is 2 @ 3 both same price

suarve · 15 Feb 2009 at 13:27

YOu can get a spinpoint f1 1tb for about £10 extra.

rodo · 15 Feb 2009 at 20:22

95thrifles said:
Well you said your main use is gaming, the overwhelming majority of games cant take advantage of the 4 cores, theyre just not coded for it. They can make use of the faster clocked 2 cores, thers nothing wrong with going quad, and some people will say you should, but imo for your needs dual would be better. You can get the Q6600 which is 4 cores @ 2.4 or the E8400 which is 2 @ 3 both same price

I actually just went with an e8400 (to be OCed) and I have high gaming hopes. I used to have a Q6600 in an old rig and that handled gaming well also.

BlackSpy · 15 Feb 2009 at 21:34

Well thank you all for the feedback. I've swapped in the Q6600.

Cheers.

Ultra_Extreme · 15 Feb 2009 at 21:43

the q6600 is great, if you get the one with G0 stepping youll get 3.0ghz on the stock cooler. no joke.