Help me spec new build - development machine

[WilliamUK]

I'm planning on building a new system for the first time in quite a few years (have been using laptops).

I'm a bit out of touch with the current crop of CPUs, etc, but am thinking that I don't really need triple/quad core. The primary use of the system will be software development (mainly Java) so I don't really need much processing power but want plenty of RAM as I might want to run a couple of VMs at a time - 8gb should do it. Also don't need a decent graphics card so onboard will be fine.

CPU wise I'm thinking that the AMD Phenom X2 550 Black Edition 3.1GHz looks like a good option?

Budget wise I'm looking to spend < £400 (just for the base unit itself, not including monitor, keyboard, mouse, etc).

Thanks

 

[WilliamUK]

95thrifles - thanks for that. You're probably right - a basic gfx card is a good idea.

hp7909 - in theory yes, but it's unlikely I'll be running anything too CPU intensive on them. For example one might be acting as a database server (so running mySQL on Linux) - whilst I might want to give it a gig or two of RAM to play with, most of the time it would probably be using < 20% of one of the cores of that CPU.