Help with new build please - £1000+P&P

Daniel

Daniel

Daniel

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Joined
3 Jun 2004
Posts
557
Location
Bristol
Hi,

The last time I built a PC it was back in the AMD 2400+ days so I am not really upto date with whats good or not anymore.

It has taken me years to get this money so I am after something that will last a while that I can upgrade the CPU, graphics and memory on in the future.

I was looking at the X38 chipset motherboards as they look as though they could be more future proof?

I won't be overclocking at the moment but it will be nice to have that option for the future if I suddenly get the overclocking bug :D

The PC also needs to be as quiet as possible as I like to be able to relax a little when doing computer work...So the quieter the better.

I have already got a monitor, keyboard, mouse and I was thinking of using my ultra 320 SCSI hard drive setup. I don't know if SATA is better than SCSI these days?

I will be using the PC for general use aswell as gaming (would like to run latest games). I also do video encoding...convert avi to dvd etc.

So what can you recommend for £1000+P&P?


Thanks for your help
Dan
 
Ultra 320 SCSI is still faster than SATA in the real world. If you want to use it we'll have to accommodate the controller card and the drives? What interface dies the card use, PCI-X (not to be confused with PCI-e, mind you)? How many disks need to fit in the case?

1000 quid goes a long way these days. Do you need monitor, keyboard, etc, or just the rig itself?
 
Hi,

Thanks for your reply.

I have a Adaptec 39320 controller card which is PCI-X but is backwards compatible to work in a standard PCI slot.

The case needs to be able to take my 3 hard drives.

I just need the rig as I have everything else.

Basically I need the best bang for my buck that is quiet and will last a few upgrades in the future. Intel have new chips coming so if it can take those then all the better.

The thing I really want is quietness.


Thanks
Dan
 
Using a 66 MHz, 64-bit card in a 33 MHz, 32-bit slot will work but performance will be crap. You might be best served by an Asus P5K WS mobo since it has a full PCI-X slot.
 
Ok, thanks for that...I will probably scrap the SCSI stuff then and go for SATA which will mean I can go for a newer motherboard which will support faster fsb and newer CPU's. Two SATA drives will be enough.
 
Thanks your reply.

As I want something quiet then I guess the noisiest thing is going to be my 3 SCSI drives spinning at 15K. Also they are only 74GB drives.

I looked at the motherboard you mentioned and see it takes DDR2 and has a max FSB of 1333MHZ.

Some of the newer X38 motherboards have a FSB 1600MHz and can take DDR3. I'm guessing this would give me even more upgrade paths as I could go from DDR2 upto DDR3 and CPU's running upto 1600MHz FSB?

I know it's really hard to recommend something that is going to be future proof but I was thinking of going for something like a quad core CPU and then upgrading in around a year or so when the newer CPU's come down in price. The same goes for the memory and graphics card.

I'm hoping that if I do this over a couple of years that the PC will still be pretty decent and still be able to play the newer games.

Selling my SCSI kit could also help fund something nice.

Thanks for your help.
Dan
 
DDR3 is definitely not worth it at the moment. DDR2 is just coming into its own as far as price vs performance is concerned. It'll be a year or so before DDR3 makes sense. Both P35 and X38 can accommodate DDR3 so if you're interested in future upgradability in this sense you could get a board with slots for both.

New graphics cards and CPUs are coming out in the next month or so, so if you intend for this rig to last a long time I suggest you wait until those drop before purchasing. :)
 
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