Holy moly, a spec me thread!

[Tasocahtfu]

Hi there,

It's approaching a time when I am going to need to upgrade, but I am so far out of touch with what's what I could really use some help speccing something up. At the moment I have:

Athlon 64 3700
2Gb Corsair RAM
Asus A8n-SLI Premium
Asus 7900GTX
Corsair 620W PSU
3 SATA HDD's (OS, Apps, Files) - only 8MB cache though
NEC IDE DVD-RW
Antec Sonata II case

From this I assume I can use the PSU, HDD's and DVD-RW in a new rig, rest of it won't be much use? Not sure about the case, will it take a newer high-end GFX card? The GTX only just fits. Got monitor, mouse and keyboard so no need for those.

Use my machine a lot for gaming and a bit of photoshop work here and there. Rest of the time it's just used for music, browsing and watching video. Budget wise I don't really want to spend more than about £650 or so, but should be able to get it through work so that will be ex-VAT. If anyone can make some suggestions, then that'd be great. Really want to try and get something that will last a couple of years and still be able to perform through that time if possible.

Cheers

 

[semi-pro waster]

Ex Vat but including a new case, graphics card, CPU, motherboard, hard drive and 4gb of Ram this might do.

Western Digital Caviar SE16 320GB 3200AAKS SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM £39.99
(£46.99) £39.99
(£46.99)
Gigabyte GA_P35C_DS3R (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 & DDR3 Motherboard £69.99
(£82.24) £69.99
(£82.24)
Tuniq Tower 120 CPU Cooler (Socket 478/754/939/940/AM2/LGA775) £27.99
(£32.89) £27.99
(£32.89)
OCZ 4GB (2 x 2GB) PC2-5400C5 Dual Channel Vista Upgrade Gold Series DDR2 (OCZ2VU6674GK) £104.99
(£123.36) £104.99
(£123.36)
Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT SILENT Heatpipe 512MB GDDR3 VIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail £204.99
(£240.86) £204.99
(£240.86)
Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound (3.5g) £5.99
(£7.04) £5.99
(£7.04)
Intel Core 2 Quad Pro Q6600 "Energy Efficient 95W Edition" 2.40GHz (1066FSB) - Retail £153.99
(£180.94) £153.99
(£180.94)
Akasa AK-ZEN-01-BK Zen Black Case - No PSU £26.99
(£31.71) £26.99
(£31.71)
Sub Total : £634.92
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £9.95
VAT is being charged at 17.5% VAT : £112.85
Total : £757.72

 

[Tasocahtfu]

Nice one semi-pro, sounds good to me, not that I'd know

Couple of things I forgot to mention - I'm a bit of an Nvidia lover, so what card should I be looking at from their range? Also, I want to get the new rig as quiet as possible - my current one is quiet-ish but would really like this one to be even more so, does the cpu cooler specified run nice and quiet?

I'm not really into overclocking either and I know nothing about it, would this have any bearing on the CPU at all? Or would that one be best regardless? Finally, are there any other motherboards that would suit? Had a couple of bad experiences with Gigabyte

Cheers for the reply

 

[Kalpsn2000]

You would be looking at the GeForce 8800 GTS 640MB if you want a nvidia.

EDIT:
for the mobo the Abit IP35's are recommended on here.

 

[semi-pro waster]

The next step up from the 2900XT is the 8800GTX but if you want something roughly on a par then the 8800GTS 640mb as suggested by Kalpsn2000 is fine.

The Tuniq Tower is a very good cooler and quiet.

Quad core is a decent investment if you want to keep the same CPU for a while but overclocking is pretty simple and would give you a decent boost for no extra outlay.

If you don't want Gigabyte then Abit or Asus would be my next suggestions.

 

[Tasocahtfu]

Nice one mate, thanks for your suggestions

 

[Hen_Dawg]

I like everything semi-pro waster suggested but have two suggestions.
What about a sound card? It may not bother you but X-fi could be considerd.
And what OS are you planning on using? I wouldn't bother with 4Gb RAM unless it's Vista 64bit. Use the money saved off that to maybe bump your Gfx up to a 8800GTX.

He's definitely right about getting a Quad and overclocking it. Since Intel's price cuts and with improving support for multiple cores, it would be very wise to "go Q". Plus overclocking it by 10-20% is a doddle!

 

[Tasocahtfu]

A sound card isn't really something I would bother with to be perfectly honest, the on-board audio has always been fine for me, if you saw the speakers I have you would see why! That will all change when I move into my own place but that's not going to be just yet, so will leave it for now.

I am planning on going with Vista 64-bit, as I figure I will have to eventually. Just trying to decide what version at the moment, as I may need some networking capability for work - am i right in thinking Home Premium doesn't have any of that functionality?

Think I will definitely have to learn a bit about overclocking, from what both of you have said it sounds like I'd be daft not to try and bump it up a little bit!

Deviating slightly, would any of my old parts be any good to sell? Seems such a waste to have them sitting there when they were all top stuff when I bought them!

Cheers

 

[semi-pro waster]

You can't do remote desktop on Home Premium but for a basic look at the features take a look here. You should be able to sell some of your parts in the Members Market although you may want to get them priced in the Price Checks sub-forum first.

 

[Hen_Dawg]

Think I will definitely have to learn a bit about overclocking, from what both of you have said it sounds like I'd be daft not to try and bump it up a little bit!

Read around the Oc'ing and cooling sub-forum and you'll find out how easy it is after a little bit of study

Deviating slightly, would any of my old parts be any good to sell? Seems such a waste to have them sitting there when they were all top stuff when I bought them!

For sure they will be worth selling on members market. If it's a HD remember to use Killdisk or similar app to wipe it