Need some advice on a new build

Casidus · 3 Jan 2010 at 17:55

I've been looking at getting a new desktop for uni work since my current desktop is ages old (6-7 years) and i've gone through 2 laptops in 2 years due to the sheer workload put on them.

My budget is £400 give or take a few pounds depending on whats needed. I was aiming at getting an AMD Phenom II 3.0ghz dual core with the asus M4A785TD-V EVO motherboard, 2x2gb corsair ram, corsair 450w psu and the gainward gts250 1gb with a stock dvd-rewriter and a Western digital 500gb hdd.

When I originaly priced this up I got it to a few pounds over £400 just before christmas and left it until now when I'm getting ready to order but I want it checked out to see if I can improve it or change it completely to a better system. I need the 500gb hdd for work minimum and since my work is basically computer forensics (file systems and such) I need a decent processor speed and 4gb ram. The graphics is probably one of the things I could lower the spec on but I do in free time do a fair bit of gaming though nothing too over the top (ie crysis). Though a hdmi is on the gfx card is kinda important since my monitor is a 19" hdtv with no vga port on it.

Thanks

siumatfung · 3 Jan 2010 at 18:48

spec 1:

pretty much all u need

u can clock that CPU to 3ghz on stock cooling

spec 2:

not a lot but some improvements from the above but larger HDD and this CPU
has unlockable cores could be 3 or 4 cores at your hands but depends on the CPU

Casidus · 7 Jan 2010 at 00:52

Thanks for the specs, the second one seems pretty much what I'm after so I'll probably be ordering that at somepoint over the next 2-3 weeks when I'm not working just hope the prices don't increase much.

w1llyg · 7 Jan 2010 at 01:04

these dont have hav a GFX card remember

so no gaming at all

Casidus · 10 Jan 2010 at 01:02

Yeah I noticed however my needs slightly changed after I got told I'm being supplied some components by the uni mainly extra hard drives to swap in and out so I don't have to have over 500gb really
This is what I'm planning on buying after finding out:

Palit GeForce GTS 250 Green 1024MB GDDR3 PCI-Express Graphics Card £86.99
Corsair XMS3 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit
AMD Phenom II X2 550 Black Edition 3.1GHz 6MB L3 Cache Socket AM3 Retail Boxed Processor
Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro rev 2 Socket 775, 1156, 1366, AM2, AM3 Heatpipe CPU Cooler
Western Digital WD5000AAKS 500GB SATAII 7200RPM 16MB Cache - OEM Caviar
Asus M4A785TD-V EVO Socket AM3 onboard DVI VGA HDMI 8 channel audio ATX Motherboard
Corsair CX 400W ATX Power Supply (CMPSU-400CXUK)
Coolermaster Elite 335 Case - Black

Total:£460

I added the graphics card after sorting a the rest out and having a slightly increased budget. Can someone just check it's fine I've was told I may need a better one to be able to handle the addition of the graphics card.