Hi All,
My SN41G2 shittle is 4 years old next month! It's slowing down and getting louder which means it's time for it to retire into a media centre and for me to buy a new beast.
Thanks to uni, i've been well out of the computer hardware loop for an entire year.
I've been debating staying with small form factor but it's probably going out of fashion so i'm thinking of a small ATX machine with quality cooling etc. I'm also very shallow so looks are important.
I know you're all very busy, but any help on the following would be eternally appreciated
Here's what I'm thinking:
Lian Li PC-A05B Aluminium Midi-Tower - Black (good lookin case
)
Intel Core 2 Duo of some speedy description
A mobo to take the above plus at least 2gb of ram (i use photoshop a lot)
One of these now:
Leadtek GeForce 8800 GTS 640MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail
(then another in the autumn for SLI)
The motherboard needs to be SLI capable. Anyone know if the card needs double width and whether there's a good board with 2 double spaced pci-e 16x slots? Also I have no idea what manufacturers are on top of their game these days
+ PSU to cope
I have monitor, k/b and moose as well as speakers.
Is the done thing to buy sound cards, I've had on-board for so long. I'm after competent sfx but in need of nothing amazing... perhaps on-board will suffice
I already have HDDs, however, I am again unsure of where technology is in that department and what moves to make.
Budget is £1000 +/- £200
My most important deciding factors are:
- Quiet as possible
- small as possible (for ATX)
- Good for games, but mostly for 3DS max and Photoshop CS3
- I have a WinXP sp2 liscence which i'd like to keep for as long as possible - not convinced by vista just yet.
Thanks!
Ike
My SN41G2 shittle is 4 years old next month! It's slowing down and getting louder which means it's time for it to retire into a media centre and for me to buy a new beast.
Thanks to uni, i've been well out of the computer hardware loop for an entire year.
I've been debating staying with small form factor but it's probably going out of fashion so i'm thinking of a small ATX machine with quality cooling etc. I'm also very shallow so looks are important.
I know you're all very busy, but any help on the following would be eternally appreciated
Here's what I'm thinking:
Lian Li PC-A05B Aluminium Midi-Tower - Black (good lookin case
)Intel Core 2 Duo of some speedy description
A mobo to take the above plus at least 2gb of ram (i use photoshop a lot)
One of these now:
Leadtek GeForce 8800 GTS 640MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail
(then another in the autumn for SLI)
The motherboard needs to be SLI capable. Anyone know if the card needs double width and whether there's a good board with 2 double spaced pci-e 16x slots? Also I have no idea what manufacturers are on top of their game these days
+ PSU to cope
I have monitor, k/b and moose as well as speakers.
Is the done thing to buy sound cards, I've had on-board for so long. I'm after competent sfx but in need of nothing amazing... perhaps on-board will suffice
I already have HDDs, however, I am again unsure of where technology is in that department and what moves to make.
Budget is £1000 +/- £200
My most important deciding factors are:
- Quiet as possible
- small as possible (for ATX)
- Good for games, but mostly for 3DS max and Photoshop CS3
- I have a WinXP sp2 liscence which i'd like to keep for as long as possible - not convinced by vista just yet.
Thanks!
Ike