Out of the computer loop

ikara

ikara

ikara

Associate
Joined
25 Aug 2004
Posts
111
Location
Newcastle upon Tyne
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 :cool: )
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 :confused:

+ 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 :confused:

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 :D

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
 
ok i didnt give a sli board as its pointless i did however get a gtx in there if thats not good enough for the games in the future sell it and upgrade the top card is always better than 2 lesser ones and cheaper usualy too.. you could always change for an evga 680i board if you want

999.jpg


the floppy is more for looks than needing, so u can take that of if u like
i added a good cooler so you can overclock with some as5 to
the ram will do 1150 mhz in 99.9% of cases
the 520w psu is enough for pretty much anything.. my rig uses 300w (i have a watt gague)
 
That spec looks very good for the money. The 8800GTX is a more cost-effective solution than 2 640MB GTS cards, SLI is just not worth it. Plus the P35 chipset is better for overclocking and memory than SLI chipsets such as the 680i or 650.
 
Wow, thanks paul, is this your spec, or did you just do my shopping for me?

Feels good to spend, even better to spend someone elses money. I can't really fault the list, it confirms my suspicions that I know not what I'm talking about with pc gear at the moment. Need to get back up to speed.

How does the motherboard fair, i've heard some bad stories about Asus boards - generally preference seems to be for Abit?

But is this rig gonna pur or is it gonna wake the neighbours?

Thanks again
 
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