potential spec

xrich_ · 27 Mar 2009 at 09:44

Hi

I have put this spec together for £550 (will come already built) - basically i just want a pc to last me a few years and with a budget of £550 MAX. Im not fussed about mental gfx, i would prefer a quiet, very quick pc.

Computer Case - Cooler Master Elite 330
CPU - Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 (2 x 3.0 GHZ) 1333FSB - 6 MB
Motherboard - ASUS P5KPL/1600 1333FSB (Intel G31)
Memory - 4GB PC-6400 800 MHZ (2 x 2 GB) (DDR2)
Graphics Card - NVIDIA GeForce 9500GT - 1 GB - VGA/DVI/HDMI (Palit) - OverClocked
Power Supply - OCZ 500W Stealth XStream - Low Noise
Hard Drive 1 - 320 GB SATA-II HDD UDMA 300 7200 8MB
Optical Drive 1 - Samsung (S222A) DVD PLUS/-RW 22x Dual Layer - Black (IDE)
Sound Card - Motherboard Integrated 5.1 Sound
Networking - Motherboard Integrated Ethernet Lan (Broadband Ready)
USB Ports - 4 X USB 2.0 Ports
CPU Heatsink - Speeze QuadroFlow VIII - Low Noise
Operating System - Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium SP1 64-BIT (Genuine DVD & COA Included)

Is this good?

Or do you think i should just buy the parts an build myself?

Trunks9486 · 27 Mar 2009 at 10:15

AMD Phenom II X3 Tri Core 720 Black Edition 2.8GHz (Socket AM3) - Retail
MSI 790GX-G65 AMD 790GX (Socket AM3) PCI-Express DDR3 Motherboard
Asus ATI Radeon HD 4670 512MB GDDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI/HDMI (PCI-Express) - Retail
Corsair XMS3 4GB DDR3 10666C9 1333MHz TwinX Dual Channel Kit (2x2GB)
OCZ StealthXStream 500w Silent ATX2 Power Supply
Samsung SpinPoint F1 320GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD322HJ)
Tuniq Tower 120-LFB CPU Cooler (Socket 478/754/939/940/AM2/LGA775)
Coolermaster Elite 330 Midi Tower Case - Black (No PSU)
Samsung TS-H653F 22x DVD±RW SATA Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM

£515

Use Windows 7 Beta until the end of august, buy it at that time.

pastymuncher · 27 Mar 2009 at 10:16

If you want it to last a couple of years then you need to change the graphics card. The 9500 is poor to say the least. They cost around £50 for the stock version so another £10-15 for an overclocked one. You can get a ATI 4830 which is much better for £77 and would be worth the extra.

If you want the pc to be silent then ditch the Samsung optical drive. They are extremely noisy. I have swapped both of mine to the LG GH22NS40 22x drives and they are much quieter.

You should be looking at 16mb cache hard drives such as the Samsung Spinpoint F1's or the excellent Western Digital AAKS drives. Stick to 320/640GB drives as they have 320GB platters so will be faster.

The cooler is little better than the stock Intel cooler. The case and psu are mediocre to say the least.

Personally i would buy the bit's and build it yourself.

xrich_ · 27 Mar 2009 at 10:23

hmmm, could you suggest a build (that i can build myself, as clearly that first build was rubbish) that will still be a good pc in 4-5 years (not too fussed about gfx, im more concerned about performance)... but ofc i will need a pretty good gfx card. Do i need to think about the OS i use aswell? will say a 32bit XP OS limit my CPU power?

Trunks9486 · 27 Mar 2009 at 10:32

No build will be good in 5 years, technology moves too fast really.

XP32 is good for up to 4GB of RAM, but personally i would go either Win 7 64 or Win Vista 64.