Same PC for 4 year, please spec me

englishpremier

englishpremier

englishpremier

Soldato
Joined
15 Feb 2003
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In the space of 4-5 years or so gone from being heavily into watercooling, overclocking, game playing etc.. to only using my computer for office, design and movies.

All of my better hardware was sold and I've been using the system below:

Barton XP2500
Nforce2 motherboard
512mb DDR 333
Nvidia FX5600
Nasty beige case
360gig Sata HDD
Twinhan Starbox DVB-S

I contemplated getting a laptop, but since i don't need a computer on the go, i'm fine standard system.

Just wondering a decent upgrade might be for Movies (ability watch HD clips would be nice), office, photoshop, indesign etc.. Note I will not be playing any 3d games.

A further point is that i plan on buying most of my components from the MM, as i'm not really after anything cutting edge.

what spec would you reccomend?

Thanks


Edit: on a side note, just wondering how much quicker the latest lowest budget processors such as the Intel Core 2 Duo E4300, or AMD AM2 Athlon 64 4400+ Windsor Core are than the old XP2500?
 
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When overclocked an E4300 will destroy a 2500 barton. It's at least twice as fast even in single threaded apps.

Personally I would look at something along the lines of a Cheap S775 mobo (maybe 650i chipset), C2D cpu and 2gig of cheap DDR2. Then throw in any cheap PCI-E gfx card. As you are buying secondhand you should be able to get all that for under £200.

Only thing to consider is whether your current PSU is up to it.
 
Unoverclocked it will destroy it, I noticed a massive difference coming from a P4 3.06ghz to E4300
 
haven't got round to buying anyhing yet.

Seems the E2160 is the best bang for buck, woulud you agree?
What memory and motherboard would you pair that with for some fun overclocking?

Also i've been out of the video card game since the days of the unlocked 9800AIW SE cards. I certainly won't need the latest SLI cards, just a nice mid range one what might have some hardware decoding it for movies.
 
BillytheImpaler said:
The big question, of course, is how much to you want to spend.
Click to expand...


of course the answer to that is always as little as possible - lol

my current xp2500 does almost all i want and can play 720p vids using ffdshow (just about) so i'm not going to go crazy. Probably won't upgrade it again for a number of years.

£50 for a cpu seems reasonable to me.
About the same for a motherboard would be nice, but the P35 chipset seems to be the one to have.

As the for gfx card i'm stumpped - most likey look in the mm
 
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This would be very nice:
samwichbr0.gif

I can always add and subtract as you feel is necessary. :)
 
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