Spec check £850-950

lh221

lh221

lh221

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18 Feb 2009
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I'm thinking of replacing my 5 year old machine (P4 3Ghz, 1GB RAM, GeForce 5900, XP Pro) with a new build. Comments would be appreciated on the below spec if you see anything that might be an issue or I could improve upon. Budget is £850-950 including OS and new monitor.

PC used for gaming, 3d animation, and web development for which I run virtual machines for different servers (XP and Ubuntu).


Intel Core 2 Quad Q9400 LGA775 'Yorkfield' 2.66GHz 6MB-cache (1333FSB) Processor - Retail £190.89

Asus P5Q Pro Intel P45 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £114.99

OCZ 4GB (2x2GB) DDR2 PC2-8500 Gold Edition 4GB Dual Channel £43.69

XFX Radeon HD 4850 512MB GDDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail £114.99

Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM £51.74

Pioneer DVR-216DBK 20x DVD±RW SATA Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM £19.54

Sunbeam Core Contact Freezer CPU Cooler (Socket 754/939/940/AM2/LGA775) £28.74

Coolermaster Centurion 590 Case - Black (No PSU) £54.04

Coolermaster Real Power 620w Modular Power Supply £78.19

Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium SP1 64-Bit - OEM £91.99

Samsung T200 20" Widescreen LCD Monitor £137.99


Total £926.77
 
Do some research into the barracudas, make sure you haven't got the bad firmware. I'm pretty sure it was the .11's but I haven't read up on it much, as I'm sure you can tell :)
 
It was the 7200.11's but even so i would be a bit wary of going with them. i would swap to a 640Gb Samsung Spinpoint F1 or Western Digital AAKS drive. I suggested 640Gb as they both have 320Gb platters so should be faster than a 500Gb drive.
 
seeing as you don't upgrade much, maybe best to spend a little extra for an i7? could do it for just under £1100 with screen and OS

anyway your specs looks fine and it will be night and day with your current

capturejg3.jpg
 
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Thanks for the replies, will definitely go with the Samsung 640GB hdd as it's only £3 more. I had thought about the i7/DDR3 but the prices seem to be quite high still and I probably won't leave it another 5 years before upgrading again ;)

XFX cards seem to be the cheapest, what's their reputation like compared to other manufacturers and should I spend £6 more and get the Asus Radeon 4850 which comes with an extra years warranty?
 
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