Associate
- Joined
- 17 Mar 2006
- Posts
- 72
- Location
- Perth
Hi. A friend of mine has decided to build a new PC and he asked me to help him decide what to go for. It's been quite a while since I built my first PC (with the help of these forums 
) so I've been looking around here the last week or so and have come up with the following:
His current PC is really sluggish and has problems with video, he wants a machine that will allow him to do a lot of different things at once, including ouputting his screen to his TV and the opposite - inputting from his TV to the PC, allowing him to capture and stream that online.
He won't be doing any overclocking, at least not any time soon, so I haven't included a separate CPU cooler. He's also not sure about the OS at the moment as he's not keen on Vista at all. I suggested trying the Windows 7 RC or XP 64 to utilise all the RAM. (Though I've read a few things saying 64bit XP isn't great?)
Also, when I built my PC, I bought a floppy drive so I could load the SATA drivers when installing my OS. I take it this is no longer an issue?
There's a bit of room for manoeuvre with the budget so I was wondering about a couple of potential changes:
1. Graphics card. It's only £26 more to get this XFX 4890 but would it be worth it?
2. RAM. Will getting some 1600Mhz RAM have much improvement over the 1333Mhz I've originally chosen? This Patriot Viper is only £6 more and the Corsair XMS3 is only £11 more on this week only.
Getting that 4890 and the Patriot RAM would round things nicely off at £800, which was the budget he originally mentioned to me. (I initially had the 1.5TB seagate HD in there, but he said 1TB would be fine)
Any other suggestions for worthwhile changes or any problems with that spec?
Cheers.
) so I've been looking around here the last week or so and have come up with the following:
His current PC is really sluggish and has problems with video, he wants a machine that will allow him to do a lot of different things at once, including ouputting his screen to his TV and the opposite - inputting from his TV to the PC, allowing him to capture and stream that online.
He won't be doing any overclocking, at least not any time soon, so I haven't included a separate CPU cooler. He's also not sure about the OS at the moment as he's not keen on Vista at all. I suggested trying the Windows 7 RC or XP 64 to utilise all the RAM. (Though I've read a few things saying 64bit XP isn't great?)
Also, when I built my PC, I bought a floppy drive so I could load the SATA drivers when installing my OS. I take it this is no longer an issue?
There's a bit of room for manoeuvre with the budget so I was wondering about a couple of potential changes:
1. Graphics card. It's only £26 more to get this XFX 4890 but would it be worth it?
2. RAM. Will getting some 1600Mhz RAM have much improvement over the 1333Mhz I've originally chosen? This Patriot Viper is only £6 more and the Corsair XMS3 is only £11 more on this week only.
Getting that 4890 and the Patriot RAM would round things nicely off at £800, which was the budget he originally mentioned to me. (I initially had the 1.5TB seagate HD in there, but he said 1TB would be fine)
Any other suggestions for worthwhile changes or any problems with that spec?
Cheers.
