Spec check please

Papillon

Papillon

Papillon

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Joined
13 Nov 2005
Posts
113
Following on from my thread about building my first system, please could you check the following. There are a couple of things in there pushing the price up. Obviously there's an operating system in there and a router too. I know there are cheaper cases, but I fancy this Lian-Li case. Are there any areas I could cut back on? Is the PSU overkill? Also, I'm not using the computer for gaming, so is the graphics card over the top? I just need to be able to run two monitors from it. The computer will be used for running numerous programs at any one time - office based stuff though, no games. Thank you.

CA-053-LL Lian-Li PC-767 Silver Aluminium Midi-Tower Case (No PSU) (CA-053-LL)
£114.95 £114.95
CP-134-AM AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 3800+ (Socket 939) - Retail (ADA3800BVBOX) (CP-134-AM)
£183.95 £183.95
MB-088-AS Asus A8N-E nForce4 Ultra (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-088-AS)
£59.95 £59.95
MY-006-MK Mushkin 2GB DDR EM3200 Enhanced Performance Dual Channel Kit (2x1GB) CAS3 (991461) (MY-006-MK)
£109.95 £109.95
HD-001-HI Hitachi Deskstar T7K250 NCQ 160GB SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM (0A31637) (HD-001-HI)
£44.95 £44.95
GX-055-PC PowerColor ATI Radeon X800 GTO16 256MB GDDR3 TV-Out/DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-055-PC)
£89.95 £89.95
CD-026-NE NEC ND4551 16x16 DVD±RW Dual Layer LabelFlash ReWriter (Black) - OEM (CD-026-NE)
£24.95 £24.95
FG-000-AR Arctic Cooling Freezer 64 Pro CPU Cooler (Socket 754/939/940) (FG-000-AR)
£15.95 £15.95
CA-001-SS Seasonic S12 500W Silent ATX2.0 Power Supply (CA-001-SS)
£75.95 £75.95
SW-022-MS Microsoft Windows XP Professional x64 Edition inc. SP2 - OEM - 1Pk (ZAT-00054) (SW-022-MS)
£81.95 £81.95
KB-065-LG Logitech UltraX™ Media Desktop - OEM (KB-065-LG)
£29.95 £29.95
NW-071-NG Netgear DG834GT 108Mbps Wireless ADSL Modem/Router/Switch/Firewall (NW-071-NG)
£63.95 £63.95
Subtotal £896.40
Shipping (City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)) £12.95
VAT £159.14
Total £1,068.49
 
I don't know anything about overclocking - I don't even know what it is!

Are all PSUs compatible with all cases? Is this PSU compatible with the case I have listed?

What do you think about the RAM I have chosen?

And, is that the correct operating system I should be using considering it's a 64 bit system? Will I be able to run anything on this?

Thanks again.
 
Well it's all compatible to start with. But if your not going to be gaming, it makes me question the choice of the Atlon 64 X2, the 2GB of RAM and the X800. You could cut back on these components to save cash and you wouldn't notice an awful lot of difference. There are cheaper cards that do dual, monitor outputs, cheaper processors which won't cause much drop in performance and also cheaper memory. Unless you have a real reason for 2GB I wouldn't say it's that necessary. I do java development on my computer most of the time with iTunes plus a load of applications open and 1GB is enough.
 
I went for the Athlon 64 X2 because I asked about a system once before. Because I run so many programs at once, someone suggested a dual core processor would be the way to go, so I'm happy with that plan. I'll be running quite a powerful charting program (for financial trading) on this machine aswell as the order entry system for my trades.

What would be a good graphics card to use instead of the X800?
 
Basically, any graphics card which works with your motherboard and has 2 monitor outputs will suit your needs. Something cheap like the ATI Radeon 9250SE, the ATI Radeon X300 or the nVidia GeForce 6200 should be fine. They have a minimum of 128MB video memory and your not going to be running anything that will need 3D processing power.
 
OK, I have figured out a graphics card to use. I'm now just wondering about the memory. What other 2gb recommendations would you make over the Mushkin? Thanks.
 
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