Spec me a PC please - ~ £600

[endeavour]

Hi all,

I'm looking to build a new PC, budget about £600 though willing to stretch it a little bit if necessary. I'll be transferring the keyboard, mouse and monitors from my old PC so they're already sorted.

Ideally:
*Quiet*, stable, reliable.
Intel-based - thinking wolfdale?
Nvidia graphics card with dual DVI outputs (or two cards each with DVI)
Mirrored RAID - 2x 250GB drives perhaps
4GB ram would be nice.
2x DVD drives, at least one of which being a writer.
Would be nice if the onboard sound had optical in, though I have an Audigy 2 with breakout box I can transfer from my old system if necessary.

Will not primarily be a gaming machine so that's not the most important thing.

Open to suggestions - thanks!

 

[BillytheImpaler]

Does that mean no gaming, or just a little gaming? If it's no gaming it opens up a lot of nice cheap solutions.

EDIT: How's this look to you if you want some gaming power?

Keep in mind you'll need a 64-bit OS to go with 4 GiB RAM.

 

[endeavour]

Does that mean no gaming, or just a little gaming? If it's no gaming it opens up a lot of nice cheap solutions.

EDIT: How's this look to you if you want some gaming power?

Keep in mind you'll need a 64-bit OS to go with 4 GiB RAM.

Thanks Billy. I may do a little gaming - C&C Generals, Counterstrike Source, that kind of thing - but I'm not concerned about being able to run the latest games with all the graphics turned up to full.

Your suggestion looks like a good starting point. I have a few questions:
Would I gain much benefit from spending a little extra on the PC2-6400C5 ram?
Do you know if the stock fan on the CPU and the cooling on the PNY 8800GT are fairly quiet?
How does the ASUS motherboard compare to the Gigabyte P35 boards?

I can get a copy of Vista 64bit from MSDN so that's not a problem.

 

[BillytheImpaler]

1. No, not at all unless you're overclocking or setting dividers.
2. The stock fans on both are reasonably quiet. Since you get them with the package anyway, you might as well see if they're quiet enough for you before considering replacement.
3. They're about the same. I chose this one since it was the cheapest with ICH9R.

 

[fobose]

Just something to bare in mind. Is there any issues with needing a bios update to use the wolfdale on the ASUS boards as I am sure there are lots of posts with the P5K boards. If he doesnt have a old 775 CPU, he wont be able to flash the bios surely?

 

[Darryl_1983]

Would that board fit into the midi tower case? wouldn't you need a Micro-ATX board?

 

[Kearney_1988]

Nah you can update the bios. But you have 1 attempt at it. You have to put the usb stick in the mobo before you turn it on for the first time. Once you turn it off you cant get it back again. I found that out first hand

 

[BillytheImpaler]

Would that board fit into the midi tower case? wouldn't you need a Micro-ATX board?

Sure it would fit. If it were a microATX case then he'd need a microATX motherboard. Most cases are mid sized and most motherboards are full ATX-sized.