spec me a quad core, 8 Gig system

kirkster · 22 Nov 2009 at 15:40

Guys,

Been out of the hardware loop just lately so need some help.

Machine will be used only for Virtual machines and will be connected to remotely from Vsphere client.

Need as much CPU and Mem as possible 8 Gig at least. No hard drives required - got loads.
On board graphics or cheap and cheerful Graphics card is fine. MB should be RAID capable.

So need, MB, CPU, memory, Case, cheap DVD drive. What could I do, keepign budget down to less than £350?

Thanks, Steve

Shedman · 22 Nov 2009 at 15:57

AMD Phenom II X4 Quad Core 810 2.60GHz (Socket AM3) - Retail £116.99

Asus M4A785TD-M Evo AMD 785G (Socket AM3) PCI-Express DDR3 £67.99

OCZ Obsidian 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 Dual Channel £66.99) X2

Antec 300 Three Hundred Ultimate Gaming Case - Black (No PSU) £46.99

Sony Optiarc AD-5240S 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £16.99

Sub Total : £332.98
Shipping : £11.25
VAT: £51.63
Total : £395.86

You won't get much cheaper than that inless you go with a tri core or even a dual core.

blaineoliver · 22 Nov 2009 at 16:38

could go for a 620 athlon II if you want a l3 cacheless quad.

daniel_bourton · 22 Nov 2009 at 17:37

i dont think thee wil be a masive upgrade for that sort of money considering what you already have so just add 4gb more ram to that and sould be betetr for you save the rest till you have enough money for a i7 in the future

Dogoid · 22 Nov 2009 at 17:43

daniel_bourton said:
i dont think thee wil be a masive upgrade for that sort of money considering what you already have so just add 4gb more ram to that and sould be betetr for you save the rest till you have enough money for a i7 in the future

don't think he wants an upgrade , but another system for a specific task.

daniel_bourton · 22 Nov 2009 at 17:45

i meant upgrade as in performance not upgrade as chinging pieces around i go by the rules if it aint broke dont fix it

95thrifles · 22 Nov 2009 at 20:52

Yep the ideal system for you would be 1366, you'd benefit greatly from hyper threading and triple channel RAM, however it would come in circa 500 quid. With your budget an am3 system using 785g chipset for integrated gfx and an x4 athlon 620 would be best bet

daniel_bourton · 23 Nov 2009 at 14:15

but performance wise that there isnt any real gains over the system in his sig

JonJ678 · 23 Nov 2009 at 16:03

Over a q6600 @ 3.4ghz? I disagree, even were the OP upgrading this rather than buying new.

i7 brings 8 threads to the table at 4ghz, something like a 15% improvement over the q6600 clock for clock, and triple channel means up to 12gb rather than 8gb cheaply. I spend a considerable amount of time running virtual machines, and this is one area where the i7 has made itself felt over my q9550.

It depends what you're doing with the machines though. I'm sure this box would run eight copies of xp quite happily on a minimal base distribution. I tend to run two virtual machines on top of the base, one with access to four threads and one with access to two. Just moving to 12gb of ram in order to run more memory intensive programs on the machines.

Despite my initial misgivings, hyperthreading is excellent. Triple channel bandwidth doesn't mean much to me, but an extra two dimms means 4gb more ram, and that is brilliant.

All a bit void if the budget is 350 though, how do you feel about buying second hand?

kirkster · 23 Nov 2009 at 19:25

Thanks for the replies guys,
I want a completely new system for a specific task - running Vmware ESXi. Don't worry about th application (it runs virtual machines). It is very memory intensive so need a system with 8Gig.

My system in my sig is my gaming rig - still plenty powerful enough for what I need and going strong after 2 years - and I don'ta really wnt to touch this system. However, the thought crossed me of taking the memory out of this system and moving that MB/CPU int the "new" system. I'd then buy 8Gig and put it into this MB/CPU.

I'd then but a new more powerful MB/CPU and put the memory I already have - 4 x 1Gig sticks - into this. Why? because I do not need 8Gig for game use.

That gives me a new MB/CPU with old memory in my existign case and my existing MB/CPU with new 8 Gig memory as my "new" system.

Was looking at this MB:
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-172-GI&groupid=701&catid=5&subcat=1155

and this CPU:
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CP-250-IN&groupid=701&catid=6&subcat=567

What do you reckon chaps?

Cheers, Steve

kirkster · 23 Nov 2009 at 19:28

..and movement in budget is possible..... just donlt want to have to if I can avoid it... Mrs and all that