Spec me a system

[dave22]

Hey,

I have been thinking of getting a new system lately as my current pc was getting a bit outdated. In fact the PSU actually exploded yesterday so seems like a good time.

My pc atm is about 6 or 7 years old and upgrading the GPU about 2 years later was the last time I was looking at components. Basically I don't know much about what is available now and any advice would be appreciated. One example, after a quick look at processors I was wondering whether an Intel dual core say at 3.00ghz would perform better or worse than a quad core at 2.40ghz. And I have no idea how these compare to the AMD counterparts.

I am after a fairly decent system for about £600-£700 for the base unit only. Will mainly be used for fairly routine tasks but perhaps a touch of video editing, quality sound output woud be good, and it would be good if it could at least cope with high-end games. Main advice i would need would be on CPUs, Motherboards, sound cards and graphics cards.

I wouldn't mind spending a bit more if it is worth it, say for future upgrading. Less is always good too.


Thanks, Dave

 

[95thrifles]

this would do yo, you can just use onboard sound, its prob good enough

 

[Fire Wizard]

The first specification is slightly over budget but it does include everything you will need. One you have overclocked the E5300 to around 3.4 - 3.6GHz, paired along with the ATI Radeon 4870, the system should play games very nicely. The only thing that I haven't included is a soundcard because in all honesty, the ASUS P5Q Pro onboard sound is actually pretty good.

The second specification is pretty much exactly the same as the first apart from the CPU which has been upgraded to a Intel Core 2 Quad Q6700 and a slightly better CPU cooler, the Noctua NH-U12P.

If you are someone that multitasks quite heavily as well as doing a bit of video editing, then the second specification will suit your needs more. However, if you're not and the main purpose of the system will be gaming, then I would probably suggest saving yourself a bit of money and choose something similar to the first specification.

One thing you didn't mention was the sort of resolution you will working with...

Also, just to help you with your other concern regarding which CPU would be the better choice out of the Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 Wolfdale (3.0GHz) or the Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 (2.4GHz), you might be interested in this thread here.