Spec me an Upgrade

GWillow · 30 Apr 2008 at 12:00

My current system is

Akasa Zen case
Asus A7N8X-E Deluxe (now very poorly after an old psu blew)
Athlon xp 3200 Barton
Zalman CNPS7000A CPU Cooler
ATI X1950 Pro 512mb
1 * Audigy 2
3 * 512Mb Crucial PC3200 DDR
1 * Samsung SH-S202N/RSMN Lightscribe PATA DVD-RW
1 * Seagate 500GB SATAII 7200rpm 16mb Cache H/D
1 * Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 10 200Gb SATA 8mb Cache H/D
1 * Enermax Noisetaker 485W PSU
1 * 22" Samsung SM-2232BW

I don't really plan on doing any overclocking (but I'm not ruling it out) as I wouldn't know where to start.

My main use is games (mainly WoW for my sins), general windows use (email, browsing, word etc), listening to music and watching films. I'm also just trying to get into Linux as well (will be a dual boot). I would also like to do some, but not too much, video editing with footage from an HD camcorder.

I'm looking around the £400 mark (preferably no higher) for the hardware. I see the Q6700 is on special this week, it may be over kill but it will certainly last me like my current one has. Is this a good place to start?

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

GWillow · 30 Apr 2008 at 13:33

Thanks for such a quick reply.

It certainly does look a good spec for the money, think I need to buy the wife some flowers to soften the expected blow.

Would I need a cooler or would the one that comes with the CPU suffice.

Also, would BFG GeForce 8800 GT OC 512MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) be better for just a few pounds more.

I assume my PSU would be powerful enough?

GWillow · 3 May 2008 at 23:08

I see the Q6700 is now £176 (http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CP-155-IN), is it worth the extra £30 odd over the Q6600.

And whats the difference between

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CP-210-IN
and
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CP-161-IN?

Apologies if this is a stupid question, I've not been down this avenue for a long time.

Aslo, it the Abit IP35-E SATA2?

GWillow · 4 May 2008 at 07:10

Thanks for all your help (and patience), it's a long time since I've built a PC and I'm so out of touch and because of the time between builds I like to make sure I get it right.

The good news is that the wife didn't flinch when I said I wanted to upgrade the PC.

GWillow · 5 May 2008 at 21:39

Thanks to all (especially to semi-pro waster). I've ordered your recommended spec with the only minor change of the graphics card to the BFG card.

Hopefully it might turn up Wednesday, although after I pressed the 'confirm order' button I realised that there probably isn't any one in on Wednesday so I'll guess I'll have a trip to the City Link depot to pick it up - damn.

It also now means that I can replace my sons Geforce 4 card with my old X1950 pro.