Spec me (most of) a PC

Psyk

Psyk

Psyk

Soldato
Joined
18 Oct 2002
Posts
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Location
Leamington Spa
My current PC has an Athlon 3700 and a Geforce 7800GT. I'm looking to upgrade with a budget of about £600. An Intel Core 2 Quad Pro Q6600 looks like the CPU to go with, but apart from that I'm a bit out of loop when it comes to what to buy. I only need CPU, RAM, motherboard and graphics card. Already got enough hard disks and my PSU should be powerful enough (It's a Trust 570W), so I figure there's no need to replace those.

I'll be using it for computer science coursework, which previously didn't really need a very powerful machine, but now the stuff I need to do is becoming a bit more intensive. So having a good CPU is my primary concern. But I'll also play some games on it so it would be nice to have something that can play Crysis quite well (I realise wanting it to run 60+fps in high detail would be asking too much though).

Is 4GB of RAM worth it? I suspect it is but if I get that I might have to compromise on the graphics card. As for graphics cards, will a 8800GTX be worth it over a cheaper alternative? Looks like they are reasonably priced, so they look good to me. Don't really know what to look for at all for the motherboard (apart from it being compatible with everything else of course).

Can anyone give me a few pointers?
 
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EDIT: If you're not overclocking you can skip the cooler and use the stocker.
 
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That looks pretty good. Do you think it's worth going for the GTX over the GTS? The Ocuk one is only £30 more expensive. Or is that GTS actually better?

Also, I've noticed there's quite a big variation in the prices of RAM. Is there an advantage to getting faster memory, despite the fact I'm not overclocking?
 
Psyk said:
That looks pretty good. Do you think it's worth going for the GTX over the GTS? The Ocuk one is only £30 more expensive. Or is that GTS actually better?
Click to expand...
Shader-heavy games like Crysis and most new other new games will run a bit faster on a GTS. Other games run faster on a GTX due to its greater memory bandwidth. The GTS dissipates less heat so it's my choice.
Psyk said:
Also, I've noticed there's quite a big variation in the prices of RAM. Is there an advantage to getting faster memory, despite the fact I'm not overclocking?
Click to expand...
None really. The RAM above will be significantly underclocked its whole life. Any PC2-5300 or higher will do the job.
 
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