Time for a new PC...£1500 is what I have to play with

[miracleboy]

My current 4 year old PC needs a replacement and I'm not really up on current hardware...I'm vaguely aware of dual core, 64 bit and SLi but don't really know what these mean in real terms.

I don't need a monitor, as I already have a 17" widescreen flat panel.

I would prefer to buy a full unit, but don't mind building it myself as have built a couple in the past.

I want a case that looks really nice, i.e. not standard PC ugliness!

I think I prefer AMD, but stand to be corrected.

The PC will be mainly for gaming, but also for general use - Office, photo, iTunes, downloading, email, web etc.

Welcome some ideas - or even full purchase list if you like.

I am planning on getting the Razer Copperhead, and the Saitek keyboard that lights up blue (can't remember model) - what do you think of these?

Thanks in advance!

 

[brightside_]

AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4400+ (Socket 939) - Retail (ADA4400CDBOX) (CP-127-AM)
£284.95
DFI LanParty UT NF4 Ultra-D (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-014-DF)
£79.95
GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC3200 Value Dual Channel Kit CAS3 (GE2GB3200BDC) (MY-046-GL)
£109.95
Western Digital Caviar Special Edition 200GB 2000JS SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-048-WD)
£51.95 £51.95
Pioneer DVR-111DBK 16 x 16 DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter - (Black) OEM (CD-038-PO)
£24.95
CA-008-TG Tagan TG530-U15 530W ATX2.01 Easycon SLi Compliant Modular Silent PSU (CA-008-TG)
£59.95
Antec P180 Advanced Super Midi Tower Case - No PSU (Silver) (CA-039-AN)
£74.95
Microsoft Windows XP Professional Edition inc. SP2 - OEM - 1Pk (E85-04026) (OS-002-MS)
£81.95
XFX GeForce 7900 GTX Extreme Edition 512MB GDDR3 VIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (PVT71F-YDER) (GX-073-XF)
£369.95
KB-015-SK Saitek PZ30AU Eclipse Illuminated Keyboard (KB-015-SK)
£22.95
SC-034-CL Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Music - Retail (SC-034-CL)
£64.95
KB-015-RA Razer Copperhead Tempest Blue 2000dpi High Precision Gaming Mouse - Retail (KB-015-RA)
£34.95

Subtotal £1,261.40
VAT £220.75
Total £1,482.15

There you go, a wee bit under budget, but that's what I'd go for. Some people will say go with the ATi X1900X-TX for the GFX, but I reckon the Nvidia will be better considering you have a 17" TFT, and not a stupidly large one.

The CPU is a decent one, dual core which will future proof it a little and may be able to be overclocked a bit if you so wished, The standard cooler will look after it for a small overclock, otherwise you may want to look at buying a aftermarket HSF

The case is a decent one, Have a look at it on the site as looks are personal etc. It has good cooling and has sound reducing properties.
You can always drop the XP pro version, go to home version and spend that extra on the case!

Keyboard and mouse look good, good choices
You can always drop the XP pro version, go to home and spend that extra on the case!

I decided not to go for an SLi board, as I don't believe it's worth it.

The motherboard will allow you to clock, as I said for the CPU. If you decided to get better cooling in the future it may let you push your CPU a fair way depending on the actual CPU.

2GB RAM is pretty much needed now to run games well. I chose value RAM, as it didn't say anything about clocking at the time, if you want to clock you could again drop to XP home and spend the money on some better RAM.

Soundcard will kick butt, enhances sound quality a fair bit from what I've heard through my mates speakers!

All in all it's a good system, wish I had that much money to spend on one! lol

 

[dread base]

Heres a Spec.

AMD Opteron UP 175 Dual Core San Diego 2.2GHz 2MB Cache (Socket 939) - Retail £329.95

Asus A8R32-MVP Deluxe Crossfire (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard £119.95

GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC3200 Value Dual Channel Kit CAS3 £109.95

Connect3D ATI Radeon X1800 XT 256MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail

Western Digital Caviar SE16 320GB 3200KS SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM £79.95

NEC ND4570 16x16 DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM £24.95

Thermaltake VA8000SWA Armour Aluminium Super Tower - Silver £99.95

Hiper HPU-4K580-MK Type R 580W Modular ATX2.2 PSU - Black UV £52.95

Saitek PZ30AU Eclipse Illuminated Keyboard £22.95

Subtotal £1,120.50
VAT £196.09
Total £1,316.59

You have a good system there. It will be a very system will play all the latest games you could have a crossfire setup but your only using a 17" screen so you wont really see any diffrence between a single card. 2GB of ram which boost performance. Dual core you could be playing games downloading and encoding at the same time. DVD RW so you can burn DVD's. ATI 1800XT this is a good card you cuold get the 1900XTX or get 1800XT crossfire setup which is 2 graphics cards. But on a 17" screen you wont see much os a performance boost. Hiper PSU its quiet and Modular which means your PC case will look tidy inside and the Thermaltake armour which is a nice case good airflow good fans well built. And 2 320GB hard drives these a reliable and fast Hard disks. There SATA II so there good quality disks. You good get a 10K Raptor if you wanted and install windows on there and all your software and games. But there will only be a small performance increase. I hope you like the spec.

 

[miracleboy]

Thanks for spending the time to put that together. I am looking around for a case - the Antec Sonata II looks okay, or the Coolermaster curvy silver one.

I was hoping to get Windows MCE also - then I can stream HD content from the PC through the Xbox 360 to the TV.

Would it be better to go for an SLi capable MB then I could add a second card later on if I needed to? How much better is SLi than a single card?

Also might want to go for a larger drive, or maybe 2 large drives in a RAID-0 configuration for performance?

 

[brightside_]

Personally, i think by the time most people can get another card of the same standard for SLi, there will proabably be a single card out that can beat the pair in SLi so I don't believe it's worth it.

 

[BigDom]

There are two Dual Graphics card options available.

SLI - Nvidia's option.
Crossfire - ATI's option.

The latter is proving to be the better option IF you REALLY need the power of two high end cards.

However really Dual Graphics cards are not needed as single high end cards are plenty powerfull enough. However to at least give you the option in the future, as your new PC should have an X1900XT from ATI graphics solution, you should get a Crossfire capable motherboard.

You may have heard of the new Nvidia 7900, reasonable enough card but to match (arguably very slightly beat) the X1900XT you have to spend about £100 more which isn't worth it.

 

[Turbanation]

I'd go for Crossfire, IMO.

 

[noxidjkram@hotm]

Thanks for spending the time to put that together. I am looking around for a case - the Antec Sonata II looks okay, or the Coolermaster curvy silver one.

Both nice cases - Coolermaster one is nicer as Sonata has an awful plasticky door.

Neither are great for cooling purposes.

Have an ask in the Cases section (Yewen is good to ask), and see what people are finding good to work with.

M

 

[miracleboy]

I've read about the AMD FX57 - how far apart is this chip from those you have specced?

 

[ACESHIGH]

AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4800+ (Socket 939) - Retail (ADA4800CDBOX) (CP-129-AM)
£458.19*

Asus A8R32-MVP Deluxe Crossfire (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-131-AS)
£146.82*

Corsair 2GB DDR XMS3200C2PT TwinX (2x1GB) CAS2 (MY-079-CS)
£140.94*

HIS Excalibur ATI Radeon X1900 XT-X 512MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-047-HT)
£352.44

Samsung SH-W162C 16x16 DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) (CD-068-SA)
£23.44*

Thermaltake VA3000BWA Tsunami Dream SuperMidi Aluminium Tower - Black (CA-010-TT)
£75.14

Akasa Ultra Quiet 650W PowerPlus Active PFC ATX2.0 PSU - Black Nickel (CA-015-AK)
£91.59

Western Digital Caviar Special Edition 400GB 4000KD SATA 16MB Cache - OEM (HD-050-WD)
£147.99

Total = £1436.55 including VAT

Great dual core CPU.
Fastest single card available.
Mobo allows 2nd card to be added later.
Large HDD.
2 gig good ram.
Nice case & great PSU.

Dual core CPUs are a better longer term investment than the single core Fx57.

 

[ACESHIGH]

If after a prebuilt system then something like this ....

"Ultima" AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400 ATI X1900 XT-X Dual DDR System (FS-022-OK)
If you are looking for the ultimate AMD box then look no further than the Ultima AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400. Supplied pre-built it has an impressive specification to say the least :-
- AMD Athlon X2 4400 Dual Core San Diego (Socket 939) Dual DDR400 CPU
- AMD Approved cooler
- Asus A8R-MVP Crossfire Dual Channel PCI-Express Motherboard
- Corsair 2GB (2x1GB) DDR XMS3200C2PT CAS2.0 Dual Channel Kit
- 250GB Western Digital 16mb cache SATA-2 Hard Drive
- ATI Radeon X1900 XT-X 512MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express)
- Plextor PX-755 16x16 DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter (Black)
- Creative Sound Blaster Fatal1ty Sound Card
- Black floppy drive
- Silverstone Temjin TJ05 Black Case
- Tagan TG580-U15 580W ATX2.01 Easycon SLi Compliant Modular Silent PSU
- Metal Braided Rounded Floppy Cable (0.5m)
- Metal Braided Rounded Ultra ATA100/66 IDE Cable (0.45m)
- Metal Braided SATA Cable
- Windows XP Professional pre-installed with License and CD supplied
Note - All Ultima systems are built and installed on demand, during busy periods this may cause a delay of between 24 and 48 hours in despatching your order. The Ultima can be supplied assembled with or without your choice of installed operating system but is supplied without keyboard, mouse, speakers or monitor (all of which are available elsewhere in this on-line store). The prices listed below are in addition to the system price.
*


Price:**£1,399.00 **(£1,643.83*Including VAT at 17.5%)

 

[miracleboy]

I'm not planning to overclock, so would I be better off going with one of the X2 range rather than the Op (from what I've been reading)?

 

[ACESHIGH]

I'm not planning to overclock, so would I be better off going with one of the X2 range rather than the Op (from what I've been reading)?

Yes, if not overclocking go for the the AMD X2 range of CPU's.

 

[Genoma]

Have a look at my build under the same budget

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?p=6643867#post6643867

 

[miracleboy]

Thanks - that looks like a great spec you have with a lot of the same components I chose - what do you think of these?

AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 3800+ (Socket 939) - Retail (ADA3800BVBOX) (CP-134-AM) 205.57
DFI LanParty UT RDX200CF-DR Crossfire (Socket 939) Motherboard (MB-017-DF) 146.82
GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC3200 Value Dual Channel Kit CAS3 (GE2GB3200BDC) (MY-046-GL) 117.44
ATI Radeon X1900 ***Crossfire Edition*** 512MB GDDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-045-CO) 352.44
Western Digital Raptor 150GB WD1500ADFD 10,000RPM SATA 16MB Cache - OEM (HD-069-WD) 198.52
Antec P180 Advanced Super Midi Tower Case - No PSU (Silver) (CA-039-AN) 93.94
Hiper HPU-4K580-MK Type R 580W Modular ATX2.2 PSU - Black UV (CA-005-HP) 62.22

 

[ACESHIGH]

All looks good. Only suggestion would be that for the same price you could get the quicker ..HIS Excalibur ATI Radeon X1900 XT-X 512MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-047-HT)
But if you are going crossfire soon, then its all good.