Time to upgrade

BigHairyBloke · 7 Mar 2008 at 11:47

Hi all,

Can someone recomend a M/B, Processor, Memory, HD drive & power supply?

I use my PC for office based tasks and browsing the net mostly. But i do tend to do a lot of scanning and OCRing, and have multiple windows and aplications open. It must be silent or very quiet, have 2 hard disks with 500gb each, one for day to day use, the other for back up(other solutions considered). I will use my existing graphics card, which is AGP i think...will need to check.

So nothing hard core, just fst and able....and as cheap as possible of course!

Cheers

Steve

mp260767 · 7 Mar 2008 at 12:25

whats you're maximum budget ?

BigHairyBloke · 7 Mar 2008 at 12:36

Hmmmmmm......£700?

Steve

semi-pro waster · 7 Mar 2008 at 12:54

I've thrown in a graphics card since using AGP would really rather limit your choice of motherboard but this ought to be more than sufficient for you.

Corsair HX 520W ATX2.2 Modular SLI Compliant PSU (CMPSU-520HXUK) £59.99
(£70.49) £59.99
(£70.49)
Abit IP35 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £69.99
(£82.24) £69.99
(£82.24)
Western Digital Caviar SE16 500GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (WD5000AAKS) £54.99
(£64.61) £109.98
(£129.22)
G.Skill 4GB DDR2 PQ PC2-6400C5 (2x2GB) CAS5 Dual Channel Kit (F2-6400CL5D-4GBPQ) £49.99
(£58.74) £49.99
(£58.74)
Intel Core 2 Quad Pro Q6600 "Energy Efficient SLACR 95W Edition" 2.40GHz (1066FSB) - Retail £133.99
(£157.44) £133.99
(£157.44)
PowerColor ATI Radeon HD 2600 PRO SCS3 SILENT 512MB DDR2 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail £43.99
(£51.69) £43.99
(£51.69)
Sub Total : £467.93
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £9.95
VAT is being charged at 17.5% VAT : £83.63
Total : £561.51

BigHairyBloke · 7 Mar 2008 at 15:45

Would the graphics on the board be sufiect for my needs? Also if i wanted to throw a new case in to the mix, what would you recomend?

steve

BigHairyBloke · 7 Mar 2008 at 15:54

Oh...yes, and is the heat sink with that processor quiet?

steve

Blackhawk47 · 7 Mar 2008 at 16:02

BigHairyBloke said:
Would the graphics on the board be sufiect for my needs? Also if i wanted to throw a new case in to the mix, what would you recomend?

steve

i wouldnt bother with onboard graphics. especially with a quad core system like that.

semi-pro waster · 7 Mar 2008 at 16:48

You could use onboard graphics I suppose but that motherboard doesn't come with onboard and the graphics card isn't all that expensive.

The retail cooler isn't the quietest from what I know of it but if you find it noisy then you could always swap it at a later date.

BigHairyBloke · 10 Mar 2008 at 09:53

Semi, i have just found out my OH's bro who works for M$ can get me Vista and Office for a song...so i have another £150 spare, would you recomend any upgrade on the MB or CPU you suggested?

cheers

Steve

semi-pro waster · 10 Mar 2008 at 10:49

Always nice when you can get Microsoft products cheap.

I don't know how heavy the requirements are for Ram with your scanning but you could go for 8gb quite easily into the budget.

I don't think that the CPU or motherboard really require changing given what your needs are. Only step up could be the motherboard I suppose as the Abit IP35 Pro does have an eSATA port which could be handy for external storage - might be an idea to buy an external backup drive as well while you are at it.

Since you want a quiet PC and you have a bit of cash spare then I might suggest an aftermarket cooler - Noctua NH-U12P is probably the simplest at ~£40 because the Tuniq Tower while very good sometimes has a noticeable fan noise (replacing is simple I believe but by the time you've done that it costs about the same) or you could pick the Thermalright U120 heatsink which can be run fanless in some cases with good airflow but the bottom occasionally requires lapping.