YASMT (Yet Another Spec Me Thread)

Confused

Confused

Confused

Soldato
Joined
18 Oct 2002
Posts
8,016
Right, my ageing Shuttle SN85G4, Athlon64 3000+, 512mb RAM and Radeon 9800 Pro aren't cutting it any more, so I need something newer/faster/quieter.

It's going to be a dual purpose machine, a HTPC and a medium gaming PC.

So, I want something that'll be quiet enough to use as a media PC in my room for films, but powerful enough to not struggle with current games (CoD4 is currently running on min quality @ 800x600 :()

Price - lets say £400 limit - but less is better! ;)

So will need: MB/CPU/RAM/GFX and PSU (have a couple of ATX cases here I could use, but won't mind getting a new one if the included PSU is OK for the price.


Cheers!
 
Something like this ought to do and it gives you a decent start for overclocking as well. :)

HIS ATI Radeon HD 3850 Pro 256MB GDDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI/HDMI (PCI-Express) - Retail £89.99
(£105.74) £89.99
(£105.74)
OCZ 2GB (2x1GB) PC2-6400C4 Dual Channel Platinum Revision 2 XTC Series DDR2 (OCZ2P800R22GK) £29.99
(£35.24) £29.99
(£35.24)
Abit IP35 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £69.99
(£82.24) £69.99
(£82.24)
Intel Core 2 Duo E2180 "LGA775 Conroe" 2.00GHz (800FSB) - Retail £46.99
(£55.21) £46.99
(£55.21)
Antec Sonata III Piano Black Quiet Case - EarthWatts 500W PSU £61.99
(£72.84) £61.99
(£72.84)
Sub Total : £298.95
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £10.95
VAT is being charged at 17.5% VAT : £54.23
Total : £364.13
 
Your basket
Product Name Qty Price Line Total
Abit IP35-E (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £54.99
(£64.61) £54.99
(£64.61)
OcUK GeForce 8800 GT 512MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail £154.99
(£182.11) £154.99
(£182.11)
OCZ 2GB (2x1GB) PC2-6400C4 Dual Channel Platinum Revision 2 XTC Series DDR2 (OCZ2P800R22GK) £29.99
(£35.24) £29.99
(£35.24)
Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro CPU Cooler (Socket LGA775) £14.99
(£17.61) £14.99
(£17.61)
Corsair VX 450W ATX PSU (CMPSU-450VXUK) £39.99
(£46.99) £39.99
(£46.99)
Intel Core 2 Duo E2180 "LGA775 Conroe" 2.00GHz (800FSB) - Retail £46.99
(£55.21) £46.99
(£55.21)
Sub Total : £341.94
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 : £61.58
Total : £413.47

dont know how quiet the psu, cooler and graphics card is though
 
I don't mind overclocking - not done it since I got my Shuttle due to temps, but before that I had an Athlon XP1700+ @ 2.1GHz, and before that an Athlon 1.0 @ 1.47 and before that a Duron 700 @ 1GHz and before that a dual Celeron 300 @ 466! ;)

Edit: Wow, thanks already guys - will be great to get more opinions from others - I forgot how fast this forum can be! :D
 
Lookin' good, semi-pro. That's better than the one on which I was working by a significant margin. :)

jak731, the PSU is pretty quiet, though some of them tend to hum. The graphics card is about average for a single-slot cooler. The CPU fan is very quiet. In a decent case it's be a pretty quiet rig.
 
Out of those two, specs seem very similar (and I actually had the MB/CPU/RAM in mind after a very quick glimpse through here a couple of days ago!)

So real question I guess is graphics card - most of the time for gaming it'll be on my projector, which is only 1280x720, or (depending if I re-arrange my room) my 17" 1280x1024 LCD.

Would I really need the extra power of the 8800GT over the 3850 in these circumstances?
 
I decided to just plump the extra for the 8800GT - although I'm not running at a high resolution, I can whack up the AA/AF, and it'll be more future-proof than the 3850.

I also added another hard drive, as I'm considering giving my existing system to my GF so she can get introduced to some games - should be adequate for the kind of stuff she'll likely be playing.

Cheers for the advice guys :)
 
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