Well the business is going to buy me a new PC, I think about £500 as I'll be getting a new Netbook at the same time.

It needs to be a decent upgrade from a 2.4Ghz Core 2 Duo, 4GM RAM, 8800GT.

I'd be happy with a single 1TB drive initially as I'd upgrade it with a second 1TB drive myself at a later date.

I'd prefer a base unit from somewhere but I don't mind buying the bits and putting it all together myself if it'll work out cheaper. Needs a Win 7 license if that will be the case.

I don't mind stretching the budget a wee bit if the performance gains will be worthwhile.

Any ideas?

It's quite difficult to get a decent spec for £430 after you take the cost of Win 7 into account, is this going to be purely a business machine or do you want some gaming performance?

Also could you reuse some of the old parts like your case, PSU and graphic card maybe?

Quote from: Shaun on March 14, 2011, 19:44:29 PM
It's quite difficult to get a decent spec for £430 after you take the cost of Win 7 into account, is this going to be purely a business machine or do you want some gaming performance?

Also could you reuse some of the old parts like your case, PSU and graphic card maybe?

How about upping the budget to nearer £750-£800?

Much better!  You can get a system bordering on high end for that money.


Asus P8P67 R3 Socket 1155 USB 3.0 Bluetooth 8 Channel Audio ATX Motherboard 260771 £119.60

Intel Core i5 2500K 3.3GHz Socket 1155 6MB Cache Retail Boxed Processor 251596 £167.98

Noctua NH-U12P SE2 147097 £50.03

Kingston 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 1600MHz HyperX Blu Memory Kit CL9 1.65V 239260 £37.00

Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium w/SP1 - Licence and media - 1 PC - OEM - DVD - 64-bit - English
259863 £71.87

PowerColor HD 6850 1GB GDDR5 Dual DVI HDMI DP Out PCI-E Graphics Cards 248746 £129.99

Samsung HD103SJ Spinpoint F3 1TB Hard Drive SATAII 7200rpm 32MB Cache 173804 £40.00

Samsung SH-S223 22x DVD±RW DL & RAM SATA Optical Drive - OEM Black 145450 £11.99

Coolermaster CM690 II Lite with Coolermaster GX 650W PSU *Special Offer Bundle* 220862 £99.99


Cart total inc vat: £728.45

From Ebuyer (quick find codes before the price) Aria might be slightly better on price on some items.

You could swap the 6850 for a 6950 http://www.ebuyer.com/product/254950 but that would take it 3 quid over budget before postage.

I would be tempted to get a SSD for Windows they are well worth the money for the extra performance gains they offer, adding http://www.ebuyer.com/product/225415 to the original list would take it £17 over budget before postage.

I originally set aside about £1000 (or a bit more) for everything, but I was being greedy and in retrospect dropping over £500 on a netbook is totally retarded.

Im planning a big spend at the end of the month too, after reading several guides i'm decided on the following after thorough research:

i5 2500K
Gelid Tranquillo / Corsair A50 / Thermaltake Frio
8GB DDR3, most likely Corsair 1600
Asus P8P67 - Its a model or 2 down but has all the stuff you need
FOTM is the Geforce 560Ti (MSI Twin Fozr job, but the Gigabyte had same clock speeds). Others 6870 has been on special for £155, or 6850/GTX460 both still great cards
Corsair / OCZ Sandyforce 60GB SSD for C:
Samsung Blu-Ray Drive (Will replace the PS3)
Thermaltake Dokker Case = £40 case, lots of features + an added HDD Caddy built in. Bitfenix Survivor Core for around £50 (looks different to most).
PSU - I'm using a VX550, but Corsair are now doing their builder series PSU's for cheap.

Not a fan of that thermaltake case, I like my cases to be as enclosed as possible, unless there is a fan there, just to kepe the noise down, but the Bitfenix Survivor Core however looks like a very nice piece of kit, back in my PC gaming and LAN party days, would have loved to have something like that!

Edit: When I mean enclosed I mean a good flow of air front to back, but not holes in the side letting noise in the rattling inside out, seems to amplify the noise.

Quote from: Bacon on March 15, 2011, 00:35:40 AM

Corsair / OCZ Sandyforce 60GB SSD for C:

I'd be inclined to wait for the newer sandforce jobbies, like the vertex 3, reet proper quick dey ares

Quote from: XEntity on March 15, 2011, 01:20:53 AM
Not a fan of that thermaltake case, I like my cases to be as enclosed as possible, unless there is a fan there, just to kepe the noise down, but the Bitfenix Survivor Core however looks like a very nice piece of kit, back in my PC gaming and LAN party days, would have loved to have something like that!

Edit: When I mean enclosed I mean a good flow of air front to back, but not holes in the side letting noise in the rattling inside out, seems to amplify the noise.

Fractal Define R3

But thats if my budget allows it http://www.fractal-design.com/?view=product&prod=48

Quote from: matt5cott on March 15, 2011, 08:49:39 AM

Quote from: Bacon on March 15, 2011, 00:35:40 AM

Corsair / OCZ Sandyforce 60GB SSD for C:

I'd be inclined to wait for the newer sandforce jobbies, like the vertex 3, reet proper quick dey ares

I didn't bother posting about the latest ones, as i don't think anyone has confirmed stock yet, any news on release date?

21/03/2011 is the only release date i can find for the V3's.

Quote from: bigsteve on March 15, 2011, 18:14:24 PM
21/03/2011 is the only release date i can find for the V3's.

Its definately going to be worth waiting until the 21st, http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2011/02/24/ocz-vertex-3-ssd-preview/1

Quote from: Bacon on March 16, 2011, 03:25:38 AM

Quote from: bigsteve on March 15, 2011, 18:14:24 PM
21/03/2011 is the only release date i can find for the V3's.

Its definately going to be worth waiting until the 21st, http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2011/02/24/ocz-vertex-3-ssd-preview/1

Exactly I'm going to get a 64GB one as my boot drive, and use my vertex 2 for games and stuff 

Home Premium for a business PC??
I'd go nutty for a proper business warranty over 1ms off opening Word, or am I reading this wrong?

Quote from: Bacon on March 15, 2011, 12:29:06 PM


Fractal Define R3

But thats if my budget allows it http://www.fractal-design.com/?view=product&prod=48

I've been adding-to-basket the R3 for a few days now, CC in hand, it looks the biz.

Quote from: Pete on March 16, 2011, 10:34:52 AM
Home Premium for a business PC??
I'd go nutty for a proper business warranty over 1ms off opening Word, or am I reading this wrong?

Quote from: Bacon on March 15, 2011, 12:29:06 PM


Fractal Define R3

But thats if my budget allows it http://www.fractal-design.com/?view=product&prod=48

I've been adding-to-basket the R3 for a few days now, CC in hand, it looks the biz.

Don't know if my budget will allow it yet, on a plus point my ps3 is sold hopefully so thats another 200 towards it