Upgrade thread, oh noes pt II

[Clock'd 0Ne]

Continuing on from my previous effort but this time with a proper budget, lets say £400 excluding the case. Im still well out of the hardware loop and dont know where to begin.

I reckon the Antec P182 is a good choice, unless anyone can recommend another a similar good sized, low heat/noise case?

So £400 for parts:

quiet

fast

4GB+ ram, no exceptions

quiet

Fast boot drive

Quiet, reliable large capacity backup drive

HD/1080p capable graphics card (1920x1200 over HDMI/DVI + HDCP)

not fussed about games

am fussed about having 10 million things left open and the PC running 24/7

do not need monitor, mouse, keyboard, speakers, etc. Just the base unit

Maybe a quad core CPU, 4Gb ram, the PCI-E equivalent of my ATi 3800HD? Anything around the corner worth waiting for? Im aiming to buy all this next month (two/three weeks).

Cheers guys.

[Pete]

No point blowing 50% of the budget on a board & QC cpu.


2x  Samsung SpinPoint HD501LJ 500GB SATAII Hard Drive 16MB Cache - OEM 130454 £88.58
1x  OCZ 4GB Kit (2x2GB) 800MHz/PC2-6400 Memory Platinum Performance CL5 (5-4-4-18) 132904 54 in stock   £65.49
1x  Intel Core 2 Duo E4600 Socket 775 2.4GHz (800MHz) L2 2MB Cache Retail Boxed Processor 135668 50 in stock £74.95
1x  Seagate FreeAgent 500GB USB2.0 External Hard Drive 8MB Cache - Retail 128603 293 in stock £63.98
1x  MSI 8600GT Silent edition 256MB DVI HDTV PCI-E Graphics Card 126985 41 in stock £52.95
1x  ASRock ConRoe1333-eSATA2 i945P Socket 775 eSATA 8 channel audio ATX Motherboard 138959 12 in stock £45.99
1x 500w ebugger PSU £?

About £410 all in I think.

Run the Sammys in a stripe.
USB 500gb for backing stuff up.
Memory - might get better for the money, I CBA to look.
Board - cheap but good with RAID built in. Ignore the brand snobbery, the Asrocks are solid.
Gfx card - whatever, 8600gt will do. Might get better for the same moeny but I cba to look.
The E4600 should clock nicely without any faffing around.
Ebugger PSU - 0% snake oil.

edit:
case: http://www.ebuyer.com/product/108273

[Clock'd 0Ne]

I flat out refuse to spend £10 on a case that will be as acoustically pleasing as diahorroea, but aside from that, I like the spec.

Im thinking I dont need 1Tb for boot and apps, so Id probably look for smaller, faster drives to stripe and get a 1Tb external...

Im not 100% struck on the PSU either, Id want something quieter and maybe more efficient. Perhaps a modular jobbie. Ill take a look at that board.

[Shaun]

After reading your last thread about upgrading TBH I think you would be better saving a bit longer or spending more, you're going to need to cut corners with only 400quid.

If you're planning on keeping the system awhile spending around 600 at current prices will give you far better "bang for your bucks" in the long run.

Really nice cheaper case http://www.tekheads.co.uk/s/product?product=608616 I was quite shocked how good it was for the price, when I built a system with one, the fans might be a bit loud for your taste so replace them with 4 quite 120mm (if you get 4 you will be able to run your CPU fan at a lower speed) , was considered replacing my current Lian Li with one as it has more space and better cooling for SLI but decided to stick to one card in the end.

 Also your Hiper Type R will be up to the job

[Beaker]

if you are going intel you are going to blow £120-£150 on a CPU, and about £100 for a decent spec motherboard.  £400 is an upgrader rig, youll have buy CPU and GFX down the scale for later replacement, or youll have to shave some parts and just buy cheaper.  

[Eagle]

P182 ftw.  

[Clock'd 0Ne]

I dont mind spending more if I have to, Ive been looking around and yeah £400 is a low budget for the kind of system Im after.

Ive decided I wont be able to get away with using the Type R, as Im going to need to keep it for a while while I shift all my data across from this old rig. I might just get something like the Corsair HX 520W ATX2.2 Silent PSU and sell the Type R. Im unsure.

I dont want to cut corners, so if I have to spend more I will. Thankfully Ive had a £200 rebate on NICs that Im putting towards the new rig.

I definitely want to stick with the P182.

[Clock'd 0Ne]

Ive just seen the VelociRaptor Do want!

Although for that money I could RAID a few drives. The Samsung F1s do seem to be the performance drive of choice.

[Shaun]

  Here is what I would recommend:

Code Select Expand

608548 Asus P5N-D nForce 750i SLI (Socket 775) DDR2 ATX Motherboard  In stock: 3 £72.30 £72.30
 
  607391 Antec P182 Performance One Super Midi Tower Black - No PSU Out of stock: 5 days after order placed. £74.00 £74.00
 
  608544 Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 3.0GHz Wolfdale 6MB Cache LGA775 (1333 Mhz) - Retail  In stock: 10 + £106.34 £106.34
 
  608875 Club 3D ATI Radeon HD 3650 512MB Passive Heatpipe GDDR2 Dual DVI / TV-Out (PCI-E) - Retail In stock: 9 £38.30 £38.30
 
  2 x 608976 Samsung SpinPoint HD502IJ F1 500GB 7200RPM SATA 3GB/s 16MB Cache - OEM In stock: 10 + £39.99 £79.98
 
  607818 Corsair HX 520W ATX2.2 Modular Whisper Silent PSU In stock: 1 £54.00 £54.00
 
  606957 Thermaltake BigTyphoon 120 VX LGA775 & AM2 Heatpipe Cooler Out of stock: 7 days after order placed. £23.79 £23.79

Basket Weight:  26800
 
 Subtotal:  £448.71
 
  Vat:  £78.52
 
 Total:  £527.23

All from Tekheads, but they don't seem to sell any decent Ram http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-022-GS&tool=3 (buy elsewhere )

Swap the Duo for a Quad maybe? but unless you use apps that will use all 4 Cores more clock speed is better.

Take the fan guard off the Thermaltake BigTyphoon and run it at the lowest speed, it still cools really well even on a moderately OCed chip and is really quite.

[Clock'd 0Ne]

I like that, is that one of the quietest coolers Ill find then? Thanks for recommending a passive cooled graphics card too.

The most intensive app Ill be using is Photoshop, but Ill have numerous brower tabs and windows open (Firefox, IE, Safari) as well as various other apps. Ill also be doing a lot of 1080p film playback.

[Shaun]

The BigTyphoon is the best cooler you can get for sensible money at the minute so it still offers decent cooling at its lowest fan speed which is only 16db.

Go for the Wolfdale no point in going for a Quad seeing you don't do video editing or rendering...etc, plus Duo's need less cooling than Quad's.

 I know you said you didn't want to OC but tbh it's a crime not to OC current Intel chips. Even with the CPU cooler fan at its lowest setting 3.6 - 3.8 Ghz will be achievable at or slightly above stock volts,
so long as you have good case cooling while still keeping noise to a minimum

[Clock'd 0Ne]

I probably will look into overclocking once Ive got a nice stable, quiet setup. The reason I avoided pointing it out in the first instance was so people were not pointing out kit ideal for overclocking, when its only going to be an afterthought

How future proof are the mobos and scoket types about now? Will it be easy to go Quad, etc later in time if I wanted to?

[Shaun]

After reading reviews of the case looks like the case fans are a bit loud so I would suggest swapping them out for better fan's or add more case fans and run them at reduced voltage to keep noise to a minimum

 The mobo should be able to take any future skt775 Quad (might need a Bios flash), but Intel change sockets to often tbh

Here is some info on the next http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nehalem_%28CPU_architecture%29 by the look of it it's going mid to late next year before it fully takes over from Skt775.

[Eagle]

 
My rigs still at stock - because I dont know what to tweak and by how much...
 

[Shaun]

 
My rigs still at stock - because I dont know what to tweak and by how much...
 

http://www.clunk.org.uk/forums/overclocking/2-c2d-overclocking-guide-beginners-p5k-add.html

Seems fairly comprehensive for your mobo