Okay, Ive come to the conclusion that technology has come on so much that a brand spanking new PC is needed. My current rig:

Athlon XP 1700+ @2000Mhz
1GIG PC3200
Abit NF-7 S 2.0
40 gig+20gig hard drive
DVD-RW/CD-RW combo drive
Radeon 9800XT

Now my budget will be about Ã,£500-ish, and Im just looking for the base unit, no monitor, speakers, keyboard mouse etc if it can be avoided. Prices are so cheap on pre-build units these days I cant price match or get it cheaper by building my own anymore.

So my question to you guys is... whats hot at the moment? Whats the must have for future proofing thats a good upgrade to the above?

I was looking here :

http://www.ginger6.co.uk/

And they seem to have some stunning prices, but Im not sure what the best there would be to go on. Im in a bit of a dilema with regards to whats new, whats essential (dual core? SLI? All of these things... I havent a clue about anymore). Am I shooting myself in the foot if I dont get certain things?

Any help you guys could give would be much appreciated, and if you can suggest somewhere else to buy from thats cheaper or better it would be fab.

Quote from: Chris HalpinOkay, Ive come to the conclusion that technology has come on so much that a brand spanking new PC is needed. My current rig:

Athlon XP 1700+ @2000Mhz
1GIG PC3200
Abit NF-7 S 2.0
40 gig+20gig hard drive
DVD-RW/CD-RW combo drive
Radeon 9800XT

Now my budget will be about Ã,£500-ish, and Im just looking for the base unit, no monitor, speakers, keyboard mouse etc if it can be avoided. Prices are so cheap on pre-build units these days I cant price match or get it cheaper by building my own anymore.

So my question to you guys is... whats hot at the moment? Whats the must have for future proofing thats a good upgrade to the above?

I was looking here :

http://www.ginger6.co.uk/

And they seem to have some stunning prices, but Im not sure what the best there would be to go on. Im in a bit of a dilema with regards to whats new, whats essential (dual core? SLI? All of these things... I havent a clue about anymore). Am I shooting myself in the foot if I dont get certain things?

Any help you guys could give would be much appreciated, and if you can suggest somewhere else to buy from thats cheaper or better it would be fab.

Im not really into cutting edge stuff but the machines on that site are so substandard you have to upgrade them and then the prices go way up.  :shock:

Komplett Bundle

http://www.komplett.co.uk/k/ki.asp?sku=318023

Components included:

    * 318311 - AMD Athlon 64 3700+ 2.2GHz Socket 939, 1MB, BOXED w/fan
    * 309843 - Crucial PC3200 DDR-DIMM 1024MB CL3 KIT Kit w/two matched PC3200 CL3 DDRs
    * 307913 - Samsung SpinPoint P120S 250GB SATA2 8MB 7200RPM
    * 318232 - Gigabyte GA-K8N-SLI, nForce4 SLI, ATX, Socket-939, SATAII, GbLAN, PCI-Ex16
    * 309319 - APLUS Case Qubic, Black Midi tower (Without PSU)
    * 319940 - Gigabyte 6600GT ,128MB GDDR3 PCI-Express, Tv-Out, DVI-I, Retail
    * 313804 - NorthQ 4775-500S, ATX 500W Silent, 140mm Fan, 12-17dBA, 4xSATA, SLI, 20/24pin
    * 314090 - NEC DVDÃ,±RW burner, ND-3550A, 16x, Dual, Black OEM
    * 317429 - Antistatic Wrist band Blue including ground cord

Ã,£515, put it together yourself.

Thanks Soopah. Thats certainly food for thought. The only thing that concerns me is the CPU Mhz, only running @ 2.2Ghz will I see much performance gain from my 1700+ running at 2.0Ghz? The same applies for the graphics card, Ill be swapping a 9800XT with 256 megs of ram for a 6600 with 128, will i get a performance hit from that? I appreciate you taking the time to put that together for me, and apologise if they are stupid questions Im asking. As I said Im feeling rather out of the loop at the moment.

Flight Simulator X (which will be using DirectX10 under Vista) will be a big thing for me, I take it those components should be much more capable under it than my current rig?

you could always just get a new m/b and cpu ? (amd 64bit xp = woohoo)

and save yourself a wad

the rest of your system aint half bad

maybe upgrade your gfx card later on if your a big gamer? but tbh the extra cpu power will give the biggest boost

You should see a good bit improvement with that sort of setup, my preference would be to get 2GB ram from the outset though and reuse your present drives.

An XP32/linux setup is preferable to an XP64 pro one IMO so reuse your software too.

No re-using bits Im afraid. My girlfriends picking up some of the tab on the new PC and just taking my old one off my hands and her Elite K7 1.3Ghz with 512 megs of RAM is getting retired.

Okay, the budgets been blown but this is what Im looking at:

Antec Sonata II Piano Black Quiet Case - 450W Smart Power PSU
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 3800+ (Socket 939) - OEM
Asus A8N-SLi SE nForce4 SLi (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard
XFX GeForce 7600 GT XXX 256MB GDDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express)
GeIL 1GB (2x512MB) PC3200 Value Dual Channel Kit CAS2.5
BenQ DW1650 16x16 DVD RW Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM
Samsung SpinPoint P HD160JJ 160GB SATA-II 8MB Cache
Zalman CNPS9500-LED Aero Flower (Socket 939/754/478/775)

Plus some rounded cables and and another 120mm for the Sonata. How does that look, am I missing anything vital there?

If youre interested I have an A8N-SLI for sale. Its slightly better than the SE (more o/c options in the bios, 8ch audo instead of 6, firewire and a few more), but Im selling just the mobo, no cables etc. The only things itd come with would be a manual and cd with drivers on.

Ã,£40 +P&P?


Oh, and Id also suggest 2gig of ram, 1gb just doesnt seem to be enough any more

I would also push for 2gb

Dont mean to hijack here but Shakey, if I got the following for that board.

AMD A64 3200 Venice 939
2x Ge Force 6600 GT OCs

What ram would be the best to get, would it run with 2gb duel channel of 3200? Its just im totally out of the loop on hardware at the moment and got no idea on compatibility with new RAM etc.

Cheers

Quote from: Chris HalpinGeIL 1GB (2x512MB) PC3200 Value Dual Channel Kit CAS2.5

Dual channel doesnt mean anything, look it up on the Crucial site. If you really can only afford 1GB get a single stick and upgrade to a pair later, you will loose slightly on performance now but shortly the newest games will run best on 2GB and you will be looking to upgrade anyway. The most available second hand RAM ATM is a pair of 512MB sticks cause people are upgrading already.

Quote from: Serious

Quote from: Chris HalpinGeIL 1GB (2x512MB) PC3200 Value Dual Channel Kit CAS2.5

Dual channel doesnt mean anything, look it up on the Crucial site. If you really can only afford 1GB get a single stick and upgrade to a pair later, you will loose slightly on performance now but shortly the newest games will run best on 2GB and you will be looking to upgrade anyway. The most available second hand RAM ATM is a pair of 512MB sticks cause people are upgrading already.

Ta serious. Order ammended accordingly to include "Corsair 1GB DDR2 533 Mhz 128mx64 Non-ecc 240 Dimm Unbuffered Cl4"

Whoah, thats DDR2 youve ordered there, the board doesnt take it!

Really you want 2Gb, you should be able to buy 2x 1GB sticks for around Ã,£100 at PC3200 (400Mhz) spec. Thats as fast as you need, branded or generic.

Quote from: soopahflyKomplett Bundle

http://www.komplett.co.uk/k/ki.asp?sku=318023

Excellent.  Ive been looking for bundle deals, need to build my brother a PC on a budget.