The time is close... (suggested spec on p2)

ive told you what to buy dude :p

dual core cpu will work fine, basically it will work as well as a 2.4 ghz a64 single core with 1mb cache, but the other core can do SETI@home at the same time if you wanted :p

it just speeds up windows really nice. Wouldn't bother with xp 64 bit version either.

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She says brief things, her love’s a pony
My love’s subliminal

whats wrong with x64 xp? is it still not really and working with all progs? and whats SETI@home?

Screw XP64, Vista will be out next summer

fair enough

Heres the system i have in mind (any changes or suggestions welcome aslong as they dont include financial help)



and the monitor i think ill go for



Cheers!
Iain

PS - ANY OFFERS ON MY OLD PC ARE WELCOME!!



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 12/10/2005 10:03PM by madotter.

Hmm ViewSonic's are good, but a 20" would be better (1600x1200 resolution) otherwise I'd say that was a pretty handy system

can u point me in the direction of a good 20/21 inch or any screen with 1600x1200 (can find any atm)

Iain

EDIT//Found this:

[www.scan.co.uk]

But the response time is 16ms where as the 19" is only 2ms, does this matter much?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/10/2005 10:08PM by madotter.

why have a cd writer and a dvd writer? the dvd drive will write cds too...

might be worth looking at getting a larger capacity HD, 74gb isn't all that much (altho it is a speedy little bastard :p)

The NEC monitors are very good (LCD2080UX) It's got a 25ms response time, but to be honest, it isn't going to be as low as it is with the 19" ones for a while. That one is 20.1" but I've only got a price in dollars atm

-EDIT- Viewsonic make very good monitors as well, so it's well worth looking into the one you found



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/10/2005 10:25PM by zeppelin101.

Quote

why have a cd writer and a dvd writer? the dvd drive will write cds too...

Yep yep, dont understand your choice in drives either.

I'd have a dell widescreen monitor without a shadow of doubt, not some pokey 19" one :p

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She says brief things, her love’s a pony
My love’s subliminal

you better have the monitor about 2 meters away from you Iain, it will make you go blind :P

My stepmom bought this sweet media center for her brother and a massive 19" inch monitor. I was the one testing everything and installing stuff... oh how much did my eyes hurt! As soon as I turned the monitor on it was hurting already, I'm never getting anything bigger than 17"!

Nah that was just a crap monitor you got :P

If you're going to post on the forums looking for computer upgrades, you're inevitably going to get this sort of backlash. Don't you ever learn?

It doesn't make much sense to do any major upgrades at the moment. As Chris said, the M2 is coming soon, which could mean another upgrade. The thing to remember with current AMDs is that lower latencies are more important than memory bandwidth, so as things stand, the M2 running on DDR2 memory isn't very mouth-watering. A slight twist is that the M2 processors can apparently run DDR1, DDR2 and potentially DDR3 when it's available on a stick. So while the socket for M2 (a new version of the 940-pin array by the sound of it) is new, it should hang around for a while. When M2 comes around is another matter - probably before the summer.

There's also apparently new graphics cards coming out in Q1 of 2006. ATi are supposed to have a new one out in January/Feb, and nVidia are rumoured to have the G71 core out around the same time, though neither have given any solid statements as such.

With this in mind, I'll spec a PC as things stand - it's up to you whether it's worth it or not.

All parts are in stock, and all prices are from [www.overclockers.co.uk], and are inclusive of VAT.

CPU: AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4400+ - £360.67
Motherboard: DFI LanParty NF4 SLI-DR EXPERT - £152.69
RAM: OCZ 2GB (2 x 1GB) PC3200 Dual Channel Platinum Series EL-DDR CAS2 - £205.57
Graphics card: Sapphire ATI Radeon X1800 XT 512MB - £387.69 Note, I would have opted for an nVidia 7800GTX 512, as they're easily the best at the moment, however there's been no stock in the UK that I'm aware of since the launch week. ATi Crossfire is still little more than a pipe-dream, despite motherboard availablity, however the X1800XT should cope fine with all games for a little while
Monitor: Dell Ultrasharp 2405FPW 24" Widescreen - £681.44
Hard drive 1: Western Digital Raptor 74GB 10,000RPM 2x Bundle - £234.88 Note, for use in a RAID 0 array, as the boot and program drive
Hard drive 2: Western Digital Caviar Special Edition 400GB - £165.97
DVD-RW: NEC ND4550 16x16 DVD±RW Dual Layer (Black)- £31.14
Floppy & Media drive: Mitsumi FA 404M 7in1 USB 2.0 Floppy & Media Drive (Black) - £16.39
CPU cooler: Zalman CNPS9500-LED Aero Flower - £41.07
Sound card: Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Music - £91.06
Case: Antec P180 SPCR Advanced Super Midi Tower (Black) - £111.57
Power supply unit: Seasonic S12 500W Silent ATX2.0 - £89.24

Extras (parts you may already have, but I'll stick some choices down anyway):

Keyboard & mouse combination: Logitech diNovo Laser Media Desktop - £123.32
Mouse mat: Icemat - Black 2nd Edition - £23.98
Speakers: Logitech Z-5500 THX Certified 5.1 - £210.56

All in all, at £2,910.85 we're over budget, by quite a bit, but I'm sure you'll not want to upgrade everything - hard drives for instance you might be happy with, as with your speakers. This lets you choose. In my honest opinion, that is the best stock system reasonable money can buy.

Instead of the 4400 X2 CPU, you could go for a single core Opteron 146, which overclock to FX-57 speeds with ease. They cost around £150. It all depends on what you want to do with your PC.

//Edit: after Ian Woollam's post ([]), I've swapped out the Crucial RAM for some nice OCZ.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 12/10/2005 11:46PM by gav.

Sadly AMD have stopped making socket 939 Opterons for retail since they were hurting high end a64 sales, and were ridiculously good value. There's still a bit of 146 stock around, but not much at all.

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She says brief things, her love’s a pony
My love’s subliminal

-qwerty- Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Sadly AMD have stopped making socket 939 Opterons
> for retail since they were hurting high end a64
> sales, and were ridiculously good value. There's
> still a bit of 146 stock around, but not much at
> all.

I know, I've just got one myself

They won't stop making them, they're just not going to appear in any shop without the rest of a PC. The US is already out of stock apparently, while at least this week, the UK still seemed to have a good bit (comparatively), as there were at least 3 shops selling them, but it's going fast.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/10/2005 11:48PM by gav.

I wanted to get one, but I'm not in a position to blow money on a new pc (though god knows, this xp2000, 512ram 9700 pro needs updating!!) when I promised a mate I would visit them in France for a week (they are a ski guide, so I have ot save acom, lessons, hire etc )

Still, one day I shall upgrade!

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She says brief things, her love’s a pony
My love’s subliminal

Zcott Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> If you're going to post on the forums looking for
> computer upgrades, you're inevitably going to get
> this sort of backlash. Don't you ever learn?
>
>


do u not see that your the only one on this page that has a problem? everyone else is just helping and explaining things. I suggest u take ur petty problems with me and go somewhere else where we dont have to see your annoying stupid posts, thank you

ANYWAY

As i said, it be buying probably in feb so ill see whats happening then. It may be worth waiting for M2 in this case. There is no real rush as the pc i have works fine for now (only real new games prove a problem - such as NFS most wanted etc...) Id rather wait a bit than make any rushed purchases. The spec i posted above was just to show what kind of machine (in this moment) spec i am after.

Thanks for all your help and advice, its much appriciated
Iain

"PS - ANY OFFERS ON MY OLD PC ARE WELCOME!!"

Um £30?

Or even better.... Free would be beat my 2400+ Athlon

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lol, u wish bitch