High end, NOT top end, let's get that sorted here and now 
I've been browsing around this place for a while but never needed advice untill now, so here i am...
With christmas coming up and a grand + change (£) burning a hole in my bank account it's time to retire this machine to the electronic graveyard. The budget is around £1k excluding hard drives (to be upgraded later). It must be dual core, and the emphasis is on it's ability to crunch numbers rather than run games at silly fps.
I like multitasking, hence the X2 CPU (intel isn't an option), i will be able to use it for a notable amount of time and do some rather CPU heavy work every now and again, (backing up DVD collection etc.). Games wise it must run everything made for PCs but i don't want SLI, although if it's worth it for other reasons an SLI board is acceptable.
Projected specs:
4400 x2 ~£350
Reason: Faster than ****** off a shovel and with a little overclock as fast as a 4800.
Mobo ~£100: To be decided, although both the A8R MVP and A8N32 are in the running.
RAM ~£100-£200: 1-2Gig of RAM, make undetermined as of yet as is quantity, must be fast.
PSU ~£50-100: Up for discussion, not a passive PSU, must have in order of importance: Stable voltage lines under load, high efficency rating (personal bugbear), low noise rating (from SPCR not manufacturer specs, which are utter ****** 99% of the time).
G Card ~£300: Probably be a 256mb 7800GT(X?), that should make any game on the market fall to it's knees and worship me. This will stretch the budget a bit but why not?
Total cost ~£900 - £1050
May well get myself a new case for it ~£100, (P180 or a coolermaster stacker are the favourites at the moment) and then when i feel like it the hard drives will probably be No.1= RaptorI I(III if i wait that long) as boot disc, No.2 = Random 250-300Gig HD for files and No.3 = 300Gig for a daily/incrimental backup. But for the mean time i'll just use my old ones or pray that santa gives me a Deskstar 7k500.
It will be overclocked as you might have guessed, this is one of the primary reasons for the choice of potential mobos, but it should also be able to run quietly under minimal load, (coolnquiet might help there although i've been told that you can't use it and have overclocking).
What parts do you lot advise, and where should i go for a good deal on them (UK/EU only)? Also how much would it cost to buy a machine of similar specs off the shelf?
I've stuck this up on my normal chat board www.U75.net (<-- Shameless plug)but as i'm at the techie end of the population i thought i'd stick it up here where i can get some advice from those in the know.
I've been browsing around this place for a while but never needed advice untill now, so here i am...
With christmas coming up and a grand + change (£) burning a hole in my bank account it's time to retire this machine to the electronic graveyard. The budget is around £1k excluding hard drives (to be upgraded later). It must be dual core, and the emphasis is on it's ability to crunch numbers rather than run games at silly fps.
I like multitasking, hence the X2 CPU (intel isn't an option), i will be able to use it for a notable amount of time and do some rather CPU heavy work every now and again, (backing up DVD collection etc.). Games wise it must run everything made for PCs but i don't want SLI, although if it's worth it for other reasons an SLI board is acceptable.
Projected specs:
4400 x2 ~£350
Reason: Faster than ****** off a shovel and with a little overclock as fast as a 4800.
Mobo ~£100: To be decided, although both the A8R MVP and A8N32 are in the running.
RAM ~£100-£200: 1-2Gig of RAM, make undetermined as of yet as is quantity, must be fast.
PSU ~£50-100: Up for discussion, not a passive PSU, must have in order of importance: Stable voltage lines under load, high efficency rating (personal bugbear), low noise rating (from SPCR not manufacturer specs, which are utter ****** 99% of the time).
G Card ~£300: Probably be a 256mb 7800GT(X?), that should make any game on the market fall to it's knees and worship me. This will stretch the budget a bit but why not?
Total cost ~£900 - £1050
May well get myself a new case for it ~£100, (P180 or a coolermaster stacker are the favourites at the moment) and then when i feel like it the hard drives will probably be No.1= RaptorI I(III if i wait that long) as boot disc, No.2 = Random 250-300Gig HD for files and No.3 = 300Gig for a daily/incrimental backup. But for the mean time i'll just use my old ones or pray that santa gives me a Deskstar 7k500.
It will be overclocked as you might have guessed, this is one of the primary reasons for the choice of potential mobos, but it should also be able to run quietly under minimal load, (coolnquiet might help there although i've been told that you can't use it and have overclocking).
What parts do you lot advise, and where should i go for a good deal on them (UK/EU only)? Also how much would it cost to buy a machine of similar specs off the shelf?
I've stuck this up on my normal chat board www.U75.net (<-- Shameless plug
)but as i'm at the techie end of the population i thought i'd stick it up here where i can get some advice from those in the know.
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