New PC specs HELP

[makeitfit]

My old PC has blown a head gasket and a hard drive and seized another cooling fan
Sooooo I was thinking of an upgrade and remembered there's some 'puiter boffins on here somewhere
I'd like to be able to play games on it , but not like a lune
lots of photo manipulation and media handling skills
So what sort of mother board do I need , processor , graphics card etc.
I'll keep the case, X-Fi sound stuff and dvd drives etc.
Oh what about windows 7 or keep with XP pro

[kbekl]

depends on your budget but i would be looking at

asus p5q se or the p5ev hdmi

gfx card i would look at the ati hd 5770 not too expensive an will run every game out and is dx 11 compatable so it has a long life

cpu you could go for the i7 but i would say try the core 2 quad q9650or if budgeted try the core 2 duo e8750

if you want quick load time then try a ssd (solid state drive)

[makeitfit]

I should have asked for that in idiot speak
Cheers for that but I don't know what it all means if I ask my computer man will he know what you just said?

[kbekl]

Originally Posted by makeitfit

I should have asked for that in idiot speak
Cheers for that but I don't know what it all means if I ask my computer man will he know what you just said?

yes he should do

everything listed is a model number just do a quick google on the model number ti will show

ie
hd 5770 in to goole with show specs and prices of the graphics card

asus is a maker of main boards ranked high with alot of people again the numbers are models so a google search will show what they are and cost

ram wise you could go for the ddr3 for speed or just plain ddr2


if you want to spend uber money look at the hd 6990

[Fez_uk]

also worth looking at amd cpus

[kbekl]

Originally Posted by Fez_uk

also worth looking at amd cpus

Intel's Core 2 Duo lineup offers superior performance across the product line when compared with AMD's Athlon 64 X2. In some applications, even a lower-cost Core 2 Duo can outperform some of the higher-end Athlon 64 X2s

so for the cost vs ability then i would have to go with intel, amd used to be the gamers choice but now the tables have turned

also find amd prices have increased some what

[supergnome]

If you use exteral drives to store data you will need to have a MB with USB 3.0 onboard. It's fast by comparison to USB 2.0
If you are older then your gaming ability will be slow ...like mine...so it may not be necessary to have dual graphics cards whether its SLI or Crossfire. So one pcie x 16 will be enough on the MB.
If you are putting it in the same case you will need the same form factor, or possibly smaller.
A new motherboard will probably need a new power supply ( connectors ) and your memory won't fit
If you are stuck with Microsoft, W7 is much better, but expensive. XP is OK at a push. If you cant get updates for the obvious reason, it is very vunerable to attack and it does not support IE9. Use firefox 4.0.
Processor is governed by form factor, but as a rule of thumb, wallets decide value.
Hope this helps a little. David.

[clivvy]

id go with Karla suggestions, and definately stick with Intel Quad if you can especially if you are going to be messing with media.

oh yeah, and go for 64bit windows 7 with as much RAM as you can afford, minimum 4GB.

[makeitfit]

Hmmm interesting stuff guys, thanks. I've just found out that our house insurance covers my office PC for some catastrophes
waiting for a call back to see how the land lies
I seem to recall some electrical surge the other night

[clivvy]

carefull, do they do like for like? usually they try to get todays equivalent, which means you could end up with something shite....

[mightytharg]

How much you want to spend?

Do you want to reuse any of your existing system or are you looking for a complete new one? Things like hard drives, ram and even power supplies are not necessaril compatible from older generation machines.

Bang for buck the new 2500K & 2600K processors from Intel are great.

These things have Turbo Boost! As long as they're not getting too hot they ramp up the speed on one or more of the Quad cores.

Plus with a good motherboard and cooling you can overclock them and they can compete well with the previous top end (expensive) intel chips. Some motherboards even have an auto overclock facility so you just push the button and get extra performance without even thinking about it.

Heres a nice prebuilt bundle deal from Aria:
http://www.aria.co.uk/Systems/Bundle...roductId=44083

And a full machine:
http://www.aria.co.uk/Systems/Gaming...roductId=44001

And a review of 2500k 2600k.

http://www.hardwareheaven.com/review...onclusion.html

[kbekl]

if looking at cheap end

go for the core 2 e6300 over clocked close to 3ghz on air cooling

ati hd 4650 1gb ddr3 (not the ddr2 unit)

3gb ram pc2 800

asus p5b board

should run in under £90

will play most games and is 1 gen ahead of consoles with dx10 shader 4.1 (consoles on dx9 shader 3.0 extended)

[supergnome]

If you go with the suggestions above you should be prepared to pay around min £500. Good pricey.

[kbekl]

Originally Posted by supergnome

If you go with the suggestions above you should be prepared to pay around min £500. Good pricey.

if you go with used items it can come down quite a bit or just look at places like ebuyer.com

[supergnome]

core 2 quad min £120
MB min £60
power min£70
ram 4Gb min £40
Case min £25
graphics min £80
hard drive £40

This does not include, reused optical drive, case cooling fans and an OS and a display with the same connectors