Kestrel_909

Once again I turn to those in the know on here.

Couple of years back I built my own PC, and gradually over the months bits and bobs have been renewed in it but now the only original items remaining are the mobo and CPU.

I'm out of touch with what's what these days though, last time I spent weeks trawling sites and forums reading up on what to go for. Any suggestions or directions in which to steer me? I'm not clued up when it comes to the the dual core mumbo.

I should be fine for PSU (600W Antec,) Graphics (8800GT,) HD, Soundcard, Network card, Hd and DVD drive etc, and will probably use the same case again so really comes down to a motherboard and CPU together with RAM. Also any issues with latest motherboards accepting XP still?

Main uses will be a bit of gaming and photo editing.

Thanks for any help

vrlsktry

CPU: Intel Core2Duo. These are great at stock speeds and with the addition on a affordable aftermarket heatsink+fan overclock fabulously! E7200 is very attractive from that perspective. All four wolfdale's are brilliant, just depends on how much you want to spend! Read the reviews and decide for yourself.

Motherboard: Something from ASUS with P45 chipset. Should have ethernet, sound etc on board and that's good enough.

GPU: The game's changed. Try AMD-ATI 4850. Or 4870 at slightly higher price. Will work fine with Intel CPUs on intel chipsets as long as you are running single card. Read up at Anandtech.

Memory: Corsair DDR2. 4 GB in 2X2GB sticks since you are into photo editing. Speed depends on your overclock needs. DDR3 not worth it, wait for Nehalem.

PSU: Corsair.

OS: Windows XP SP2. Or Vista 64 bits.

If you want more information and answers, come over to the Anandtech Forums. Lots of information and very helpful people.

preduk

You should check out this site: Build Your Own PC (Personal Computer)

The forums are good for getting opioions on the hardware you choose.

Parapunter

An 8800gt is no slouch.

What do you want to do with the machine Is it for gaming or will it be a media centre? Maybe you are spreadsheet mad or perhaps want to do video editing? The spec should suit the purpose.

XV105

I too am in to photo editing, and video editing and rendering for that matter too.

I have a custom build PC running XP Service Pack 2 with Media Center Edition 2005.

RAM is 3GB's worth of DDR2, sitting (as a PPRuNe thread here shows when I sought advice) just under the 3.25GB threshold that XP will readily address and without the massive performance problems I hit when installing 4GB of which I hoped to address that 3.25GB ceiling.

Motherboard is an ASUS P5N32-SLI and I have no complaints. It even has a desktop console to make dynamic overclocking easy (I have played safe and set mine to mildly overclock up to 110% which it usually only does under intensive video rendering but you may find useful for gaming). This console also displays CPU temperatures and voltages so you can keep an eye on things though in practice it works faultlessly.

May be not of relevance to you, but I found the onboard SoundMAX audio lacking a little in fidelity as well as having unstable surround sound and not supporting "record what you hear" (important to me as I tend to record radio shows via the internet that I then listen to when travelling long haul). All these problems were solved with the excellent and very cheap (not much over a tenner) Soundblaster Audigy SE 24 sound card that I purchased (I think from Misco).

CPU is a truly fabulous Intel Core Duo E6600 2.4Ghz. I never ceased to be amazed at it's ability to crunch tasks at a blistering rate even before I invoked the dynamic (i.e on demand) overclocking to 2.64Ghz; for video editing I use Sony Vegas Movie Studio Platinum 6 (v8 is the current one) which supports multithreaded processing and allows me to either dedicate all four threads to SVMSP or save 1 or more for other tasks. The point here is that software increasingly now exists to allow you to make best use of multi-core processors, so be sure to get such a processor.

For storage it is currently running two Barracuda 320GB and one 500GB internal HDDs plus a FreeagentPro 1TB external HDD via eSATA and two USB drives for good measure too!

Feel free to ask any other questions especially as we share the photo editing interest.

XV105

Parapunter

Whoops! I failed to read the last line of your post. A thousand apologies my friend!

My two cents worth: it sounds like you have a good handle on the hardware, I would only share the pitfalls that have caught me out. Obviously a bit of grunt in the gpu & cpu departments is always a good thing for vid & games - I concur completely with xv's view of the dual core processors - mine is a comparatively feeble e4400 & it belts along for me. My mobo is an Asus P5vlm & it's great so far, however it doesn't suport raid arrays which I have no need of, but something like that could be a consideration for you.

One thing to be sure of, assuming Windoze, be sure that if you go with Vista everything you hook up or plug in will work. For example, xv loves his Audigy se soundcard - I have one too in my vista box & spent weeks & I do mean weeks hacking dll's to get the thing to work properly in Vista -no decent drivers for it, even now, so do your reading before you part with cash!

XV105

I had our previous conversation on this subject in my mind as I wrote my post, but given the OP's "Also any issues with latest motherboards accepting XP still?" decided it was safe to make the well deserved recommendation!

Synthetic

The PC Pro A list is usually fairly reliable.

PC Pro: Product Reviews: A List

reynoldsno1

Am thinking of building my own too - from the Extreme Tech website, this is their "Best Bang for your Buck" machine:

Specific Price Comment

Case Antec Sonata III 500 $120
(Check prices)
Includes an excellent 500W power supply

Motherboard ASUS P5KC $154
(Check prices)
DDR2/3 Dual memory board

CPU Core 2 Duo E8500 (w/cooler) $300 Wolfdale was a last minute add-in

Memory Corsair XMS2 2 GB PC2-6400 (TWIN2X20486400) $65
(Check prices)
Cheap and reliable

Graphics EVGA GeForce 8800GT (512MB) Graphic Card $250
(Check prices)
Terrific for gaming

Audio X-Fi Xtreme Gamer $99 Optional

Hard Drive Seagate Barracuda (ST3500641AS) 500 GB SATA II Hard Drive $123
(Check prices)
Lots of room, lots of speed

Optical Drive Lite On Super AllWrite LH-20A1L-06 DVD±RW Dual Layer Burner $36
(Check prices)
One drive does it all

Card/Media RW Ultra Products MD2 Card Reader (ULT33069) $30
(Check prices)
Optional

Monitor Samsung 225BW (Black) LCD $300
(Check prices)
Stunning image quality

Keyboard Microsoft Comfort Curve 2000 $15
(Check prices)
Nice plus cheap

Mouse Logitech G5 $53
(Check prices)
Best mouse on the planet

Speakers Creative Labs Inspire T10 $50 Stunning quality for 2.0 speakers

ReadyBoost A-Data Technology My Flash 2GB USB 2.0 Flash Drive with ReadyBoost - PD14 $15
(Check prices)
Optional

Operating System Windows Vista Home Premium (OEM) $108
(Check prices)
Love it or hate it

Saab Dastard

Building your own PC is fun, and you can get precisely what you want and need - just don't expect it to work out cheaper than a "commodity" PC that does maybe 85% of what you want (and don't forget the OS cost).

SD

__________________
You can't have everything - where would you put it?

Jimmy Macintosh

I would be tempted for one of the Quad core chips, either AMD or Intel (Q6700).

A little more future proof when more than two cores get properly utilised.

Kestrel_909

Thanks for the replies and advice everybody, most helpful. I've decided on spending about £400-£500 for mobo, CPU, Ram and GPU. Rest of my hardware should do, though maybe a new PSU if needed.

vrlsktry,
Thanks for the links and suggestions.

Parapunter,
When I first built the PC a few years ago I stuck with the onboard sound and never noticed any problems until it eventually died, when I installed a sound card the difference was impressive. I'm not much of an audophile but generally will always be playing music off it, so I'll be transferring the new card over, assuming it works.

XV105,
Cheers for the info, though I'm not looking for anywhere near the the terabytes of storage you have Trouble enough keeping junk to a minimum with 160GB.



I'm running a Samsung 20'' widescreen at 1680x1050 from the desktop so a beefy graphics card is required, though the more I speak to the more confusing it becomes. One highly recommends the 9800GT GX2, though the ATI 4870 seems to have impressive reviews too.

Undecided whether to go for Vista or not. Currently running the laptop on Vista for almost a year and had no real problems, though it's only ever used for the net, Word, watching DVDs etc rather than any gaming or editing.

Saab Dastard,
I've been looking around again at buying brand/non brandd PCs, though decided to have a twiddle at building again plus can concentrate the money on the areas I want, if that makes sense.

Thanks again