Help with ideas for new PC
 

I'm looking for advice on buying a new desktop.

I currently have a compaq with an 2.07GHz Athlon processor, and am now looking for something with a bit more oomph.

I had the idea to get a dual core, but at the moment I'm running 3 screens through a Matrox parhelia card. This is AGP, and I cant find a motherbioard with an AGP slot which also has dual core.

Any suggestions are gratefully received. As for budget, as cheap as poss!

Cur

like this one asrock

Nice one spanners....!

"My other box is a 10,000 node zombie cluster of Windows machines"

:ok:

many thanks Spanners (and to you Mac for your wise comments around the board)

cur

Yes, I agree that going for a dual-core processor (capable of running a 64-bit OS) would be a pretty good line to take.

I've noticed that the fastest available processor always seems to sell at a huge premium over its almost as fast brethern, so my advice would be to choose the 2nd or 3rd fastest as price / performance is a criterion.

SD

What for?

Nobody can really give any useful advice unless they know what you want to do with it that the current box isn't good enough for.

I can think of lots of applications that could need more power than that, but they'd all end up with different solutions.

I'm doing a lot more proocessing of videos and the like. I've also got a freeview usb where I record tv programmes, and then end up changing formats sometimes. Do some work on jpgs too, and watch dvds.

I sem to find myself with a slow machine, with the processor running at the 100% mark quite a lot, and it isn;t because of viruses or other such nasties.

Thanks again to contributors.

cur