Hi! I need a new PC. Help me choose one!

[Loony BoB]

For those not in the know, my PC is on it's last legs and I've found that even getting replacement parts for this ol' thing is a difficulty now, as the parts are so dated. Anyway, on to new and better things! It's about time, and I'm going to be having a bit of money to put towards it soon, so here goes...

I want a PC that will last me 3-4 years with good quality parts (or at least decent). I want it to be able to run anything that might come out in that time, too, so that means thinking ahead for future games. Basically I want a very good PC.

There are obviously two ways I can go about that - custom built or pre-configurated retail packages. I've always been looking out for prices of parts etc. for a custom built PC but lately I've noticed some pretty damned good looking deals out at the likes of Curry's etc. and I want to know what really is a good deal and what isn't. For example...

- AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4200+ 2.20GHz (Socket AM2)
- ABIT KN9 Ultra nForce 570 (Socket AM2) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard
- GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC5300C4 667MHz Ultra Low Latency DDR2 Dual Channel Kit
- NEC 7170 18x18 DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter (Black)
- OcUK GeForce 7900 GS 256MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express)
- Seagate 160GB SATA-II 8MB Cache
- Antec NSK4400 Case
- Antec 380W PSU
- Microsoft Windows XP SP2 Home Edition
£727.33

and...

Intel Core Duo T2250 Processor
1.66GHz, 667MHz FSB, 2MB Cache
Genuine MS Windows Vista Premium
2GB DDR RAM
250GB Hard Disk
Multi-Format Dual Layer DVD RW Drive
Integrated Graphics
Intel Graphic Media Accelerator 950
9-in-1 Media Card Reader
19" Philips TFT Monitor
£709.99

...are these good deals or could I get better for less if I went custom built? Do you know of other deals out there from other sites that I might be interested in? etc. etc.

Basically, I need advise. Things in particular I'm not sure on include: Graphics Cards, CPUs, Dual Core stuff, 64-stuff, Caches, (it's hard to know exactly what is decent when it comes to PC speeds these days because they break it down so much), etc.

Things I already know enough about: Hard drives, memory, monitor, media drives.

[Dr Unne]

£727.33 = $1400 according to Google. I built my computer last summer and it's almost the same as the one you have there first (mine has a slower CPU but twice the HD space as yours) and it cost me $850 (~£450). Also I didn't get a copy of Windows, so I avoided the Microsoft tax; that may also explain some of the difference. But that was a whole year ago; prices should've come down even more since then. So that first one doesn't seem like a good deal to me, at first glance.

Word on the street nowadays seems to be Intel Core 2 Duo is better than AMD. I'm sure Yams will post soon.

[MecaKane]

I don't know if the AMD's a good deal for the price in pounds, but it's more or less what I'm looking for. Now go BoB, do my leg work!

[Loony BoB]

£727.33 = $1400 according to Google. I built my computer last summer and it's almost the same as the one you have there first (mine has a slower CPU but twice the HD space as yours) and it cost me $850 (~£450). Also I didn't get a copy of Windows, so I avoided the Microsoft tax; that may also explain some of the difference. But that was a whole year ago; prices should've come down even more since then. So that first one doesn't seem like a good deal to me, at first glance.

Word on the street nowadays seems to be Intel Core 2 Duo is better than AMD. I'm sure Yams will post soon.

It should probably be notable that things are cheaper in America. A good example is that if you buy an XBox 360 game...
US: $50-60 (British Pounds: £25.89 to £31.07)
UK: £30-40

So obviously there's a significant margin to take into account when you convert prices of products when you go from US to UK.

I'm more interested in just how good that equipment is. Things have changed a fair bit since I last purchased a PC and now they measure speeds of PCs in a few different ways and I'm not sure on exactly what is "good" on each of the different areas.

[o_O]

I would definitely go dual core for the processor. Core Duos will give you noticeably better performance, while AM2s noticeably better price. I would go for the AM2 because I'm loyal. A 4800+ has a solid clock speed, and will multitask like crazy. I doubt you'd need any higher than that. I don't know enough about Core Duos to tell you exactly what frequency does what, sorry.
I would avoid 64 bit software at this stage. You can still run 32 bit software on a 64 bit processor; this just means the processor memory space is not used to it's full potential (but you aren't going to have more than 4GB of RAM (probably), so that doesn't matter), and 64 bit support in software is decidedly average at the moment. So get a 64 bit processor or don't - it doesn't really matter right now.

Obviously, the processor choice is going to split your choice of motherboard in half. Whichever you choose, I would look for these things on a motherboard:

• Number of RAM slots, not less than four.
• Onboard 7.1 sound, if you don't want to buy a sound card.
• Onboard 10/100 LAN (This is pretty much a given)
• PCI-Express. This is probably the most important if graphics mean a lot to you.
• Have a look at how many USB ports it has. You can never have to many.
• You also want to make sure it's SATA-3 compatible. Make sure it has at least one IDE cable though, you never know when you'll want to use an old drive.

The case needs to be able to fit your hardware. That is graphics card, any other PCI cards, motherboard, PSU and all drives. It's good to get one with extra drive bays too. And you need to have good airflow, so look for case fans. Many cases come with PSUs, but they are usually crappy PSUs. If you need to cut costs on your computer, start with the case.

380W isn't altogether that powerful for a PSU, but it should be fine. You'll get people telling you that you need a 500W these days, but you don't; my computer runs fine on a 270W and I'm not easy on it.

I would get at least a 7 series nVidia GPU. the 7900GS is quite good, but a 7900GTX is a lot better (and a lot more expensive). The GS would be fine though, I think.

That about covers it for the parts you wanted info on. As a side note, the cache is a section of your hard drive that stores recent processor calls so that the number of reads/writes to the drive platter is reduced. It'll store the most recently used instructions called, so a small cache can be flushed quickly if the calls aren't repetitive. Therefore, the bigger the cache, the better. The fastest drives have around 8MB caches, but 2MB is easily sufficient.

EDIT: Two more things
- Get a card reader, they're fantastic.
- But not by getting that second computer; the first one's better. Card readers are about $NZ20.

[Rostum]

To be honest, I've been told to wait a couple of months for newer hardware to come out that will drastically change the prices on current hardware. Though, that could just be all BS.

Do you have enough to get an SLi motherboard and another graphics card? Is that even worth it? If you were to get a 500W, does it generate a lot more heat?

Edit: What are card readers?

[Loony BoB]

All good questions, I don't know either. xD

EDIT: Going by the prices found at http://www.overclockers.co.uk, which I've been told are a good place to purchase from by various custom-pc-makers, what kind of stuff would you guys go for? It's the place where I got the first of the two PC's listed above, although I imagine if I built a PC myself it would probably be cheaper... dunno.

[o_O]

When buying a computer, big drops in prices are always right around the corner, so if you live by that philosophy, you're never going to get a new PC.

As far as graphics cards go, yes, I would wait before buying one now, for the 8800GTX to come down in price.
I wouldn't buy two GPUs and use SLI; I couldn't justify that when one card would suffice. Granted, sometimes two cards are cheaper than one, but in that case you're not going to get the same power as one card.
Basically, with GPUs, you get what you pay for.

500W PSUs won't generate more heat unless you're using the whole 500W. If you're using 380W from your 500W PSU, it'll generate as much heat as a 380W supply. Note, however, that PSUs don't generate anywhere near as much heat as a CPU or GPU.

A card reader sits in the front of your PC like a floppy drive,, but instead of 3.5"s it takes flash cards. So if you have an SD card or an MMC card, or a CompactFlash card, etc. you can plug it in and transfer files directly. This is a <i>major</i> (we're talking 1000%) speed advantage over software used to transfer files through a device onto the card.

[Yamaneko]

If he's not going to play the latest and greatest there's no point in waiting and if he's going with XP, an 8800 (or R600) series is going to be pretty useless. DX9 performance between high-end 7 and 8 series cards isn't drastic, and in fact the driver support (even in 32-bit environments) from Nvidia is pretty crappy for their 8 series cards. The 7900GT is an awesome GPU. Don't know anything about OcUK. I usually go with eVGA, but I don't know if they sell in the UK.

Get a bigger HDD. Make sure it has a 16MB cache. You can also look at getting a Western Digital Raptor which are 10,000 RPM HDDs, although honestly you won't be seeing that much of speed increase if you're not transferring large files. But definitely go with a bigger HDD than 160GB. They're relatively cheap now. Seagate is my brand of choice.

A 380W PSU might be enough, but if you could post the amperage on the 12V rail it might give us a better indication of the quality. If you check the specifications is should show something like +12V and next to it the amperage indicated by "A". 18 amps in the minimum you want. Ideally you want 24+. Some PSUs have multiple 12V rails, so you can have more components plugged in on a lower amperage. You don't want to skimp out on a good PSU. There are all sorts of problems that can arise from a weak PSU, especially when paired with a powerful GPU.

As far as CPU, personally I would go with Intel's Core2Duo line of processors, but if you're not going to go crazy with the multi-tasking the AM2 4800+ (2.5GHz) should suffice. However, if you're looking to keep the machine for a few years, I would definitely pay the extra money and go with the Core2Duo. The E6600 (2.4GHz) will effectively beat the AM2 4800+. I don't know if paying $300+ for a CPU is out of the question, though.

Finally, some miscellaneous stuff. If you're going to build the machine yourself make sure you get a good case with good airflow. Don't skimp out on cheap fans either. Ball-bearing case fans will last you much longer than cheap sleeve fans. Also, chuck out any of the thermal tape that comes with your CPU, and go instead with Arctic Silver 5 thermal paste. The tape is garbage because it actually isolates heat between the CPU core and heatsink. Thermal paste will conduct better when applied evenly over the heatsink and core.

What exaclty do you need your computer to do in terms of productivity?

[Krelbel]

1) Go core 2 duo. Definitely. It's the best power-per-dollar ratio on the market right now, and blazing fast.

2) The T line of core 2 duo chips is designed for laptops. If you're building a desktop, get an E chip. I recommend either the E6300 (1.8 GHz, 1033 FSB, 2 MB shared L2 cache, about $180 USD) or, if you want to spend a bit more, the E6600 (2.5 GHz, 1033 FSB, 4 MB shared L2 cache, about $300 USD). I'm pulling those numbers off the top of my head, so they might be off a bit. The E6600 is the one I'd get, but if you want to save a bit, the E6300 is also a good bet. But really, if you're going to be spending money to put together a nice computer, you might as well go the extra bit to get the nicer chip. Up to you; both are fantastic power for the price.

3) Graphics cards. I would say, definitely get one, but don't spend a lot of money. With Vista out now, DX10 cards will soon flood the market and come down in price, but it's still insanity. You can get a $140 card ( http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814102068 ) that will play everything currently out as smooth as anything, plus it'll last you a while. I was surprised by this, my last graphics card cost me $400 (Sapphire Radeon 9800 Pro, 3 years ago) and now $100 cards can leave it in the dust.

4) "Caches". By far the most important and most overlooked thing by newbie computer builders. I'm not kidding when I say the extra 2 megs of L2 CPU cache are easily worth the extra $120, let alone the fact that the chip itself is faster. Cache is one area where more is *always* better. Faster memory, as well. It amazes me how many people build a computer with a scorching-fast extremely expensive CPU and low cache, slow motherboard, slow RAM, and a slow hard drive...

5) 64-bit. The chips I recommended are 64-bit capable. Don't worry about it. If you plan on getting Vista, then make sure you get the 64-bit version so you can enjoy the benefits, but for everything else, you pretty much don't need to worry about it. If you're seriously going to be putting this machine through its paces, make sure to get a compiler for x86-64, and make sure as much of your software as possible was compiled for it; software compiled for x86 will still work, but it won't take as much advantage of the 64 bit chip as possible. It's not a huge deal right now, since most things are still 32 bit only. Also if you put 64-bit vista on a machine, I hear everything stops working. Figures.

Finally, if you really are looking for a laptop (as your mentioning the T2250 suggests) then all my suggestions here are worthless. I would personally recommend a low-end mac, because their $1300 macbook is the best price/power ratio on the market right now, plus macs are just better (yay threadjacking into mac vs. ms arguments). Don't pay more than that, though, that's where the infamous "Mac Tax" *actually* kicks in. For high-end, the Dell XPS is my current favorite on the market now, and if you don't like macs, the Dell Latitude is the best for low-end PCs.

[o_O]

5) 64-bit. The chips I recommended are 64-bit capable. Don't worry about it. If you plan on getting Vista, then make sure you get the 64-bit version so you can enjoy the benefits, but for everything else, you pretty much don't need to worry about it. If you're seriously going to be putting this machine through its paces, make sure to get a compiler for x86-64, and make sure as much of your software as possible was compiled for it; software compiled for x86 will still work, but it won't take as much advantage of the 64 bit chip as possible. It's not a huge deal right now, since most things are still 32 bit only. Also if you put 64-bit vista on a machine, I hear everything stops working. Figures.

I would avoid 64 bit at all costs. Especially 64 bit Vista. The 32 bit applications won't take advantage of the extra 32 bits of memory space, but 64 bit driver support is awful and a large proportion of 64 bit applications have major stability issues. If you run a 64 bit environment, be prepared for a whole lot of random crashing.

And I think there is definitely cause for waiting for a GPU. At the moment you'll fork out $NZ1000 for an 8800GTX, and $NZ650 for a GTS. Since they're the only DirectX10 compatible cards and yes, the driver support is pretty crap at the moment, buying a 7900 seems like a waste of money.

[Loony BoB]

What exaclty do you need your computer to do in terms of productivity?

Let's put it this way: Four years ago, my PC was considered to be quite good. Now it can't run a single one of the games out there. So it's not a matter of what I want it to do now as much as it's a matter of I want it to do things later as well as now, hence I want a high end PC that will, in 3-4 years, still be considered decent to good.

EDIT: One flaw in my current PC is that my motherboard is so old that upgrades are difficult to come by now because of it. I don't want this to happen again.

I know I don't play a lot of games, but that's largely down to the fact that I can't play the latest games right now.

EDIT: Also, if I do get a custom PC, I probably won't build it. I know guys that will do that for next to nothing so I'm more than willing to use their expertise in the area than just wing it and hope that I'm doing it right. That whole "better safe than sorry" thing springs to mind.

EDIT: I'm not looking for a laptop. My experience in the IT industry plasters so many "NO!" signs over laptops that I'd only get one if I had to.

[Yamaneko]

Well, then I suggest you either get the 8800GTX now or wait until the Radeon R600 comes out in Q2 (along with the 8950GTX), and just stick with onboard graphics till then (or a cheap GPU). Just be ready to fork over $600+ on a top-of-the-line graphics card (probably more in the UK).

[Loony BoB]

I've done a few more checks around custom-building sites and can confirm that OcUK is the "best in the UK" according to pretty much everyone from the UK.

If any of you guys are willing to give me ideas on how you'd spend £600-£800 at www.overclockers.co.uk you'd be doing me a massive favour. <3 The only preference I have is the case - I'd probably want the <a href="http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-040-AN">Sonata II Piano</a>, although if you have any reason for going for something different (eg. it doesn't have enough [something]) then let me know. If you do this for me, please note I need the price to include VAT. If you're excluding VAT, note it's 17.5%. Bastards. Finally, a monitor is not a must, even if I'd like to get a TFT some day. I don't need any other peripherals at all.

If you don't have the time or care to do it, don't worry, I'm not expecting anyone to.

EDIT: With regards to the graphics cards, I'll probably go for the "buy a cheap one now that runs most games and then get a new one in 6-18 months when the better stuff is available" option.

EDIT: I'll also note note that I don't need a floppy drive or a DVD+RW drive, but I'm lacking a DVD+/-RW drive. In other words, I'd like to have the option of a DVD+/-RW but just the single drive will do me - I'll probably put in my DVD+RW & Floppy drives alongside it (I don't care what people say, floppy drives are still being used by other people out there so they'll still be used by me... on rare occasions).

EDIT: Actually, there's a good question: What do I need outside of a CPU, system board, RAM, HDD, graphics card, PSU, case and media drives? I've never done this before.

[Rostum]

I would highly suggest the Samsung 21" Widescreen LCD (has HDMI capabilities). I recently got one and I am extremely glad that I did -- quality is so much better then the 22" widescreens I checked out. Infact, I'm going to say it's so good, that when I do end up upgrading my computer, I am going to buy another of the exact same model to have dual screens.