computer help..

[:: blade ::]

hi, sorry if this is on the wrong section, you may slap me if it is

erm, right ive just got £300 and im in need of a new comp and mine is playing up, i want new everything, motherboard, CPU, power supply, hard drive, graphics, i want something that will be good for gaming, and something i can mix and match bits if i want to add anything better at a later stage, i would also like it so i can have two monitors, and surround sound speakers,

hope you can help

cheers

[MadKad]

Hi and welcome

are you after flat screen monitors in that price?

[:: blade ::]

hi, no, dont want the monitors as yet as i can get them quite cheap, its just the system i need, i can maybe go up2 £500 and the speakers wont be in the price either,

cheers

:: Blade ::

[Alex]

Hi Blade.

On your budget I'd be looking at:

Cpu: Intel Pentium E2160. Don't let the Pentium name fool you. It's the same architecture as a Core2, it's just Intel resurrecting the Pentium name. Also, don't let the 1mb cache dissuade you as the large cache of it's core2 bretheren makes no difference when gaming.

Mobo: Asus p5b-e. Cheap now the P35 and maximus chipsets have been released. But it's the P965 chipset still, in my opinion, the best there is.

Psu: Enermax Liberty 500w. There's no better psu at this wattage. It's modular as well so you only need connect the leads you need, saving on cable clutter in the case. Very stable, very efficient and quiet.

Ram: Corsair XMS2 800mhz. 1GB if XP, 2GB if Vista (as Vista is much more resource intensive). As the cpu I've quoted above is a dual it's not so reliant on bandwidth as quads, so to save some money you'd easily get away with 667mhz ram, I'd still quote Corsair though as it's cheap across all speeds of ddr2.

HDD: Samsung spinpoint 250gb; quiet, runs cool (promoting longevity) and its a decent size. Or Hitachi Deskstar, same capacity. Fast read times (for loading games).

Graphics: It'll depend on what resolution of monitor you want as the more pixels a monitor displays the more power it needs from the gpu. Since you're going dual-screen (flight sims?) you'll want something beefy.

It'll also depend on whether or not you want just DX9 gaming or DX10 as well.

A good, cost effective card is the 8600GTS, dual dvi outputs so you can run dual monitors, both digitally, rather than one dvi and one analogue (vga). Try to stay away from 512mb versions of this card as that amount of ram is only needed at 1680x1050, not the standard 1280x1024 (1440x900 in a w/s format). This card can't hope to game decently with new titles at anything above the latter resolution, and you only need a max of 256mb at this resolution, so the extra 256mb, which you've paid for, will never see use.

Hope this is helpful.

[:: blade ::]

thanks for the info

just ordered all this for £250

Maxtor STM3250310AS 250GB SATAII 8MB Cache - OEM
GECUBE X1950Pro 512MB GDDR3 Dual DVI TVO PCI-E Graphics Card
Extra Value 550W ATX Silent Neon PSU - 12cm Fan/PPFC (no power cord)
Kingston 1gb DDR2 800mhz/PC2-6400 Non-ecc CL5 (x2)
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800+ (2.5GHz) Socket AM2 Energy Efficient L2 1MB (2x512KB) Cache Retail Boxed Processor
ASUS M2N-X nForce 520 Socket AM2 6 channel audio ATX Motherboard

any info for future stuff would be good oh, i want a small screen aswell to go into the floppy drive hole to cover the hole which was left when i removed it, cant have anything on it,

cheers

:: Blade ::