Thetownend.com

my PC is pretty much fubar now and it needs upgrading anyway, so this is the time...this is what I've specced, thoughts?

Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3R Intel P35 (Socket 775) PCI-E DDR2 ATX    £59.15
Hiper HPU-4M530 Type M Crossfire Certified 530W ATX2.2 PSU - Black    £34.00    
LiteOn DH-20A4P Black 20X DVD-RW Dual Layer - OEM    £16.95    
Intel Core 2 DUO E6550 2.33GHz 'Conroe' 4Mb Cache LGA775 (1333 Mhz) - Retail    £85.06    
Club 3D nVidia GeForce 8800GT 512MB DDR3 Dual DVI/TV Out (PCI-E) - Retail    £136.15    
Tekvalue 2GB (2x1024Mb) DDR2 800 PC2-6400 Dual Channel Kit    £25.49    
Samsung SpinPoint T 320GB 7200RPM SATA 3GB/s 16MB Cache - OEM    £39.99    
Club 3D Theatron DD 7.1 Soundcard - Retail    £25.49    
Antec Nine Hundred Ultimate Gaming Case - No PSU    £58.00    

Total:    £564.34

High failure rates on Liteon dvd drives would swap that, rest looks ok

If you only need 2 pci slots I'd get the DSP version of the motherboard as it will be cheaper. That said if you're looking to overclock I'd stay clear altogether, otherwise it's a good board.

I'd get the Corsair VX450WUK 450W PSU at £10 more...Corsair have very efficient psu's and have 5 yr guarantee on them. Although it's not modular which is the growing trend for power supplies (and rightly so).

Processor is really good, if you can, spare £20 more on the E6750 though.

I have the Antec 900. It's quality for air flow, not very roomy, but if you've built a pc before you should be fine. A modular psu will come in handy (see ablove).

Oh and the Samsung HD drives are supposed to be really good and in some cases faster than Western Digital Raptor X drives so that should be a good choice

Sonic I've just had a closer look at that power supply and actually I think it could be more suitable as it comes with ready sleeved cables - better for the case

sorry to Hack your thread James but i'm after a new mobo/cpu etc for my XPS600.

I can only have P4 or P4d in my mobo and want to expand to duel/quad core cpu's.

thing is i've been told i can't upgrade my mobo cos the one installed is specifically designed for the XPS so no other will fit.

getting through to Dell XPS helpline is a nightmere so wondered if anyone on here knew any different

Dell use btx boards iirc so you'll need that form factor

I'd beef the CPU up a bit more if I where you. I have an intel Pentium 4 (3 GHZ) and it does the job, but that's it. If you are a gamer SY, which I think you are then I don't think that 2.33 GHZ will do it for you.

It's a dual core though BR, so even though it's 2.33Ghz it's doing twice the work.

Mine's dual core as well, although I only have 1G Ram.

I'll get my coat.

Don't mention a fat lip or a black eye to a negroe  :P



Oooh push the envelope  :wink:

Probably easier to get a new case, motherboard and processor at the same time and just swap the components over

Not a bad spec Sonic, and not a bad price to be honest, Liteon are ok DVD drives a lot better than they used to be, I have personally had 3 failures of philips DVD's.

If you can afford a slightly beefier CPU it might well be worth it, the other thing I would suggest...for a good gaming machine, which I do myself for a lot of builds I have done is...

Get an SLi mobo and get dual x1950pro ATI 256mb and crossfire them, they will far outweigh the 8800gt on performance, probably 50% more and for a similar outlay of cost, worth considering if you are a high end gamer.

8800GT is a fantastic card for the price, I've been using one for the last month.
Only drawback seems to be the fan speed setup, it's set to 30% and doesn't speed up until the temp hits 90degC.
I downloaded Riva tuner and reset it to 60%, it now idles at 45degC and 65degC during gaming.

cheers

Pete

I personally think SLI is a waste of time unless you need to run at high resolutions. Most singe cards can handle what's thrown at them these days.

Whether it's worth splashing the cash on a directx10 card or not is another matter. DX10 seems the biggest con of the year.

not keen on the idea of SLI, seems like a pointless luxury to me - also there's twice as much to go wrong...

i spent a bit of time playing around last night looking for the best deals etc, thisi s what i've come up with - i may spend an extra £20 on a slighly better CPU.

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a251/jehst/newpc-1.png

Looks alot better, the memory is better and I expect the graphics will be too.

I think the E6750 is really worth the extra £20 unless you're going to overclock.

where did you get all your prices from SY

www.overclockers.co.uk
www.scan.co.uk
www.tekheads.co.uk
www.ebuyer.com
www.aria.co.uk

Dell have a pretty good deal on if you buy today

10 % off voucher expires today, code = 9DGRQPZDFXQGBP which makes is £584.10.

Only problem is, being Dell they can't be overclocked as the BIOS is locked.
----
Intel® Core™ 2 Quad-Core™ Processor Q6600 (2.40GHz, 8MB, 1066MHz)
Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium - English
Base Warranty - 1 Year XPS Premium Hardware Support (incl. Gaming and On-Site Support)
Monitor Not included
3072MB 667MHz Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM [2x1024/2x512]
640GB Dual Hard Drive Raid 0 Stripe (2x320GB - 7200rpm)
SINGLE 512MB NVIDIA GeForce 8800GT card
16x DVD +/- RW Drive
Dell™ Enhanced USB Multimedia Keyboard - UK/Irish (QWERTY)
Dell Optical Scroll Premium Mouse
Accessories
Integrated HDA 7.1 Dolby Digital Audio
No Speakers
19-in-1 Media Card Reader

No monitor.

is that for the new XPS 420

I'm now thinking I want to build a media-centre PC for my living room.

my brother in law has one and it is quality. added together with his 60" Plasma with BOSE sound system he has one hell of a setup

I've got a 37" LCD so it'll be good to hook it up to that. But on top of the cost of building the PC, I'd also need a decent surround sound system & amp.

I wish I had more money to be able to just go out and do it  :x

i've not got a TV anymore  :(
ex wife has had it in the divorce.

i got the Denon system and washer dryer though  8)

It was, but the 10% voucher was due to expire yesterday.

yeah noticed that.

quality bit of kit for the price if you ask me.

new code

Q3TCG81H5P8?BM

exp 09/01/08

Dell are still shit!

If you buy all the parts yourself, exactly the same spec except for a 500gb sataII HD it comes in at £535inc vat and delivery and thats on ebuyer £543 on Dabs and you can overclock it as well and fully modify the case with better cooling and not use substandard and out of date parts as Dell do with their systems.

If you notice they include 2 340gb hd's which are basically 2 years behind the latest spec, onboard sound which you can also replace for under £6 with a better spec one, a 16x dvd writer where as industry standards start at 20x now.

2x1024/2x512 so you are using up all their old 512mb memory modules which will be slower than having 3 1gb sticks even slower if the 512mb isnt a matched pair....which Dell dont do.

Avoid this PC unless you want to spend near £600 on a pc that is a year out of date before you get it.

That's what I thought jjedmunds. Plus that processor will overclock to excess of 3ghz with a £15 heatsink. Actual that is probably the best processor out there for the money, not sure quad core is really needed at the moment, but then I've never tested it out.

dell pc's are also horrifically flimsy and seem to be constructed entirely out of plastic and polystyrene.

No I have installed a couple of quads but I see no improvements in day to day stuff compared to dual core or even a good speed single core (as long as its not a bloody Celeron!), and TBH there is no software as yet to utilise it fully just a few beta products.

Lick my Arse Orifice yes but they bloody burn like a waxwork model on a bonfire...yes that is from experience!

jj, i don't suppose you have a spare asus a8v deluxe kicking about?

My Dell laptop's still working fine. I just ignore the faint burning smell :D

Nah Sonic I do have a Prescott 800 P4V88 ASRock with a nice little celeron 2.66ghz processor though sat around doing nowt!

I may have an a8vm coming up fairly soon but dont hold your breathe as its for an upgrade for a friend who wont be needing it but he doesnt have the money just yet.

i'm fairly certain that the problem with my PC is the AGP slot but don't want to shell out for a new mobo. i'm after a socket 939 AGP mobo as the rest of the machine is alright and would use it as a fileserver of sorts

i've been seriously toying with building my own pc.

as i've said before i've an XPS 600.

spec contains
P4 D925 3ghz
4 gig DDR2 667mhz Ram
250gig HDD
Gforce 7900gt

so i'd want something Duel Core with loads of fast RAM, Fast harddrive and mobo with ability of massive graphics for little bucks but don't know where to start with building one.

Not fused about the case cos it's whats inside that counts to me

what's your budget? if you're still in the midlands i'll pop up and help you build it for the cost of petrol as well if needs be.

lemme have a gander...

well i'd sell my Dell (what it's worth i don't know?)

so say £600 or £700 at a push

assuming you'd need everything, i.e. monitor, keyboard/mouse, etc etc you're looking at about a grand.

no got monitor, keyboard etc.

just case, power, graphics, ram, mobo etc

rightyo...

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a251/jehst/mgrnd.jpg


you could easily knock £100 off by downgrading the processor, graphics card and RAM. personally i think 4gig is a bit overkill

Try the Asus EN8800GT for a cheaper 8800GT card. It's also got really good reviews from what I've seen.

It's worth getting a cheaper processor like the E6750 and sticking a cheap but quality heatsink on it (the Arctic Colling Freezer Pro 7 £12!) and overclocking the nuts off it. Save yourself quite a bit.

Do you get commission on these or something?  :D

I wouldn't get a lot of commission on £12, but seriously they are fucking awesome.

No stupid backplates to ruin your motherboard with and they're cheap as fuck compared to some (craptastic) designs.

I'm still meaning to get one but keep spending all my spare cash on:

a) Beer
b) Football

Bonus time at the end of Feb though, it's supposed to be going towards the wedding but I might keep £100 or so back to uprade the PC.

looks a decent set up. but don't you need additional fans inside the machine or are they already inside?

reason i ask is cos my Dell has 6 fans inside it to keep it cool

Extra fans are for wooseys!  :Ride On Fatbury's Lovestick:

One extra fan internally is never a bad thing but fear not as they are about £1.25 each!

Dell use fans to save the cases melting under the extreme heat of components jam packed in (famous asian bus driver from love thy neighbour!) with no air circulation around them.

how about this for a system build?

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v640/magicroundabout/computer-1.jpg

I think most of my bonus I going to be blown within minutes:

http://i71.photobucket.com/albums/i151/sam_stfc/mcp.jpg

Your future missus must be very understanding Sam!

I haven't told her yet, she thinks it's going towards the wedding  :shhh

Don't forget Windows Media Centre Sam, or perhaps you could use a free application like this:

http://www.team-mediaportal.com/

Sam, I worry about you.  Do you like robot porn?

Yeah, I'm not forgetting that. But I can get it cheaper than the £50 licence fee from "a friend".

No I don't. Why, is it any good?

Only if the robots are wearing booster packs

i know someone who likes robot porn:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/2b/Bender_%28Futurama%29.png

don't waste that £70 on a soundcard

I need it. It'll be a media centre pc hooked up to a surround amp.

well, at least buy one that isn't endorsed by this man

http://regmedia.co.uk/2007/05/23/jwendel_1.jpg

And he is who exactly?

he looks like a man who doesn't see sunlight often.

does that say 'virtually born to kill' on his jumper?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatal1ty

'what a cock'

it's the only phrase that springs to mind.

The annoying thing is, if you can stomach the branding, the products he endorses are usually pretty good versions of those models.

The magazine I read has a "where's Wendal" competition in every issue. He's quite a joke in the world of geek even!

If your surround amp uses the toslink connection - this might be better (and cheaper)

http://us.creative.com/products/product.asp?category=1&subcategory=208&product=16770&nav=1

my god, that says it all really.

Exactly axs, exactly.

pwned

SiPi, just got off the phone to Dell XPS Support and they've informed me that my XPS 600 can accept any ATX motherboard 8)

So instead of selling it i'm thinking of upgrading the internals.

Not sure what would be the best route as the Power Unit is 650w and i've also got everything else i need.
just a new board & CPU is all i'll need.

what you reckon?! (or anyone else who knows more than me about PC's)

What's your budget?

well without selling my pc i would say £300
i've priced up:

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/132813

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/130483

what are your thaughts si

i've gone with a retail box CPU cos my heasink etc will have to be changed because the housing ports are different.
or they look different to that ASUS board.

I'll look at some mobos when I get home tonight. I have a board with that chipset and whilst it runs and overclocks nicely, it was probably overpriced and overrated compared to the intel boards.

Try the E6750 for your processor. You'll get more bang for buck if you overclock it.

is that better than the E6850 then?

also i prosume that with changing the mobo my BIOS wont be the crappy (all useful stuff locked) dell BIOS

Well it's cheaper and if you buy a heatsink (wait for it Sam!) like the Arctic Cooling Freezer Pro 7 (under £15) you can overclock that processor by miles by just changing some options in the BIOS. If you're unsure I can give you advice how to overclock or find a guide for you. It's really easy, but can be time consuming if you want to push your computer to it's potential limit.

My processor (E6400) runs happily at 3.1GHz which is a massive 1Ghz increase on stock clock speed. The only limiting factor is my memory, which will be my next upgrade and I should be able to go higher. No point in doing that yet as my computer is still really fast.

looking at prices that E6750 is £60 cheaper  :shock:

thats money to play with and get some 800mhz ram

With my machine, i have two fans which sit opposite the heatsink.
I take it if i get the larger heatsink i can remove these fans and do away with them?

as for overclocking i'm all for it. if i can save £60 and tweek it a bit then deffinitly interested.

 :D I'm well impressed with mine.

Magic - I've got the E6750 and like Si said it's a lot more bang for your buck. I'm just waiting to get a new PSU then I'll be overclocking it.

i was only ever selling my pc cos i was informed by the dell forum i couldn't upgrade my mobo. but now the guys at the XPS helpline said i could then away we go  8)

i take it 650w is plenty of power?

More than enough really.

shitty green case holding the fan

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v640/magicroundabout/xps4.jpg

i take it everything else will fit in just the same?

Faster RAM will help you overclock too.

The fans will be a personal choice really. If your computer runs faster and more stable with them still there then you may want to keep them. Don't forget that the motherboard gets hot too, so air flowing from front to back of the case will help the board and all the other components (memory, graphics card etc). If you want to run them at slower speed there should be options in the BIOS or you could get a fan controller or a device such as the Zalman fanmate (basically these are voltage regulators).

I can't see the pic, but I was near certain that case was btx. Is there more room on the back tray for a larger board?

yeah it's massive. loads of room.
apparently the xps 700 onwards produce BTX boards

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v640/magicroundabout/xps4.jpg

is the link to the picture if that helps?

I'm at work so it's blocked, will have a look later. Worst comes to worst you buy a new case for £30

Got my new case brand new with a 400w PSU for £9.75p! a bit of rough cutting on the edges but it looks fine.

if i had to buy a new case i'd have to get a new psu as mine is integrated into the base of the case.

so just an extra £60 for case and pcu?

Easily Magic, a good PSU can be bought for under £20, or rehash your old one maybe.

Make one out of string.

any other recomendations sipi

Unless you're fussed about sli, I would get an intel p35 chipset board as it runs cooler (consumes less power).

This one has just been given the top rating in the magazine I read

http://www.kikatek.com/product_info.php?products_id=64412&source=froogle

or you could get the asus equivalent with built in wi-fi

The foxconn one supports ddr3 memory, which may be a factor for future upgrades, especially when shelling out a ton on it

I have a PC related question for you geeks.

When ripping music from CD's into my iTunes, it takes quite a while. What can I do to speed up the process?

Is it a case of getting a faster CD Drive or is a faster processor needed?

Combination of factors but its your processor more than anything because it's doing the most work (converting the music into a file format).

looks good to me.

so whats the p35 chipset all about? what gains is it against the mobo's i posted?

Sod it, my credit card is coming out soon.

Faster PC required for my music needs.

Whats the best option for me? Quad Core ?

What speed CD ROM drives are standard these days? How can I find out what speed my current one is?

Cheaper and runs cooler which means it will overclock nicely. There's probably no major benefit to either option, but the price tag will definite suit and the upgrade potential is better.

There is a new intel chipset out (x something or other) but I don't know much about that. Likewise nvidia have the 780 chipset out now too.

If you want the lastest processors you will need a new motherboard too.

Quad core seems an excessive luxury. You'll also need more power for it. If you do go quad core get the Intel Q6600, but I think a Core 2 Duo will be easily good enough.

As for the cd rom, don't get too hung up. A 48 or 52x read speed is around the norm these days.

so this really is ideal for me and gaming coupled with the E6750 processor? and if cheap enough some ddr3 ram

I'd leave the DDR3 ram until it becomes cheaper and standard. I'm not even sure if there is going to be a real benefit to it in speed terms, but at least you have the option.

I'd say get a new heatsink (this one below - look at the reviews and piss easy to fit) and 2GB of fast memory and job's a good'n. All for under £300.

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/105994

48 or 52 speed hey?

How can I find out what this PC has currently?

Any system check I can do?

Do you have Nero installed Ralphy?

Nope.

there's probably an option in your burning software to change the read speed. Set it to maximum and see what it tells you. I'd just get a dvd rw drive for £20 regardless.

I think you're probably ok Ralphy. CD reading speeds hit a peak nearly a decade ago.

if you want nero premium 7 ralph i've the full copy and a registered serial code.

once you download it let me know and i'll pm you the code.

si your a gent.

i'm liking the combination and also the choice to expand/upgrade

i take it with this new heatsink those two fans of mine can be removed completely?

It's really up to you as they may keep the whole system cooler but could end up being something you don't need. Where are these fans positioned?

You'll need the rear exhaust fan and I would have a fan at the front to suck in cool air. I'd experiment and watch your system temps with each combination. You could always get a fan controller (even a small one for each fan - like the Zalman fan mate), get quieter fans or ditch them all together. My case has silly amounts of fans in it, but my graphics cards are passively cooled so I like to keep it like that.

SIPI

going to choose this combo i think.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v640/magicroundabout/NEWCOMP.jpg

and for just over £300 it's a steel

Looks good mate. You could probably get some cheaper memory if you wanted but I know the Ballistix are highly rated.

Should be a lovely overclocker, as long as you keep the case as tidy as possible.

i was looking in my case last night and was wondering if i should do away with the Arctic Cooling Fan as my two fans kick in some air so with the standard heatsink i think my fans will keep it cool enough.

if not i'll buy one and swap them over. But i'll give the stock ones a go first.

I chose the Ballistix as you say cos they've such good reviews and can overclock nicely.

once i get paid i'll get my system.
How easy is it to install a new mobo and set up the bios etc?
do you just boot from the cd and then have to format your harddrive again etc?

Stock fan is shit and really noisy. Just to warn you.

AH OK. IN THAT CASE I'LL GET THE NEW ONE. oops caps on

But with the mobo is there enough connectors to add more than one fan. my currunt ones connect at the top just above the processor.

The case fans will provide good airflow through the case, cool the board and ultimately all the components in the case. But attaching a better fan directly to the processor heatspreader is the most efficient way to cool the processor. In essence the heatsink draws the heat away. The fan is on there to keep the heatsink cooler as it warms up. Case fans will help keep the heatsink cool but the stock cooler is gash at drawing heat away in the first place.

That said you can overclock a little on stock.

i think i'll swap them over then cos i'll defo overclock the system.
I'll also keep the origional fans too so that the system stays cool all over.

Might be a good idea with that board because I don't think the cooling on it is amazing. I still need to sort out my system, as I want the fans to run at lower speeds. Might invest in a fan controller at some stage.

i get paid on monday so will invest in the CPU, Motherboard and fan.

then if i'm feeling flush i'll get the memory after.

I've not found any decent reviews about the Foxconn board. is it one of the best out there?

oooooo just priced up a damn good build for a customer, Charging him £2,300 so a nice £500 profit in my pocket!

Intel Core 2 Quad Extreme QX6800 Socket 775 2.93GHz OEM Processor £576.93

Asus STRIKER EXTREME 680I SLI ATX £163.88

Arctic Cooling AC-FRZ-7P Freezer 7 Pro Processor Cooler £14.99  

2x OCZ 2Gb PC2-6400 DDR2-800 4-4-4-15 DFI Certified Platinum £67.97

XFX 8800 GTX 768MB GDDR3 DVI PCI-E Graphics Card £376.33

2x Seagate ST3500320NS 500GB Hard Drive SATA *32MB Cache* £195.50  

Pioneer BDC-202 Blu-Ray Reader 12X DVD±RWDL/RAM SATA Black £97.73  

Creative SoundBlaster X-Fi Platinum - Fatal1ty Champion Series 7.1 Soundcard £109.27

EV Black 800W Dual PCI-E 14cm Fan PSU - Dual 12V Rails, 20+4pin, 6x SATA, ATX12V 4/8pin £59.99

Optiarc AD-7200S 20X DVD±RW/DL/RAM Internal SATA Drive £16.00

Antec Nine Hundred - Gaming Case with 200mm Top Fan - No PSU £69.99

Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium x64Bit OEM 1PK DVD £63.15

comes in at £1811.73 inc VAT and delivery! cant be bad, I wouldn't spend that much even if I could afford to though!

Magic - CustomPC seem to think so. The model above has good reviews in PCFormat as well.

Edmunds - Fecking hell that's a beast and far too much a waste of money. Good profit though, might have a bit of a battle to fit the graphics card in but should be ok.

I almost bought a 6600, on my new PC, but stayed loyal to AMD as i know Intel are a bit economical with the truth on their "64bit" processors, as well as their "Quad core" processors.

Correct me if i'm wrong, but I was also made aware that XP can't properly handle the quad core, and that the quad core is infact 2x32bit dual cores? I was also told that it can't truly function as a 4 separate/independent processors and, in fact, within a 64bit environment, is made worse and actually only functions as a dual core (due to it's 2, 32 bit dual cores) despite the OS understanding there are 4?

The proposed AMD 4x4 system (16 cores) will wipe the floor with Intel, it's just such a shame that everytime AMD produce a better chip than Intel, they can't keep up with demand.

I always used AMD for my own PC's and I will always recommend AMD to anyone but this chap insisted he wanted the quad core Intel so I thought fuck it, I will take his money, he has more money than sense!

I am going to have to investigate the space issue for the graphics card, I hadnt even thought about it to be honest Si, as I was only using one other card I was going to make sure they had a spare socket or 2 between the GPU and the sound card for some good airflow as airflow on that is going to be at a premium.

The space issue will be more to do with front to back rather than top to bottom. I think you should be ok as long as both hard drives are in one bay. Might be worth googling the case with the 8800gtx in the search too - I'm sure I read about it somewhere but I'm sure it's fine. I just know that the case is tight to work with (as I own it!).

Thanks for the head up, I am doing a few searches with that and a couple of other cases just in case no pun intended!

I just have not used that case before and thought it looked quite pretty....not £2,500 worth of pretty but pretty none the less!

It's a nice case. I expect an experience system builder such as yourself will find it ok to work with, just slightly more fiddly.

I've got a wi-fi card, tv card and 2 7600gt cards with massive heatskinks on them (passivly cooled) and it all fits ok. That's why top to bottom you should be alright.

The only major gripe I had with the case is that the front connection panel cable aren't too long. Other than that it is good quality and airflow is a major plus point.

sipi,

whats the difference between the E6750 and the E8400???

which is better?

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CP-192-IN&groupid=701&catid=6&subcat=793

The E8400 is definitely better. It utilises 45nm architecture instead of 65nm. In non geek speak this means it is more efficient (draws less power) and thus runs cooler than the 65nm equivalent at the same speed. In other words you can run it faster and still remain as cool.

The E8400 runs at a faster speed than the E6750 and also has a 6mb L2 cache, which means it is going to trounce the E6750.

Only issue is whether the motherboard supports the new 45nm technology. The foxconn does so that's ok.

quality quality  8)

in that case maybe thats the cpu for me?!

going by reviews it overclocks really well.
get paid monday so might get half and then half next month

I've read 4ghz overclocks aren't out of the ordinary.

Cooling will have to be mental to get that though.

Going to get myself some faster memory after pay day as it is now so cheap.

Need to sleeve one last cable of my psu and make the final tidy up operation of all the wiring eventually as The case has a side panel window and I'm a neat freak.

May do that this weekend if I get bored and can be bothered.

i'm so tempted just to buy the whole lot in one go but my final bills from my old house are bigger than i thought :evil:

in total it'll only come to £311 + delivery. thats ok isn't it  :?

then i can sell my PC5300 x 4gig towards it and also my mobo(nvidia Nforce 4 x16 sli) + CPU (Pentium D 3.4 dual)

how much on ebay for those do comp geeks reckon?

get that memory this week just gone down by looks of it

£54.99 ex vat
(£64.61 inc vat at 17.5%)
 :wink:

Having a quick look:

Mobo won't get much, probably only a tenner.

Might be worth selling the memory in 2gb bundles, could probably get £30 for each set if you're lucky (which is much more than they're worth)!

CPU I think you could get £50-60 depending on number of bidders again.

So if you're lucky you may be able to sell all that for around £120

that's what i was thinking with the memory. sell them in 2 x 2gig bundles.

i'm going to put them on ebay asap i think and then purchase the whole lot.

I'd hang onto some of your old memory for now - the Ballistix are designed to run at 2.2v whereas standard setting in the mobo will be 1.8v. You'll have to boot up with one of your old sticks, change the 2 slots you want to put the memory in to 2.2v and then changeover. Otherwise it probably won't boot.

That said I'm not sure the memory you're getting will just switch the voltage correctly automatically and then I've just told you a load of bollocks  8)  
But I would hang on to some old memory in case.

As for buying an Intel processor - you won't regret it. I was going to buy an AMD before Intel launched the Core2Duo. Luckily I put off buying my kit for a couple of months to see what the score with it all was. The fact is ever since then, Intel CPUs have been faster and cheaper in all the benchmarks. They're also better to overclock. Unless you're going for the cheaper-than-Intel market, you'd be foolish to buy AMD at this moment in time.

I'm off to hook out some mags this morning thinking of a new build for about £400/£500(with gfx) need all the gubbins though new case/psu. Any suggestions as to what i should be looking at?

Are you into top level gaming? Are you/will you be running vista in the near future?

Do you need hard drives and DVD drives?

I'd grab yourself a copy of PCFormat as they build a gaming system for £296 and tell you what to do if you have the extra dosh (in terms of graphics).

For £500 you could get something pretty tasty

It's also worth mentioning that since that magazine has been published, the new Intel CPUs have been released and look better and just as cheap as the old ones.

gaming i have my 360 for so its a non starter in terms of that, need a new HD something about 250 as i have an external already. Need a dvd drive. Wanna go the black look thats about it... just off to grab me a copy now


its purely for my music/movie collection ripping/burning and internet. Noise is also an issue as this beast groans

For £500 you can make a damn good spec PC with 8800 graphics and at least 500gb and 4gig memory.

What was the spec they made Si .. for £296 .. just out of curiosity, proc, mob and graphics wise?

Oh right - they were going gaming specific. As it's not for that then I wouldn't follow their advice. I'll have a look and see what I can piece together.

suggestions on a post card then please. do they still have a buyers guide section at the back. Just getting it to get a feel of the new bits and bobs since i havent been into them for a couple of years now

They'd obviously not shopped around as I reckon you could make it a lot cheaper! I'll put the prices they suggested next to the gear:

Intel E4500 - £74.54
Asus 8600GT OC 256mb - £85.90
RAM  Crucial 2x1gb ddr2-4200 - £30.54
Asus P5PL2-E - £38.09

The memory is the stand out - you can do much better than that for the money!

They also suggested that for £15 more an ati graphics card would be better

Get CustomPC they have a buyers guide in the front. It's my favourite magazine, although you could probably do just as well by listening to people on here  :)

Yes I agree Si, the memory you can shave a bit from, the 8600gt graphics is what I am running in my PC currently and its average for games TBH and mine cost me £55, I would rather have an x3850 or x1950 pro for £80-90 anyday for a good 25% faster graphics.

I have never used the E4500 chip myself I would go for an Athlon 64 dual core 5000+ for a similar price but thats only as I personally prefer Athlons to Intel chips.

That's exactly what they said  :nod:

I'm running 2 x 7600GT fatal1ty editions in sli at the moment. Does the job as I've not been massively into games. I still think DX10 is the biggest con ever. Hopefully they will prove me wrong this year (pah!)

DX10 is a waste of time...at the moment, cant say what will happen in the future but then Microsoft being Microsoft will make sure that you NEED it for some forthcoming things hence forth making you buy a card with DX10 capability.

Wankers.

But then mine is DX10 capable so it doesnt bother me, and I dont play a vast amount of graphically intensive games but may do in the future so I think I will be going the 8800 route when the price halves to acceptable value levels....say about 6 to 8 months.

I avoid Nvidia card though as I have had a few compatibilty problems with some chipsets on mobos I have built but I never have those problems with ATI cards.....as yet!

Yeah I think the 8800 will be the way to go, or the new 9 series that will inevitably come out.

Lash - I am looking now

 :boring:

Its basically a TV - get a life you lot.

Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Fatal1ty
Kingston 4gb DDR2 800mhz/PC2-6400
AMD Phenom 9500 Quad Core AM2+ 4MB Cache 2200MHz  
MSI K9A2 CF-F Socket AM2+ 790X DDR2 ATX Motherboard
Seagate ST3500320AS 500GB Hard Drive SATA II 7200rpm *32MB Cache*
3dInno 256mb 8600GT graphics

That sort of spec is what I would recommend for the above applications.

4gb if using Vista...2gb if XP.

As fast a processor core as you can afford as music applications are very processor intensive.

A good dedicated sound card for the above reasons.

An average speed graphics card just as they are pretty cheap under £60.

And 500gb HD as you can never have enough room for files and the difference between 250gb and 500gb is negligable.

Nice easy build for you Si, about 2 hours work including installation of OS.....sweet.  :D

And all easily under £500

This is my top range effort. Would be able to downgrade some of it to save cash. Obviously no psu, but you can pick up one for a tenner somewhere.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v235/simon_pieman/basket-1.jpg

Bugger, I forgot a soundcard  :|

I use on board sound anyway  :wink:

yeah sounds ok i hook it up to my mixer and hifi any how. similar to my thinking early hours minus the gfx card. Though i was unsure of which ram. Think i can get away with on board gfx for a month?

Work owe me some money so id like to hold off on that if possible and get the rest built until then.

appreciated. Gonna flick through these mags now.

I'm buying the same ram today - read some review and looks good. And it's £10 cheaper at overclockers.co.uk than I can find elsewhere.

On-board graphics will be ok if you don't play games or use video intensive stuff (or run vista I would imagine).

That is a good price for that ram.

Onboard graphics are fine for anything non graphics intensive and yes Vista does run fine on them even if it has a graphics rating of about 1! and a non aero rating, but this is irrelivant if you dont play games really.

You can pick up a really basic 6200 graphics card for about £10 which would make a small amount of difference if you go for the non onboard graphics mobo.

Yeah just ordered that RAM now. Want to run it linked and synced with the processor, so I'll be running at 3.2ghz by default. Will probably play around to make it even quicker if I can be arsed.

Did have this machine at 3.2ghz but the current memory wasn't stable so had to pull it back to 3.1ghz. Still good for a processor rated at 2.13ghz  :)

I need to find a decent case/psu combo for about £50/£60 think I've kinda decided on much of the other bits

was really liking this case but its out of stock  :cry:
http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Components/Cases/MIDI+Tower/Nexus+Clodius+Midi+Case+?productId=30298

maybe this combo, what do u think?
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/135101

ok so mobo and CPU first i think then.

sell old mobo and memory and jobs a good un  8)
i may send Foxconn an email about the ram as i've read there helpline is pretty decent.

especially as there was problems with the ram (ddr2 / ddr3) issue
http://www.madshrimps.be/?action=getarticle&articID=648

Fuck me that is good support. I suppose a little internet review pressure helped but still...

All I know is that some boards have issues with the voltages. I know mine did because loads of people couldn't boot their machine at default 1.8v (the board was originally designed for 800mghz speed memory). I think you should be ok tbh. I'd just hang onto 2gb of RAM and sell the rest, once your system works fine then sell the other 2gb of memory.

i would assume that if it can support up to 1333mhz ram then the mobo should correct it's self to the higher voltages?

but i think i'll take your advise and hold back on 2gig just incase!!!

i may wait on the ram until next payday and just get mobo + cpu

http://img20.imageshack.us/img20/55/pc2cp3.jpg
http://img217.imageshack.us/img217/8025/pc3ej3.jpg

probably gonna order this lot with gfx to follow. Cheers for the help all

just seen this chances of it being outta stock come monday?

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=FS-018-OK&groupid=&catid=&subcat= :|

Fuck me that looks silly for the money. If I had the money I'd buy one and sell my current one for the same sort of price!

I think they've fucked up the price. Buy buy buy!

obviously cocked it up which no doubt is in the t's and c's somewhere  :cry:

found it AFTER ordering my parts too - useless

2.3 Every effort is made to ensure that prices shown on the Supplier's website are accurate at the time you place your order. If an error is found, the Supplier will inform you as soon as possible and offer you the option of reconfirming your order at the correct price, or cancelling your order. If the Supplier does not receive an order confirmation within 14 days of informing you of the error, the order will be cancelled automatically. If you cancel, the Supplier will refund or re-credit you for any sum that has been paid by you or debited from your credit card for the goods.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=FS-018-OK

Price has changed. hahaha

PROBLEM!!!!

Apparently the connectors inside an XPS case are 'propiatry?' (specific to Dell) and thus updating just the mobo wont work.

so looks like a new case is needed and just swap all the drives over.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooo

SiPi (or any other comp buffs)

can you take a look at my XPS Mobo to see if anything is different to a normal ATX mobo.
http://xps-dell.com/photo/album.php?id=2

the bottom 3 pictures are the XPS 600 board. will all the new connectors fit ok etc?

What connectors do you have and what do they look like?

Looked at the manual. I don't know who told you that or where you read it but looks like a load of bollocks to me

yeah i'm reading various reports. some saying thet're specific for Dell and others saying the XPS 600 onwards aren't.

as for connectors i've no idea what each one is but they don't look any different to whats shown on the mobo (which has gone up in price!!! :evil: )

i've got my price down by nearlly £25 by buying the processor and fan from Ebuyer and the motherboard from Overclockers  8)

anyone got any voucher codes for Ebuyer or Overclockers before i hit the buy now button?

all ordered. should be here by end of next week.
opted for the cheap free delivery options.

mobo will be here friday though.

si, i noticed on the mobo it states it'll only run 1066mhz once OC. is that overclocked

Orange County

means you will have to change the setting in the bios, by either changing the FSB speed and linking the memory to that (which will be linked by default) or unlinking the memory from the FSB and running it that way (if the mobo lets you unlink).

If not you can increase the FSB and drop the CPU multiplier, or change the ratio of FSB to memeory clock speed (5:4 would probably do it).

Best to read the manual or a forum when you get it.

coolio.

looking forward to setting it all up.

hope it's as easy as people make out

Just follow the instructions in your manual and it's easy. If it doesn't boot don't panic either. Mine didn't boot for ages and it turned out the memory wasn't seated properly

That OCZ is pretty good.

Running it at 4-4-4-12 1T timings @800mghz. If my cpu is up to it I may clock the memory higher

no idea what the best timmings are or what they mean.

i'm gonna hold back on the memory till next month as mine isn't too bad for now

If you're not going to overclock your memory or play with timings, I would get cheaper memory than what you're getting

Right got all my bits and put the rig together today, need the gfx card after all though, my old ones agp and no slots so i was a little silly with that

not sure whether to spend upto £150 or just opt for a cheapy.

presumably that Asus GeForce EN8800 GT 256MB is pretty much the best about for that money Si?

If i was to go cheaper any decent options to consider?

The XFX one is better apparently
(model: PV-T88P-UDF4)

It's only £120 from scan as well.
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ProductInfo.asp?WebProductID=708007

Otherwise pick up a cheaper Ati card

if it all helps with performance etc then i'll defo play with clocking the memory too.
but thats when i may need your help etc.

got to give me something to do when i have my operation!!!!!

motherboard has just arrived.

now just waiting for my cpu and fan then i'll be bugging the hell out of you SiPi to help me set it up properly  :soapy tit wank:

fucking shit dell.

my motherboard wont fit in my case. it seems dell are proprietry(sp).

new case and psu needed on the cheap if anyone can help :evil:

Now we can't say the N-word, is it ok to say coloured instead?

Why won't it fit? From the link you posted on the last page your old mobo looks ATX to me.

Does it not fit in the case as in the case is too small? Or are the screw holes in the wrong place?

What's your budget Magic?
This Case (http://www.advancetec.co.uk/acatalog/info%5fAplus%5f188AF%5fFront%5fUSB2%2e0%5f%26%5fAudio%5fBlue%5filluminated%5fATX%5fcase%2ehtml) has good reviews.

Buy a couple of 120mm case fans and a cheap psu for another £20 and you have a good combination.

i took the old motherboard out and there are no holes to fix the new mobo onto. the XPS has a mounting case for the motherboard and it doesn't fit as the holes don't match up. also where the bracket is for the sound/usb slots it's fixed onto the mounting bracket and can't be taken off.



well i've just spent £250 on CPU,Arctic Fan and mobo so another £50 wont hurt.

i've spied this PSU for £20 which looks ok.
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/127866

have now ordered these items from Ebuyer
will be here tuesday

Quickfind code
127584
119227
133003

should have a nice system once all built.
also got a friend over in china for a month who is sourcing some cheap ddr3 ram for me  8)

Finally got round to overclocking my graphics cards. They cam pre-overclocked at 650 MHz core speed and 800MHz memory.

Juiced them up to 705/895 and stable

 :P

Can I tag on to this thread?

I want a new PC, no monitor, just need it to be able to wirelessly internet and play films without stuttering. Can you get HDMI ports on PCs nowadays? Any suggestion of what spec I might need?

Graphics cards ouput HD through DVI ports.

Yes



Yes, but only certain cards can do it.

If you're going to be displaying it on a large tv screen then just remember the picture will look a lot worse because the screen is bigger.

All recent modern graphics cards will output HD, as what Samdy said.

For surfing the net and watching videos you won't need to high a spec, although you might need a nice video card if you play videos through your telly for a decent enough picture.

Get a dual core processor. Avoid celeron like the plague. Get 2mb of RAM. You won't need any more.

I want to play films on a 42" plasma. my laptop just isn't up to playing back any kind of video without stuttering or getting the sound out of sync with the video.

Was looking at dual core, smallish hard-drive and 2/3 GB RAM. Was mostly worried about getting a good enough video card - any recommendations?

I've been reading back through this thread to save you all repeating yourself but it's all a bit over my head.

Figured it'd be about £400 all in.

Unless you want to play games you won't need that great a graphics card for films. In all honesty you could get something for £300 that would a decent job.

would this do the job? £260 including vista.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/DUAL-CORE-AMD-X2-3600-4-0GHZ-PC-COMPUTER-320GB-2GB-NVID_W0QQitemZ250211735267QQihZ015QQcategoryZ179QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

I'd get a separate graphics card if I were you - that one is a built in job. Price looks ok though.

I can upgrade it to this as part of the deal:

nVidia GeForce 8500GT Super+1G PCI-E 1GB GDDR 2 MEMORY ADD 59.99 TO ORDER

Redefine your gaming reality with NVIDIA DirectX 10 GeForce 8500 graphics processing units (GPUs). GeForce 8500GT 1GB equipped with avant-garde 1024MB super memory size which allows the users to escape from memory capacity bottlenecks.

It features the architecture with unparalleled levels of graphics realism and performance for Microsoft DX ®9 and DX® 10 games for the pricepoint.

Chipset nVIDIA 8500GT
Connectivity Dual Link DVI-I HDTV/VGA/S-Video
Cooling Fan
Direct x support Microsoft DirectX® 10
Gpu speed 450MHz
Interface type PCI Express x16
Max resolution 2560x1600
Memory 1024GB DDR2
Ramdac 400MHz

That card got reviewed in my mag this month. Apparently it's a waste of money and is really gash. You best bet would be to put aside £50-80 and buy something yourself. If you don't know how to fit it you can always get someone to do it for you. Would be a 2min job to fit the card, then install the drivers would take another few minutes

how about this? £330 inc vista premium:

Motherboard: Intel Socket 775 64-bit

CPU: Intel Pentium 925 Dual Core (2 x 3.0GHz Dual Core = 6.0GHz)

Memory: 4GB DDR2 (667MHz)

Graphics: 1GB ATI Radeon 2400PRO-Sonic Turbo Cache PCI-Express 16x

Microsoft DirectX 10 supporting 4.0 pixel shader

Optical: NEC Dual Layer 20x DVD+/-RW

Hard drive: Maxtor 320GB S-ATA2

Internal Multi-Function Card Reader

Sound Card: 7.1 Premium Level HD Audio

LAN: Realtek 10/100 Ethernet

USB: 4 x rear USB 2.0 ports (plus 2 x front USB)
PC Case Dimensions: 550 x 195 x 462

you can get better dual core processor than that and 4gb isnt necessary as has been alluded to previously.

Posting from the new beast thanks to advice from this thread :D

problem is finding it all in one package - I wouldn't have a clue how to build it. Do you know any sites that let you customise your build and price it up online?

building really is a piece of piss - no more difficult than lego. sites do let you do that but you will end up paying for it

http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/ is one such site but expensive...

wow that is expensive.

If you want axs I could always build it one Saturday for you.

thanks for the offer Si, but I wouldn't even have a clue what bits I need.

I'm gonna scout online for a few deals once I can get the spec right:

Dual Core processor - any particular good ones I should look for?
2+ GB RAM
Graphics Card with 256? 512? 1GB? any recommendations of brand / model?
250GB HD
DVD RW
Vista Premium - 64 bit version?

spend that software money else where  :|

What no OS?

PC Case  IceBox Black ATX Midi Tower
Power Supply  Standard 450 Watt PSU
Processor  Intel PentiumD 3.0Ghz 3.0Ghzx 2 CPU    
Heatsink & CPU Fan  Standard Heatsink & CPU Fan  
Motherboard  Asrock Conroe 1333-D667 Motherboard
DDR2 Memory  2 GB Kingston 667Mhz PC5300 DDR2 RAM
PCI-E Graphics  512MB NVIDIA GeForce 7300GS PCI-E Turbocache OR
              512MB NVIDIA Geforce 8400GS Turbocache PCI Express Graphics Card (+£10.00)
              512MB NVIDIA Geforce 7600GS PCI Express Graphics Card (+£24.99)
              512MB ATI Radeon X1650Pro PCI Express Graphics Card (+£24.99)
              512MB NVIDIA Geforce 8500GT PCI Express Graphics Card (+£34.99)  
              512MB ATI Radeon 2600Pro PCI Express Graphics Card (+£44.99)                
             1GB NVIDIA Geforce 8500GT PCI Express Graphics Card (+£50.00)          
             512MB NVIDIA Geforce 8600GT PCI Express Graphics Card (+£60.00)  
Sound Card  Integrated 7.1 Channel Sound Card
Primary Hard Drive  180GB SATA 7200RPM Hard Drive  
Main Optical Drive  20x Dual Layer DVD Rewriter
PCI 802.11G 54Mbps Wireless Network Card (+£20.00)  
Operating System  Genuine Windows Vista Home Premium
Warranty  1 Year Return To Base Warranty


any of that any good? it's £370 all in.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v235/simon_pieman/axs.jpg

That would be a shit hot system. Couple of hours on a weekend to sort it, plus a pint or two down the pub afterwards.

Cheers Si, all looks good, I've just been putting the shopping list together on Dabs.

can I add this instead of the DVD drive? not sure if it's compatible with all the other bits?

http://www.dabs.com/productview.aspx?Quicklinx=4MGW&SearchType=1&SearchTerms=bluray&PageMode=3&SearchKey=All&SearchMode=All&NavigationKey=0

if you can stick this lot together for me I will buy you a large number of pints!

Yes that would work. The graphics card supports HD Copy Protection so it won't be an issue to play copy protected material in the future either. You'll need a hdmi to dvi converter and a dvi cable. That will cost £30 more.

I've not installed/worked with Vista before but apparently it's easier than xp to install.

By the way I have 2gb of ram going spare, so if you want to save yourself some cash you can have it for a tenner.

awesome, I'll leave out the ram and add on the DVI stuff.

a DVI to hdmi cable is like £5 on ebuyer got myself one earlier today. i can save u that 65 quid on vista for a couple of pints n all

Is the quality good? If so then get a cheaper one axs  :)

apparently so as hdmi is dvi backward compatible so dont see why not

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/130516

Belkin PureAV HDMI to DVI Video Adapter
quicklinx:4DZRWS | Mfr#:AV54007EA
 In stock now  
 £10.89  £10.89      
 
Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium 32-bit OEM DVD
quicklinx:4DF7WS | Mfr#:66I-00715
 In stock now  
 £63.15  £63.15      
 
Pioneer 5x BluRay Reader DVD+-R/RW 5x Combo Int SATA Black - Drive Only
quicklinx:4MGWWS | Mfr#:BDC-202BK
 In stock now  
 £100.09  £100.09      
 
D-Link 802.11g Wireless LAN PCI Card
quicklinx:43C0WS | Mfr#:DWL-G510
 In stock now  
 £19.84  £19.84      
 
Western Digital Caviar SE16 320GB S300 16MB
quicklinx:4J0KWS | Mfr#:WD3200AAKS
 In stock now  
 £51.64  £51.64      
 
Asustek ATI Radeon X1950 Pro 256MB DDR3 PCIE 2xDVI 580/1.4
quicklinx:4QK4WS | Mfr#:EAX1950PROHTDP2
 In stock now  
 £80.72  £80.72      
 
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400 AM2 2.3GHz
quicklinx:4XNPWS | Mfr#:ADO4400DOBOX
 In stock now  
 £49.82  £49.82      
 
MSI AM2 AMD 690GB ATX Audio Lan
quicklinx:4M60WS | Mfr#:K9AG NEO2-DIGIT
 In stock now  
 £46.45  £46.45      
 
Dabs Value Midi Tower 400W - Black
quicklinx:3W0KWS | Mfr#:8034C4
 In stock now  
 £25.85  £25.85      
   delivery
(12.853kg)  £0.00  
 total (inc VAT)  £448.45  
 

That look about right? I assume I can just use the DVI adapter by plugging that in the PC then running my HDMI lead to the TV?

I'll buy this lot in a minute if that's everything.

To be honest mate I'd rather stick with an official copy and not have to worry about it, considering this will probably do me for 4/5 years it's fairly cheap.

aye its personal preference and prob not worth the hassle later down the line

im also fairly impressed with vista despite all the knocks it gets. sure it likes to have control but once you sort that out its pretty intuative.

Done. should be here in a couple of days.

Is now a good time to tell you I'm out of the country for the next three weeks?  :wink:

If you're not going to Huddersfield I will build it then. If you are we'll have to think of another time.

I'm not going to Huddersfield so that would be superb for me, much pintage coming your way squire.

And slower, less stable, more resource-hungry than ever before. Don't do it kids.

how is your new system?

whats the Foxconn mobo like?
mine is sat at home just waiting to be used.

my cpu and heatsink come today. then hopefully my case and psu will arrive tomorrow.

how i'm going to carry it all home on the train i don't know :?

loving it. lovely and quiet and shits on my last system. half hour to encode a movie from 3 1/2 :D

mine is all sat at home waiting to be put together.

my new case and psu should arrive tomorrow/thursday.

then i'll sick my old XPS case etc on ebay. someone will pay £30/£40 for it.

Did you get that Arctic Cooling fan that SiPi promotes?
did you use the thermal compound which is already attached to it or did you use something different?

i've got some Arctic Silver 5 which i'm thinking of using instead

Magic - I am probably going to redo my heatsink with AS5 so I can give you a before and after temperature comparison.

The stuff that comes on the heatsink is pretty thick.

yeah i noticed it was pretty well packed.

but my new E8400 should run cooler anyway.
But i suppose when overclocking i'll need a better compound to keep it even cooler.

yeah i got the arctic cooling fan, just used the compound that comes on it. not overclocking just running stock so couldnt really advise :)

what cpu did you chose Lash_sumthin,

reading about my new E8400 there is reports of well over 4ghz which is the dogs.

i wouldn't want to run it at full clock cos i've heard it'll kill my cpu

8)  8)  8)

http://techgage.com/article/intel_core_2_duo_e8400_30ghz_-_wolfdale_arrives

I got all my bits through today. couldn't help but have a look and ended up putting most of it together. I think I need a SATA cable - don't think there's any other way to link the optical drive.

Gonna have to get you to check my mess out though Si  :D

(that and the RAM and BIOS and stuff)

You will need sata cables and sata power cables if they aren't on the psu. I have some handy so give me a shout what you need.

I've got 2 SATA power cables which I've plugged the OD and HDD in with, I've goit one SATA cable that I've plugged the HDD in with but I need another for the OD. I was just about to order one but if you have a spare that I can pur-chase from you then that would be ace.

You can have it free mate, I've got about 3 or 4 I'm not using at the moment.

wicked, cheers dude.

the E8200

well the PC is all up and running once i'd connected the case cables to the motherboard correctly!!!!  :|  tit

my machine is now showing 3325gig ram (old dell only recognised 2.00)

vista scores are (in order)
5.6 (CPU) overclock needed 8)
5.9 (RAM)
5,9 (AERO Graphics)
5.8 (Gaming Graphics)
5.3 (harddrive)

so next step is a faster harddrive.

can anyone recomend one?
i've seen people mention the Samsung Spinpoint. are they any good?

CPU 5.6
RAM 5.9
Aero Graphics 5.9
Gaming graphics 5.5 :(
HD 5.9

I got the samsung spinpoint id recommend as far as u can distinguish between one and another.

cheers Lash_sumthin,

i think next payday i'll invest in one.

Question.
i didn't have to format my harddrive when i connected my new motherboard. should i do so to give it a clean bill of health etc or just leave it??????

i personally wouldnt bother especially if u have any number of files on it and will be purchasing a new one in the near future. I don't believe it will give you much benefit IMO. If its not broke dont fix it...

cool cheers

i'll defo get a new harddive though.

the difference in speed from my dell is amazing. well pleased  8)

Hmm do you really need an extra 0.6 vista points?

will it not make a difference then?

my old harddrive is sata I not sata II

Get siSandra software to benchmark your current drive.

I have 2 500gb seagate barracudas set up in RAID 0 and they perform at 105mb/s

Although I've just read that those drives have a jumper on them that needs removing to get the faster SATA 2 rate as with the jumper it's only sata 1. I will investigate and if successful let you know the difference  :)

I did wonder why it was a low index reading. Thought in fact it was a rubbish sata controller on my motherboard.

Ok I'm being thick and reading the wrong result. The jumper had been removed already, I thought I had done that before  :oops:

My buffered read is 230mb/s, so the limitation of my motherboard is obvious.

just downloading it now to check.

my results

SiSoftware Sandra

Benchmark Results
Drive Index : 46.63MB/s
Results Interpretation : Higher index values are better.
Random Access Time : 23ms
Results Interpretation : Lower index values are better.

Windows Experience Index
Current Drive : 5.3
Results Interpretation : Higher index values are better.

Performance Test Status
Run ID : WDC WD2500JS-75NCB1 3.5" 250GB (SATA300, 7200rpm, NCQ, 8MB Cache)
Platform Compliance : Win32 x86
System Timer : 14.32MHz
Use Overlapped I/O : Yes
I/O Queue Depth : 4 request(s)
Block Size : 1MB

Volume Information
Capacity : 232.83GB

Detailed Benchmark Results
Speed at position 0% : 42.92MB/s (78%)
Speed at position 3% : 54.64MB/s (99%)
Speed at position 7% : 55.20MB/s (100%)
Speed at position 10% : 54.55MB/s (99%)
Speed at position 13% : 44.73MB/s (81%)
Speed at position 17% : 52.21MB/s (95%)
Speed at position 20% : 54.10MB/s (98%)
Speed at position 23% : 53.92MB/s (98%)
Speed at position 27% : 52.90MB/s (96%)
Speed at position 30% : 52.30MB/s (95%)
Speed at position 33% : 52.34MB/s (95%)
Speed at position 37% : 51.54MB/s (93%)
Speed at position 40% : 52.64MB/s (95%)
Speed at position 43% : 52.21MB/s (95%)
Speed at position 47% : 50.67MB/s (92%)
Speed at position 50% : 49.53MB/s (90%)
Speed at position 53% : 47.16MB/s (85%)
Speed at position 57% : 49.17MB/s (89%)
Speed at position 60% : 46.31MB/s (84%)
Speed at position 63% : 45.28MB/s (82%)
Speed at position 67% : 46.73MB/s (85%)
Speed at position 70% : 44.30MB/s (80%)
Speed at position 73% : 42.88MB/s (78%)
Speed at position 77% : 42.69MB/s (77%)
Speed at position 80% : 39.88MB/s (72%)
Speed at position 83% : 39.51MB/s (72%)
Speed at position 87% : 38.26MB/s (69%)
Speed at position 90% : 35.71MB/s (65%)
Speed at position 93% : 35.51MB/s (64%)
Speed at position 97% : 33.53MB/s (61%)
Speed at position 100% : 32.06MB/s (58%)
Random Access Time : 23ms
Full Stroke Access Time : 26ms

Physical Disk
Model : WDC WD2500JS-75NCB1
Version : 10.02E01
Serial Number : 2020202057202d4443574e41314b363838343637
Interface : SATA
Rotational Speed : 7200rpm
Removable Drive : No
Queueing On : Yes

Performance Tips
Notice 5008 : To change benchmarks, click Options.
Notice 5004 : Synthetic benchmark. May not tally with 'real-life' performance.
Notice 5006 : Only compare the results with ones obtained using the same version!
Tip 2 : Double-click tip or press Enter while a tip is selected for more information about the tip.

Do the file systems benchmark

i take it, it takes whille to run?!!  :|

Yes it does

here we go

SiSoftware Sandra

Benchmark Results
Drive Index : 47.85MB/s
Results Interpretation : Higher index values are better.
Random Access Time : 14ms
Results Interpretation : Lower index values are better.

Windows Experience Index
Current Drive : 5.3
Results Interpretation : Higher index values are better.

Performance Test Status
Run ID : WDC WD2500JS-75NCB1 3.5" 250GB (SATA300, 7200rpm, NCQ, 8MB Cache)
Platform Compliance : Win32 x86
System Timer : 14.32MHz
Operating System Disk Cache Used : No
Use Overlapped I/O : Yes
I/O Queue Depth : 4 request(s)
Test File Size : 3.25GB
File Fragments : 1
Block Size : 1MB

Detailed Benchmark Results
Buffered Read : 148.67MB/s
Sequential Read : 58.64MB/s
Random Read : 32.41MB/s
Buffered Write : 142.14MB/s
Sequential Write : 58.52MB/s
Random Write : 28.93MB/s
Random Access Time : 14ms

Drive
Drive Type : Hard Disk
Total Size : 232.82GB
Free Space : 156.45GB, 67%
Cluster Size : 4kB

Physical Disk
Model : WDC WD2500JS-75NCB1
Version : 10.02E01
Serial Number : 2020202057202d4443574e41314b363838343637
Interface : SATA
Rotational Speed : 7200rpm
Removable Drive : No
Queueing On : Yes

Performance Tips
Notice 5008 : To change benchmarks, click Options.
Notice 5004 : Synthetic benchmark. May not tally with 'real-life' performance.
Notice 5006 : Only compare the results with ones obtained using the same version!
Notice 5209 : Consider using the Removable Storage/Flash Benchmark for Flash devices.
Tip 5202 : Use cache on to measure Windows performance.
Tip 2 : Double-click tip or press Enter while a tip is selected for more information about the tip.

going by your buffered read and mine i'd say my harddrive is slow.

so i think a faster one is needed

Looking at yours it's only the cache size that is slowing it down. Are you sure it's sata 150 because the description suggests it's sata 300? Is there a jumper your can remove?

Has this thing still not been bloody built yet?  :D

I think magic should have bought a Dell.

Is yours still working well Sussex?

No problems so far. Touch Fred.

it's a sata300.
i spotted that somewhere on my comp yesterday evening.
so a larger cache size will obviously help?



quiet bitch  :P

You'll want as big a cache as possible. When you start copying and moving files etc, the bigger files are going to eat up the cache, so you won't get the full benefit of the faster speeds. That's my understanding of it anyway.

cool.
i'll have a further look into it but it seems i'll obviously bennefit from changing it to a better one with more cache.

apart from that i think my new system is pretty spot on.
i'm gonna have a proper read tonight about overclocking etc and see if i should venture into this or not.

has anyone seen this happen before and is it normal with the new E8000 series processors?

when not running an application my processor drops to 2ghz

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v640/magicroundabout/E8400-1.jpg

then when underload it changes to 3ghz and x9 muliplier

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v640/magicroundabout/E8400-2.jpg

You have speedstep enabled in the BIOS. It drops the multiplier when idle. Don't worry it's all good. Saves power and heat!

i did wonder. cheers SiPi (again)

if i ever make it down to swindon again i'll buy you a pint for helping out

haha no worries mate  8)

if I want to buy a already built pc, along with 19" monitor wheres the best place? Are dells any good considering they seem to be cheapest.

budget?

build it yourself - it's a piece of piss. :D

£500ish give or take. Not used for gaming or nowt. Basically internet and documents.

then i would build yourself one for that.
i'm sure SiPi or other more informative comp guru's will tell you the same.

i'm pretty sure you could get yourself a very good pc with monitor for £500

i didnt't think i could get a system like i've got now for £300 but i have.
So if all you need it for is internet and word processing then for £500 you'll have a good system

tbh i canny be arsed to build it myself. I haven't the time.

i'm sure someone local to you will build it for you at a small price?

TBH I work in the industry (that sounded pretentious but was not meant to !!) and I hate Dell - they are the scum that has almost completely killed the local PC builders in the UK....

In saying that if you are looking for a PC that will do browsing, documents etc. etc. then you cant really go wrong with them....

I would never buy one for gaming - and I guess that is exactly why Dell purchased Alienware to really attack the gaming market.

Looking on Dell's site you can get an Inspiron with the latest Intel CPU (not fastest but fast enough) with 2Gb Ram, decent graphics and a 20" flat screen delivered to you for £499 inc VAT - this also gives you 12 months warranty (which you can extend) so do not have to worry if anything goes wrong - unlike building it yourself....

There - do I sound like a Dell sales man ?!?!?!

cricky i got it completely wrong!!!

someone sticking up for dell  :soapy tit wank:

soapy tit wank - doesn't happen very often !!

I completely hate the company and their ethics (or lack of them)

In 14 years selling PC hardware the number of local PC builders has dropped from around 25 to 3 or 4 - and a lot of it is Dell coming over here and squeezing them so hard on price that they have no way of competing - so eventually under they go....

It's actually pretty good for the consumer in lots of ways - less choice but MUCH lower prices - but it screws the industry in a big way...

Microsoft are completely under their spell - they almost tell Microsoft what they are willing to pay for Vista etc.. - all the locals have to stump up much much more for the same product...

I guess I am just a little bitter about all the commission I have lost over the years because of it  :D

Still - as I said if I was buying a PC as a consumer I would probably get it from Dell !!!

that wasn't meant to say soapy tit wank either - sorry  :D  :D  :D

If you want something that's cheap, flimsy, barely fit for purpose and made from very low grade second rate components then buy a Dell.

If you want something that's nearly as cheap, 100% reliable, fit for purpose and made using the best components your money can buy then build one yourself.

If you're lazy, go to PC World.

I'm easily pleased. Still works a treat..  :D

Sorry Samdy - In the case of Dell and the PC I talked about above - that's complete bollocks....

Looking at the components in this particular PC - please let me know what is "second rate and low grade" ???

Intel® Viiv™ Core™ 2 Duo E6550 Processor (2.33GHz,1333MHz,4MB cache) - This is Intels latest range of processor - admittedly not as quick as a quad core but not slow or second rate either....

Microsoft Operating System Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium - English - The latest from Microsoft - some people prefer XP - some Vista
Memory 2048MB 667MHz Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM [2x1024] - Quick enough DDR2 - nothing wrong here

Keyboard Dell™ Entry Quietkey USB Keyboard - UK/Irish (QWERTY)

Monitor Dell™ 20" Black Wide Flat Panel (E207WFP) - UK/Irish - I have a Dell 24" monitor - to be honest it's bloody good

Video Card 256MB ATI® Radeon™ HD 2400 XT graphics card - Again, not the latest and greatest - this would be one of the new 3000 series ATI cards BUT plenty good enough for the purposes required...

Hard Drive 500GB (7200rpm) Serial ATA/100 Hard Drive with 16MB DataBurst™ cache - Again - decent spec "midrange" Hard drive....

Looking at Mesh Computers who are one of the only UK PC Builders left - their similar spec PC is £100 more - yes it is slightly higher spec BUT not needed for these purposes ?

I don't like Dell - but to say the things you said (which may have been true 6-8 years ago) doesn't really paint the true picture - in my opinion of course...

I think the dells would be fine. Its for the missus grandad so wouldn't get overly used anyhow.

for someone who doesn't like dell you dont half stick up for them  :D

I know - it does sound like it I guess - I genuinely don't like them - but I think their PC's have got a lot better over the years....

I still hate how they have fucked up the industry though - for one thing it means less nights out with the customers coz there are less of them  :D  :D  :D

Sheepshagger - granted, the "branded" components Dell use aren't half bad. But they generally have problems with other proprietary components not lasting half as long as you realistically could expect them to.

Hard drives failing completely after a year or so.
Graphics cards overheating.
CPU overheating because of shitty heatsinks and fans.
RAM failing because of overheating.
DVD/CD drives not working.
PSU's overloading = new motherboard = it's a Dell so you can't.

that i agree with  :evil:

Granted - and fair point they are shite for trying to upgrade - but take out the 3 year on site warranty and they are excellent - one of my colleagues has a Dell notebook and it has gone down twice in almost 3 years - both times they were with him next day and new motherboard one time and new screen the next - all sorted within an hour at zero cost....

But you shouldn't have to take out a 3 year warranty.

If I'm going to spend £500 on something I'd expect it to last 3 years without breaking.

why ?

This is the "consumer" argument I guess I will never understand......

12 months is the warranty that almost ALL electrical goods come with - washing machines, dishwashers, TV's, camera's etc....

Why should a computer be any different ?

As it goes the individual components in a PC are usually covered by the component manufacturer for 2 years - it's just that Dell chooses to cover the first year in the same way as the electrical guys - and make money on the extended warranty as they all do.....

The point is, when your warranty runs out you're fucked. If it's broken down twice in almost 3 years, chances are it's gonna go shit soon after. If you buy the individual components you usually get a minimum 3 year warranty anyway. In fact, my motherboard has a lifetime warranty. If it goes wrong the manufacturer will usually ship out a new replacement next day delivery, you swap it for your knackered one and it's job done. Granted, you don't get the technical expertise, but there are plenty of people about these days that can do it for you.

Dell is cheap and convenient but that's really about it. I don't think there is as much value for money as is made out. Saying that, they aren't bad value for money, You could probably find better stuff in the sales or find someone to build you a pc for a few pints.

If it's only for internet and word processing you could easily put something together for less than £500, at least £100 less including the monitor. Don't forget if you want Microsoft Office it will cost you more to get a legal copy.

Horses for courses Si - you want lifetime warranty you pay for it in the cost of the motherboard (or whatever device) - simple as that....

You will not build a PC to the same spec as the Dell one with a lifetime (or even 3 year next day on site) warranty - I challenge you to do so....

I do not believe it is possible....

On the cards I sell (graphics cards) we offer a 2 year warranty and it is ample - no one has ever once complained - to be honest there is so little to go wrong with them - but this lifetime warranty stuff is all marketing bollocks anyway.....

Hello Boffins

Need some advice about how to upgrade my PC on the cheap.

It was built for a mate about 3 years ago so I'm now the 2nd less than carefull owner

The basics are

- P.4 2.4 ghz processor
- 512k Ram  (already looked at upgrading to the max 2gb, about £75 on cruical memory.com is there anywhere bettter?)
- Graphics card is an ATI radion something or other I think.
- Fuck knows what the motherboard or any of that bollocks is

Would it help if I posted the full spec?  And errr, how do i find that out easily?

I use it for games and general use. Most games play alright on it at the moment, although its obviously not cutting edge the more current graphically intensive ones tend to play at less then optimum settings. That dont really bother me that much. Still looks ok to me and I dont have £6-700 to spend on a shit hot new machine currently :cry:

any help much appreciated.

budget?

£200 tops

If it's just to speed up your games etc. then I'd suggest:

- New CPU. Something like the E6550. Around £90.
- More RAM. 2GB of Kingston is around £25.
- New graphics card. Prices vary but you could pick up the latest ATI card for £50.

The potential upgrade of the cpu might depend on what socket type your motherboard is.

Don't pay more than £25-30 for your ram. Corsair value has done me alright in the past.

New graphics will also depend on what your motherboard socket takes (agp or pci-e).

I'd concentrate on upgrading the stuff like the cpu and memory before graphics, as these will limit the potential of graphics anyway.

Thanks lads.  :thumbs:

is there an easy way of telling what socket type the motherboard is?  ie without opening the thing up?

is fitting a new Cpu complicated?   I can handle opening the box and replacing one card for another like the memory, anything more complicated than that then I'm in trouble.  I do have a mate who could do it, but he's working away a lot currently