New Spec - Help please

[kmistry]

Hi there,

So my cousin has asked me to put together a spec of computer for him but I have since become very out of touch with current hardware trends. He says he has about £800 to spend, but would like to keep it nearer £600 if at all possible. He put together a spec including a AMD Phenom 9500 (so I'm assuming he wants a quad core), Though he's not much of a gamer, it would be nice to get one in seeing as the budget will allow for it.

So, please spec away! I should mention the computer would most probably be used for everyday use, but things such as video encoding, maybe some new games (as his current setup is very outdated). So I would say, large HDD, DVD Writer, good RAM and a decent DX10 gfx card, a quad core.

Thanks for anyone who as any advice/suggestions

Kiz

 

[chrispystix]

Your basket
Product Name Qty Price Line Total
Asus P5K-E WiFi Intel P35 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £88.99
(£104.56) £88.99
(£104.56)
Pioneer DVR-212DBK 18x DVD±RW SATA Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM £17.99
(£21.14) £17.99
(£21.14)
OcUK ATI Radeon HD 3850 Pro 256MB GDDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail £79.99
(£93.99) £79.99
(£93.99)
Samsung SpinPoint T 320GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD321KJ) £42.99
(£50.51) £42.99
(£50.51)
Lian-Li PC-7 PLUS II Aluminium Midi-Tower Case - Black £49.99
(£58.74) £49.99
(£58.74)
Corsair HX 520W ATX2.2 Modular SLI Compliant PSU (CMPSU-520HXUK) £59.99
(£70.49) £59.99
(£70.49)
Intel Core 2 Quad Pro Q6600 "Energy Efficient SLACR 95W Edition" 2.40GHz (1066FSB) - Retail £144.99
(£170.36) £144.99
(£170.36)
Crucial Ballistix 2GB (2x1GB) DDR2 PC2-6400C4 800MHz Dual Channel Kit (BL2KIT12864AA804) £44.99
(£52.86) £44.99
(£52.86)
Sub Total : £529.92
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £10.95
VAT is being charged at 17.5% VAT : £94.65
Total : £635.52

Or for a decent card the new asus 8800gt are nice

 

[jak731]

good spec chrispystix, i would change

the ram to OCZ platium rev2 pc6400 ram, ballistixs are better at overclocking, however they are in my opinion too unreliable.

for the graphics, i say get a card with 512MB of memory, this will futureproof the card slightly more and be more benificial if you use larger resloutions when he occationally games.

 

[kmistry]

Brilliant guys, thanks very much, so the general consensus is still Intel > AMD? the new AMD quad core's not faring well?

 

[russ0r]

Yup. Still Intel. Saw some benches the other day, and stock Q6600's outperform the top-of-the-range Phenom, and overclock better to boot.
I would link but I think its frowned upon here :O Just google for them if you're interested.