What to buy...

JJW009
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What to buy...

Post by JJW009 »

OK firstly I'll apologise, because I hate these threads! But... well I can't sleep and I'm thinking out loud.



I've decided to spend ?200 on a PC upgrade, and I can't decide whether to get a nice new monitor now and save up for a really special PC next year, or make do with my 19" Dell which is quite good (OMFG - I just realised the brightness was turned down, that's better!!) and get a much better but not special rig right now.



So here's my thoughts:



E4400 core duo. Great overclocker because of the 800MHz FSB and it's ?86 inc.



I'd run it at stock for silence and low power mostly, but people have had it up from 2GHz to 3GHz on the stock cooler. That's a 50% boost for free - just a few more dB on the fan noise!



Foxconn P4M9007MB-8RS2H Socket 775 P4M900 onboard VGA DDR2 mATX - ?33



Should let me overclock, and it has onboard VGA which may be crap but will probably run Quake3 no problems and will do until I get a decent card to go in the PCIe 16x slot. It also has a parallel port, 2 PATA for my old drives and 8 USB ports.



No Quad CPU support, but this board cost less than a tank of diesel. I recon that's a good board for the money?



DDR2 8000 - Damn it, why is the faster momery so expensive!? I only want it so I can play around with overclocking for 5 minutes just to see what I can get. Might have to go with just 1GB of 6400 for ?24. I can always upgrade when prices drop - it'll work out a lot cheaper in the long run...



So that's ?133 - OMJF that's well less than I expected - what have I forgotten?! A guess a PSU might be handy but I think my cheap 550Watt one I got will do the job - there's no graphics card yet, so that might have to come with the next upgrade.



OR - the alternative....



Dell? E228WFP widescreen - ?235



This little beauty is the same height as my 19" but a few inches wider. At 1680x1050 it's got a lot more dots so I'd really notice the difference over my 1280x1024. It also has HDCP so if I ever buy a PS3 (LOL - never happen!) I can use it in HD.



I just noticed though - this model doesn't have the Svideo connector. AARGH Crap!. That's only on the 24" one which is ?450 so I may aswell save myself ?80 and get the Belinea! - I hardly ever watch TV but I really wanted the option! <!--emo&<_<--><img src='http://i2.ifrm.com/html/emoticons/dry.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='dry.gif' /><!--endemo-->



OK 3rd choice - the bonus option:



Wii - ?179



Well I said I wanted one. It looks like fun; but it'll end up costing a fortune because I'll want the nun chucking things and some games. And I'll probably use it about as often as I do the game cube...




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Freebo
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What to buy...

Post by Freebo »

with the Wii you get a wiimote and a nunchuck.




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Dawson
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Post by Dawson »

You could get a Wii but you will have to wait until they release more games, the choice is rather limited at the moment.



Bloody hell core duo's are cheap now!




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paulpowers
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Post by paulpowers »

Get the nunchucks and run them on your PC




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CirrusMinor
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Post by CirrusMinor »

Wii's are good fun too. You can store your "mii" (character) on the wiimote and take your kit to play with a friend. Most come with Sports and Play (ours only had Sports :angry:)



The Gamecube games play fine too! Julian is slowly getting to grips with Sunshine and loves kicking butt on Melee.



On the other hand, films look great on 1680x1050 ..



SVideo is useful though: the Wii doesn't have an RGB output, only composite. We play ours through the other computer's TV card.




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Freebo
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What to buy...

Post by Freebo »

get one of those quad core duo's, about ?170(ish) for 2.4ghz one i think, dunno, have a browse around the other place.




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paulpowers
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Post by paulpowers »

Don't go over there its an assault on the eyes



AHH IT BURNS IT BURNS <!--emo&:shit:--><img src='http://i2.ifrm.com/4013/140/emo/shit.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='shit.gif' /><!--endemo-->




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JJW009
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Post by JJW009 »

Freebo wrote:get one of those quad core duo's, about ?170(ish) for 2.4ghz one i think, dunno, have a browse around the other place.
That only leaves ?30 for memory, motherboard and graphics. My budget is ?200 absolute maximum for the whole cabudle...



I've decided to go for it anyway, after burning the first DVD I've done in a while. My CPU is totally maxed out so even though it says 4x it actually is less than 2x because the buffer-protection has to keep stopping the burn!



<img src='http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a254/ ... y/nero.png' border='0' alt='user posted image'>



Over an hour for a burn / verify and that was only 3GB !!!




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Big_Adam
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Post by Big_Adam »

Duel core AMD only cost ?30 something.



....yes....?30




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Post by 0_Koneko_0 »

I spent 450 quid on a nice computer. AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4000+ 2.11ghz, 1gb of RAM, XpertVision nVidia 8500GT 256mb (PCI-E) 19 inch widescreen monitor, Logitech sound system (2 speakers and a subwoofer) WinTV card, and multimedia mouse and keyboard. <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://i2.ifrm.com/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' /><!--endemo-->




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JJW009
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Post by JJW009 »

Well I have a cat <!--emo&:P--><img src='http://i2.ifrm.com/html/emoticons/tongue.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tongue.gif' /><!--endemo-->



She's messing around my feet now - tickles!




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JJW009
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Post by JJW009 »

So I've just ordered my new PC and a few other bits:



E4500 2.2GHz core 2 duo. ?63.88

Hoping to clock it to 3GHz but don't really care if it doesn't



Foxconn 945G7MD-8EKRS2H ?31.30

This little beauty has GMA950 just like a mini, and 5 SATA ports including RAID 0+1



Crucial 1GB DDR2 667MHz/PC2-5300 ?17.86

It's the fastest RAM the Fox takes.



Silent Generic 550W PSU ?17.00

12cm fan and 30Amps 12V - should be OK.



Leather PC chair. ?30.20

Whheee Weeeehhh Wiiii Wheeeeels!



Kingston 1GB Elite Pro Hi-Speed Secure Digital Card ?7.99

I've been using a 2GB micro-SD and my new camcorder hasn't reached DVD frame rates. I hope this will help.



Also a couple of USB2 hubs for ?3. One is for my Mum because her PC only has 4 USB ports and no PS2 so the kbd and mouse use half of them!



I really hope I didn't forget anything <!--emo&<_<--><img src='http://i2.ifrm.com/html/emoticons/dry.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='dry.gif' /><!--endemo-->



I'm paying ?12 for next day delivery. Free delivery comes next week when I'm back at work, which sucks. If I hadn't spent so much time on other people's problems (Usual suspect) I'd have sorted this out before I went away, and pressed the Buy button a couple of days ago from France. Oh well; maybe he'll do me a favour one day...



I've got two 500GB SATA drives in a mirror already, plus various optical drives and cases. I just need to decide how to jiggle things around to make the best use of what I have. I'll have a decent media centre in the bedroom and sitting room after this <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://i2.ifrm.com/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' /><!--endemo-->




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JJW009
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Post by JJW009 »

This email is to confirm that your order for the following has been processed and that payment has been successfully taken.



Your delivery will take place by Thu 25th October 2007.



We will email you when the items are dispatched from our warehouse.





Due to the way we supply products your order will arrive in the following way.



The items listed below will arrive in one delivery:

Item: Extra Value Extra Value Genuine Leather Office Chair - Qty: 1

Item: Intel Core 2 Duo E4500 2.20GHz Socket 775 800FSB 2MB Cache Retail Boxed Processor - Qty: 1

Item: Crucial 1GB DDR2 667MHz/PC2-5300 Memory Unbuffered CL5 Non-ECC 1.8V - Qty: 1

Item: Extra Value 550W Gold ATX Silent PSU with PFC and 12cm fan - Qty: 1

Item: Kingston 1GB Elite Pro Hi-Speed Secure Digital Card - Qty: 1

Item: Dynamode 4 Port Passive Usb 2.0 Micro Hub - Qty: 2



The items listed below will arrive in a separate delivery:

Item: Foxconn 945G7MD-8EKRS2H Socket 775 I945G onboard VGA DDR2 mATX - Qty: 1


I'M SO EXCITED!!!!!!!!!!11!1!!!ONE!!!



This will make a great little server the next time I upgrade. 5 SATA ports, RAID and gigabit Ethernet. It's a shame the 950 doesn't support DOOM3 - I was a bit bummed out when I read that; but anything Mac Mini can do I can do better <!--emo&:P--><img src='http://i2.ifrm.com/html/emoticons/tongue.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tongue.gif' /><!--endemo-->




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JJW009
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Post by JJW009 »

They've now despatched everything except the motherboard <!--emo&:blink:--><img src='http://i2.ifrm.com/html/emoticons/blink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='blink.gif' /><!--endemo-->




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KindaWobbly
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Post by KindaWobbly »

Yeah, but you can just chuck that on after you've built the rest of it surely? <!--emo&-_---><img src='http://i2.ifrm.com/html/emoticons/sleep.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='sleep.gif' /><!--endemo-->

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