Need opinions...

[Rediknight]

Is this spec worth £1k?

My old Dell is on its lastest legs now, bless it, so i thought i'd prepare for the worst and just spunk whats left on my credit card on a new machine, even though i can't technically afford it

Spec is:

AMD Athlon™ 64 X2 Dual-Core 4200+ with HT Tech.
Genuine Windows® XP Home Edition
Brushed Aluminium ATX Midi Tower +550W PSU- Silver
ASUS A8N-E - Nforce 4 PCI-Express Mainboard - ATX
2048MB DDR400 Memory - PC3200 (2x1024)
250GB Serial ATA Hard Drive with 16MB Buffer
SONY 16x Dual Layer DVD-Re-Writable +R/-R/RW
512MB ATI Radeon X1600 Pro - TV-Out + DVI - PCI-Express
19" TFT Flat Panel Monitor - DVI & Analogue
7.1 Channel Surround Sound Audio (on-board)

opine away...

 

[Yurka]

X2 chip is only really for media/editing, and at the moment theres hardly any games which support X2 technology. So normal 64 chip tends to give better results, otherwise you'll need to tinker with settings and registry settings to get the X2 working "crisply" with some games.

Though if your keeping the rig for a while then X2 could be a good choice since future games will use X2 technology.

HDD 250gig is quite abit, id only get that size if i knew i was going to fill it up d/l loads. Look for seek times - look at Western Digital Raptors.

GFX card - nothing uses 512 memory for games, so could probably get a 256 fast card.

TFT - that gives no info whatso ever, most TFTs now don't have ghosting though some do, check overclockers.co.uk then go to forums and check the TFT reviews done. 80% the time the info there is pretty sound so read through what it has to offer.

For case check the Lian-li cases, look good, easy to use/install, good air flow.

RAM check some the OCZ stuff, good really good timings...

 

[Ryuno]

Similar to what I got bar a few bits, and I have a Nvidia Geforce 7800 GT.

1k is not a bad price really.

Is this a package or are you building it yourself?

 

[confused]

If you're going for a x1800 512 then wait for a few weeks as the new ATI/Nvidia chipsets are coming out in that sort of price range.
Also if your going for a high end system then look into Geil ram, they've got some nice 2gig sets on ocuk. Also which make of HD/ monitor are you looking at?

 

[Tualatin]

Be very sure that the PSU (Power supply Unit) is from a brand-A. Those cheap things say they have 550W, but that's their tops (means, they can handle it only for 30secs each time orsmt). Quality brand-A increases your pc stability and makes lesser noise oO

And i wouldn't go for the Dual Core, unless you do multiple things at once (running 2 accounts will actually require either a Pentium with HT or Intell/AMD dual cpu's).

Also check if they memory is registered memory (there's a difference, dunno if that CPU can handle unreg'd memory).

You won't regret the HD .. unless, you may be better of with a really fast smaller one (20~40 gigs) for windows running, and a regular larger one for the rest.

You could check some Buy Guides on the web And don't remember, if you're not gonna use it.. dont pay for it! (SLI technology is one for instance, if you're not gonna buy 2 cards first off.. and wanna keep it for upgrading later on.. WRONG! you're cheaper off using a new solo card (performce gain isn't that great))

 

[confused]

REFERENCE DESCRIPTION PRICE
CA-040-AN Antec Sonata II Piano Black Quiet Case - 450W Smart Power PSU (CA-040-AN)
£69.00 £69.00
CD-024-NE NEC ND4550 16x16 DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM (CD-024-NE)
£25.50 £25.50
MY-046-GL GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC3200 Value Dual Channel Kit CAS3 (GE2GB3200BDC) (MY-046-GL)
£114.95 £114.95
CP-134-AM AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 3800+ (Socket 939) - Retail (ADA3800BVBOX) (CP-134-AM)
£204.95 £204.95
GX-048-PC PowerColor ATI Radeon X1800 XT 512MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-048-PC)
£279.95 £279.95
MB-088-AS Asus A8N-E nForce4 Ultra (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-088-AS)
£64.95 £64.95
HD-088-MD Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 10 NCQ 250GB 6V250F0 SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD-088-MD)
£59.95 £59.95
Subtotal £819.25
Shipping (City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)) £9.95
VAT £145.11
Total £974.31

Best I could do for £1k but i havent added Windows or sound card. However there is only a small amount of difference between the 4200+ 2x and the 3800+ 2x definitely not worth the difference.

 

[Twist]

A few points (purely my 2p and I am not an expert):

3800+ is probably a better choice from a cost / return point of view (or jump to 4400 for higher L2 cache)
Some people have had compatability issues with maxtor drives & nforce4 drivers - you could try Western Digital (although raptor not worth it imo)
I'd recommend xp pro so you can manually assign tasks to a specific core (I had big probs with DAoC when i let xp handle this) as aparantly home doesn't let you do this for multi-core systems
Geil memory (mentioned by Confused) is good but see if you can get CAS2 rather than CAS3 kit (faster)
The NEC drive (Confused again) gets a much better rep than the sony one
Asus or DFI > all for MB's (allegedly)

Do you really need a 512 gfx card? really?