Advice on a new desktop

willirob said:
would seriously consider the core-i3

CPU - R1200
Mobo - R1200
2GB RAM - R600
HD - R600 ish
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I'd probably spend a liitle extra and get the i5 then but I'm still partial to AMD at the moment (I have changed my mind about a thousand times though)
 
I never see the price of the OS listed in these calculations, but if you are not gaming on it and not using any specific Windows applications, you could just run linux on it.
 
timvdwest said:
I never see the price of the OS listed in these calculations, but if you are not gaming on it and not using any specific Windows applications, you could just run linux on it.
Click to expand...

I own two Windows 7 licenses so I'm sorted in the OS department
 
martin said:
Okay folks - what's your opinions on the following setup? This does work out about R1500 more expensive than my budget but my insurance paid out a bit more than I was expecting so I thought I'd up the specs a little in case I wanted to use this for a gaming rig in the future. You'll notice there's no dedicated graphics card in there yet and that's how I want to keep it for the time being. I thought I'd go the AM3 + DDR3 route because that seems the most future proof at the moment.

Coolermaster Ammo 533 Black + Top Handle (love tool-free cases with handles!)
AMD Phenom2 x4 Quad Core 945 3.0GHz
Vantec ioN2+A van-550AS
Asus M4A785TD-M Evo
Kingston Hyper-X with Heatsink 2x2048mb DDR3 1375
Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 1TB SATA 32MB Cache
Samsung B2330h

The only thing I've sort of made my mind up on is the Samsung monitor. Read a lot of good things about it! The rest is completely flexible.
Click to expand...

Okay, picked up the parts yesterday but changed one or two things.
- Swapped out the Kingston Hyper-X RAM for Corsair XMS3
- Changed the Mobo to Asus M4A78T-E after reading all sorts of good things about the 790GX chipset.

And for the first time in 4 - 5 years I put together a desktop last night and was amazed at how simple it was. The manuals for the motherboard, chassis and PSU made things very simple (which was never the case in the past) but I think I would have managed even without them. What a pleasure to have cables, pins and connectors clearly marked on all components!

I still struggled with one particular component though, the installation of the heatsink and fan onto the CPU. Some things never change I guess :)

A final word on that Coolermaster Ammo 533 case - it's an absolute joy to work with. No screws to fiddle with when installing the DVD writer and hard disk. Clearly marked cables. Easy removal of the side panel. Good and sturdy design. Carry handle on top of the case. Power and reset buttons on top of the case. A hdd compartment cooled by the intake fan. Worth every cent. Even if I decide to one day sell the other components - I'll keep the case.
 
Man, but that case looks ugly from the pics.

I also recently put together a couple of PCs for a friend. I found the CPU on AM3 to be really easy. But yeah, the pin thing has definitely be improved soo much. Standardisation and the little labelled attachments are so much better than the old days of having a single connector for each pin and having to sukkle to match up different case and motherboard nomenclature for +/- etc and then get them in there with a pair of tweezers or something.
 
martin said:
Okay, picked up the parts yesterday but changed one or two things.
- Swapped out the Kingston Hyper-X RAM for Corsair XMS3
- Changed the Mobo to Asus M4A78T-E after reading all sorts of good things about the 790GX chipset.

And for the first time in 4 - 5 years I put together a desktop last night and was amazed at how simple it was. The manuals for the motherboard, chassis and PSU made things very simple (which was never the case in the past) but I think I would have managed even without them. What a pleasure to have cables, pins and connectors clearly marked on all components!

I still struggled with one particular component though, the installation of the heatsink and fan onto the CPU. Some things never change I guess :)

A final word on that Coolermaster Ammo 533 case - it's an absolute joy to work with. No screws to fiddle with when installing the DVD writer and hard disk. Clearly marked cables. Easy removal of the side panel. Good and sturdy design. Carry handle on top of the case. Power and reset buttons on top of the case. A hdd compartment cooled by the intake fan. Worth every cent. Even if I decide to one day sell the other components - I'll keep the case.
Click to expand...

Now just let us know if you plan on gaming.
 
Rudimental said:
Man, but that case looks ugly from the pics.

I also recently put together a couple of PCs for a friend. I found the CPU on AM3 to be really easy. But yeah, the pin thing has definitely be improved soo much. Standardisation and the little labelled attachments are so much better than the old days of having a single connector for each pin and having to sukkle to match up different case and motherboard nomenclature for +/- etc and then get them in there with a pair of tweezers or something.
Click to expand...

Who cares about an ugly case as long as it does the job? Anyway, it sits below a desk completely out of sight :)

Qwikslver said:
Now just let us know if you plan on gaming.
Click to expand...

I'm very tempted :)
 
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