Hi All,
Well, the time has come to start researching a new setup as my old S939 rig is starting to show it's age when I need to push a few more CPU cycles around. It's done me proud, starting off life as a 3700+ nearly two years ago and was upgraded this year to a 4800+ X2. However, as AMD seem to be getting trounced left right and centre, I'll definitely be going Intel (despite all my rigs being AMD over the past 10 years).
I need some help choosing component and was hoping you guys could chime in. I need the following:
CPU: Thinking Q6600 at the mo, I'd like something a little faster, but the leap to the next quad core is like £200 for not much more power. I use a couple of programs that are optimised for Quad core so that should be nice. Are there some new Quad cores on the horizon after Xmas?
Graphics: Not sure on this one. I run a 30" monitor (2560x1600 I think) and it would be nice to play the odd game or two at as high a resolution and still be playable. Currently have a 7600GS so anything is going to be a step up. TF2 si currently running at 1280x960 (or something like that) with much of the eye candy turned off. I'd love a passively cooled card as I need a quiet machine for audio recording, but if worst comes to worst I can fit an after market heatsink.
RAM: Probably going to go for 4Gb as I do quite a bit of audio recording and sample libraries can eat up a lot of RAM if it gets the chance. I've bought a lot of Crucial RAM in the past, purely because I know their lifetime warranty is great, but if there's something out there that is noticeably faster that's cool.
Motherboard: No idea on this one, could really do with some advice. I like ASUS boards, don't need wifi or onboard sound/gfx. Just need a good solid board with loads of SATA connectors (8+ would be nice) and preferably one that is a decent overclocker should I want to take that route 6 months down the line.
I already have a case (Coolermaster Stacker), 2TB of SATA HDDs, DVD ROM, monitor, keyboard, mouse, Sycthe Heatsink (it's a biggun) etc. Really just the core of the system that I need.
Total budget for everything is going to be ~£800 which should get me a pretty decent system I hope. Any advice would be much appreciated.