Basic spec

[Norky]

Time to upgrade from my Athlon 2600+ system

No gaming but heavy Photoshop use and lots of video encoding. However, I have absolutely zero idea where the technology is at these days!

Would anyone be able to spec me something, thinking about £350 and requiring the following:

Motherboard
CPU
RAM (will 1gb still cut it?)
HDD (~500gb)
PSU (620W Coolermaster Real Power M620?)
Case

Many thanks

[staffsMike]

If you could squeeze to around £400 you could build something that will last for a much longer time than the PC you can build on a £350 budget.

Abit IP-35 dark raider ~£60
Intel Q6600 OEM ~£140 + Akasa's cheapy tower cooler ~£10 (quad core and lots of cache, good for photoshop )
2GB PC6400 RAM ~£30
500GB Western Digital AAKS ~£60
Antec Sonata III + 500W earthwatts PSU ~£70

That's what i would build. It comes to around £370 but will last a long long time and should easily clock up to 3.0GHz. If you put a bit more money into the CPU cooler you could get to 3.4- 3.6GHz

[Norky]

That looks pretty sweet, comes in just under £400 on Scan. Happy to go with that if noone else has any ideas

[staffsMike]

Have you checked today only, the motherboard is £57 I think

Also the case + psu is cheaper at ebuyer I think.

There also the sonata plus which is £100 with a 550 neopower modular powersupply but both cases should be of the same standard.

[Norky]

Here's a kicker, are there any boards with AGP knocking about any more? Like I said I don't play games so don't really need to upgrade my 9800 All-In-Wonder

[staffsMike]

You can take a look at asrock boards but I really wouldn't bother. They are naff quality from the looks of things and a serious compromise.

Take a look at the ATi HD3450. They are about £27 on scan.

Or you could get a motherboard with on board graphics, Something like Intel's G33/G35 chipset is quite good for that.

[hermeticist]

Asrock do a "legacy" `board, which accepts DDR/DDR2 & has AGP/PCI-E, but don`t expect the same overclocking ability as P35 chipsets et al. I think Microdirect were doing a PCI-E ATI X800 AIW for about £25. Hope this helps:

Asrock motherboard 4CoreDual-SATA2 LGA775 VIA PT880 Quad / Core 2 Extreme / Core 2 Duo PCI-E ATX - 4COREDUAL-SATA2 - www.microdirect.co.uk

ATI Radeon All In Wonder X800 GT 128MB DDR3, PCI-E, DVI, VIVO, Built in DVBT FreeView TV Tuner OEM Includes Remote and Cables - 100-714312 - www.microdirect.co.uk

Personally, I`d buy the X800 & P35 and have the added overclocking ability. I suspect someone will know of an even better `card out there for a similar price.