Phew been a while

[Thorsson]

I'm npt sure about that Cosmos. It looks nice, but is the noise/thermal performance coefficient right? I've not seen anything to say it's as good as the P182.

[AGxM]

I've also heard the Akasa Eclipse is a nice case - albeit a bit more expensive.

See this is my problem, like last time I initially got a cheap case as it was my first build....and when it arrived I sent it back and got the Silverstone case at about 10 times the price

[Biscuit]

the eclipse is pretty dull looking IMO though



The cosmos probs isnt quite as good thermally and dB wise but its just the look of it wheich gets me and its unlikely that the performance will so different fromt he P182 that it should be written off...

[AGxM]

Me again!

Just seen this nice bundle on our ever so friendly Scan

Silverstone PS-01B-W "Precision" Tower Case Black with Window Side Panel w/o PSU
650W Silverstone ST65ZF-GM SLi Dual PCI-E EPS12v ATX12v v2.01 PSU
SilverStone FP52B (Black) Thermal/Fan Controller with sapphire neon LCD Display

all for under £130 inc.

Not fussed about the fan controller but I do like stuff that lights up So any good?

(Insurance assessor coming Friday so I hope to have some cash soon for this build)

[Biscuit]

If you like the case then i dont see any reason why not. Iv never had any experience with silverstone PSUs though so i cant comment there.

Fan controllers can be quite handy! if you want your case to remain quiet when idling it might be worth having a play with although a lot of mobos have controllers built in nowerdays anyway.

[cotswoldcs]

Looking at your spec it largely looks good although I personally would make the following changes:

Change this IP-35 Dark Raider for the IP-35 Pro if you want eSATA support. This will be the future format for external hard drives and possibly other devices. I would highly recommend getting a mobo that supports eSATA for that reason.

OCZ have an excellent offer for 2x2Gb PC2-8000 RAM - check this Hexus thread

I'd recommend a corsair or BeQuiet PSU and an Antec Solo or P182

Willl your budget stretch to an 8800GTS - I have read that these run cooler than the GT version. Then again if you're only doing a limited amount of gaming (you're a girl so that can only mean Solitair and Freecell right? ) then consider the newer 9600GT

Good idea about different makes of optical drives. Perhaps one lightscribe and the other not.

Get a decent cooler as well. Scythe Mine/Ninja would be excellent or the rather fab and new Noctua if silence is requirement.

Good luck

[AGxM]

Looking at your spec it largely looks good although I personally would make the following changes:

Change this IP-35 Dark Raider for the IP-35 Pro if you want eSATA support. This will be the future format for external hard drives and possibly other devices. I would highly recommend getting a mobo that supports eSATA for that reason.

OCZ have an excellent offer for 2x2Gb PC2-8000 RAM - check this Hexus thread

I'd recommend a corsair or BeQuiet PSU and an Antec Solo or P182

Willl your budget stretch to an 8800GTS - I have read that these run cooler than the GT version. Then again if you're only doing a limited amount of gaming (you're a girl so that can only mean Solitair and Freecell right? ) then consider the newer 9600GT

Good idea about different makes of optical drives. Perhaps one lightscribe and the other not.

Get a decent cooler as well. Scythe Mine/Ninja would be excellent or the rather fab and new Noctua if silence is requirement.

Good luck

Thanks for that still shopping around.....and my gaming consists of Football Manager and CSI games generally rather than Solitaire.

[Pob255]

I seem to remember that Sliverstone PSU's are very highly rated, I think they are more commonly found in the US than EU that's all.

EDIT:
Silverstone PS-01B-W "Precision" Tower Case Black with Window Side Panel w/o PSU
650W Silverstone ST65ZF-GM SLi Dual PCI-E EPS12v ATX12v v2.01 PSU
SilverStone FP52B (Black) Thermal/Fan Controller with sapphire neon LCD Display

all for under £130 inc.
For £130 that's a good offer, just depends if you like the case

[AGxM]

Resurecting this one from the depths of the board...............insurance refused to pay out so am really strapped for cash but also need to replace my old pc.

Perusing the expert opinions on here I am either going for a AMDX2 5200+ system with a 790G board, or an Intel 5200 and probably a 3850 GPU, I'm assuming the Phenom triples are not worth the jump from the AMD duals?

[Webby]

Sorry haven't read through the whole thread as it is so old!

What are your requirements? What do you want the system to be able to do? When we know that we can make appropriate suggestions as to what would be suitable

[Maccer101]

To cut the budget;-

Why not try an Antec NSK6580, about £65-70 (Ebuyer & Scan) with a 430w Antec PSU included, check but I believe the 12v ATX is only 4 pin on the PSU so it'll determine the Mobo you buy.

Look out for a Scan deal for a ATI 3850HD as they keep selling them for £40 or less.

Do you need to buy an OS? If so you could save some cash by moving to Linux, though there wouldn't be any real gaming on offer unless you play about with WINE. But it has GIMP for photo editing instead of Photoshop. If you did I wouldn't get an ATI 3850HD as it is a real pain getting drivers to work, best off buying an old card off Ebay

[AGxM]

Thanks Webby - I'm a web surfer, who likes messing with PS a bit and plays some games (mainly Football Manager, CSI type things) Current PC is an AMD 3200+, with 1gb RAM and a 500MB HDD, DVD burner and DVD/CD rom and this seems to be enough for my usage. Sadly it is struggling with a master boot error and I would like to speed it up a bit.

Currently loooking at this

AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ Socket AM2 2.6GHz Energy Efficient L2 1MB (2x512KB) Cache Retail Boxed Processor
Antec NSK 4480B Black ATX/MATX Mini Tower - With 380W EarthWatts PSU
Gigabyte GA-MA790X-DS4 790X Socket AM2+ 8 channel audio ATX Motherboard
Corsair 2GB Kit (2x1GB) DDR2 800MHz/PC2-6400 XMS2 Memory Non-ECC Unbuffered CL5 Heat Spreader Lifetime Warranty
Samsung HD502IJ SpinPoint F1 500GB Hard Drive SATAII 7200rpm 16MB Cache - OEM

plus the optical drives

So basically is it worth stepping up to a Phenom triple core or is an Intel E5200 worth considering?

Thanks again

[staffsMike]

Thanks Webby - I'm a web surfer, who likes messing with PS a bit and plays some games (mainly Football Manager, CSI type things) Current PC is an AMD 3200+, with 1gb RAM and a 500MB HDD, DVD burner and DVD/CD rom and this seems to be enough for my usage. Sadly it is struggling with a master boot error and I would like to speed it up a bit.

Currently loooking at this

AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ Socket AM2 2.6GHz Energy Efficient L2 1MB (2x512KB) Cache Retail Boxed Processor
Antec NSK 4480B Black ATX/MATX Mini Tower - With 380W EarthWatts PSU
Gigabyte GA-MA790X-DS4 790X Socket AM2+ 8 channel audio ATX Motherboard
Corsair 2GB Kit (2x1GB) DDR2 800MHz/PC2-6400 XMS2 Memory Non-ECC Unbuffered CL5 Heat Spreader Lifetime Warranty
Samsung HD502IJ SpinPoint F1 500GB Hard Drive SATAII 7200rpm 16MB Cache - OEM

plus the optical drives

So basically is it worth stepping up to a Phenom triple core or is an Intel E5200 worth considering?

Thanks again

I'm running a similar setup but mine is uATX 690G. I wouldn't bother with the triple core tbh, that system is as good as my E6600 setup and it the 5000+ even overclocks quite well if its the brisbane core.