New i7 build, thoughts please...

[hermeticist]

I have a budget from work for a new PC, these are my thoughts:

620W Corsair HX £99.61 DarkPower, Enermax???

CoolerMaster 832 £136.26 Silverstone TJ07?

Pioneer DVR-216DBK £17.93 Any good

Optiarc AD-7240S-0B £19.19 Ditto?

640GB caviar black WD £56.87 Samsung F1 1TB?

GA-EX58-UD5 £211.80 Like the idea of the dual bios(es)

6GB Dominator 12800 £130.69 Would rather get the 2000MHZ OCZ from OCUK for £103

TRUE with TR fan £50.01

GTX 275 BFG £210.44 Interested in the graphics acceleration for CS4

Core i7 920, D0 £238.25

Dell 3008WFP £1091.34 Would rather have had the cheaper Hazro, but none available.

Total £2260ish

Will also need:

23-26" monitor ideas?

Raid 5 capable NAS for printer sharing, the secure collection and deposit of files to a named folder, wireless sharing on home network (presume that this can be done with my existing wireless router).

Suggestions to improve the spec would be gratefully received.

I suspect that all parts will have to come from one supplier, hence the RAM comment.

Thanks in advance.

[staffsMike]

Blimey.. who's a lucky boy then lol

PSU is good, but these days you can do better with the likes of enermax as you mentioned. I'm sure dark power are good too but no comment since I don't own one.

The modu82+ is essentially the quietest PSU I've ever had (and I have the corsair too). It's brilliant and efficent.

How about silverstone fortress, The TJ07 is a lovely case than and has the potential to be very quiet with a bit of work.

I actually favour LG drives at the moment, my blu ray one is so perfectly quiet I would pay another £50 just to get one

I like dell monitors so I'd probably have a 2709wfp to go with the 30"

[hermeticist]

Thanks for the reply staffsMike. To be honest, I fancy an Antec Signature or Enermax revolution, but the first Scan don`t stock & the Revo. is a silly price.

Have thought about the fortress, don`t think it's a full size case though, currently using a Coolermaster 831 and the size is very nice when working on it.

What about the HDD, any thoughts on what's currently the favourite?

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

If you are buying the card just for Photoshop acceleration purposes I would get the 216 shader version of the GTX260 as it consumes much less power and is cheaper. The HD4890 even consumes less power at load than the GTX275.

Remember that ATI cards ALSO accelerate many programmes which comprise the CS4 suite. It is stated on the Adobe website itself.The only thing is that Nvidia makes much more noise about it!!

There is also the HD4870X2 2gb for £264 delivered from Scan:

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/2GB-X...-DL-DVI-I-HDTV

A bit overkill for non-gaming purposes though.

The Samsung F1 1TB is only around £66 from Scan and has 32mb of cache:

http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebProductId=723884

I would probably look at the 24" H-IPS HP L2475W.

[hermeticist]

mmmhhhhhh 4870x2, didn`t know that ATI worked with CS4, thanks for that!

The 640GB WD Caviar Black has 32MB cache plus two processor thingies, but not sure how they compare, much of a muchness I guess.

I should have stated that the 23-26" monitor will almost exclusively be used for text.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Some details about ATI cards and CS4:

http://www.fudzilla.com/index.php?op...=9809&Itemid=1

http://www.adobe.com/products/aftereffects/opengl.html

http://kb.adobe.com/selfservice/view...nalId=kb405711

[hermeticist]

Any thoughts on the 'board? People seem to be saying that they're all pretty much the same - was swayed by the dual bios on the above 'board, but I expect others have this as well.

[Infinite]

why do you need dual bios?

[hermeticist]

Because I suffer from BIOS flashing paranoia! - Why 'board manufacturers can't take responsibility for releasing products prematurely, placing the onus on the purchaser to "flash" and the subsequent consequences - I presume being able to use the previous BIOS allows a user to recover from a poor flash, hasn't happened to me, but I feel that this is more luck than judgement...... Hence the BIOS paranoia.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Having peace of mind is important when making a purchase and the dual bios feature seems a very useful one IMHO.

[Infinite]

I guess I'm lucky as I have never had a bad flash. Asus ftw???

[hermeticist]

Nor have I, but the risk of bricking even a £100 'board I find unpleasant, at least with Abit (RIP) the BIOS was replaceable - still very inconvenient.