Hi guys
My friend is looking to upgrade. He uses his PC for a variety of work tasks (nothing particularly intensive) but also enjoys some gaming (Oblivion is his favourite but also likes the occasional FPS too). He tends to keep his computers for some time (possibly 5 years or more without any upgrades). He already has screen, keyboard, mouse and OS.
It has been a while since I built a desktop PC (my last build was a Linux HTPC for MythTV which uses VDPAU via onboard 9400M) so I'm a bit out of date re graphics cards. It seems that ATI may be the way to go at the moment, but I'm not sure... What about a 216 core GTX260 as an alternative?
He's vendor agnostic so nVidia or ATI would be fine. The DX11 support and apparently low (idle) power usage of the ATI 5770 seem appealing...?
My friend bought Windows 7 Home Premium when it was going cheap in preparation for this build.
Will the bigger GPUs fit in the case OK? Any other thoughts on the build? I know that the i7 is a bit of a luxury but my friend was keen on a "new" quad core machine and I don't think it unbalances things too much. Finally, should he do a modest overclock, how far could he comfortably go with the stock heatsink?
Thanks for reading, all comments gratefully received!
Oaf