New base unit

Time to replace my current base unit. Not really got a budget, but probably don't want to spend much more than a grand.

The case may be worth keeping but I rather like the sound (or non-sound) of this: http://www.scan.co.uk/product.aspx?ProductId=36176 although that is a fair chunk of money.

My HDD is only 60% full, so I could put off an upgrade for a while. The rest probably/definitely has to be replaced (the 4870 is kaput and I've had to roll back to an 8800).

Is Scan still a good place to go, or is there a new king?

TBH,a Q6600 if running at around 3GHZ is still fine for gaming.

If you have not overclocked your Q6600 I would try getting it upto to around 3GHZ and perhaps get an HD5850 1GB.

Well that's good news for my wallet. So a 5850 is currently the happy spot for 1900x1200 gaming?

2 pre-built choices, just to give ideas.

http://www.trustedreviews.com/pcs/re...F-Gaming-PC/p1

http://www.trustedreviews.com/pcs/re...--Gaming-PC/p1

Q6600 + 8800 is still a decent gaming machine ;), but if you've got used to the extra IQ a 4870 would allow then I can definitely see a point in upping the GFX again. As CAT says, an overclock to your Q6600 will make a reasonable difference: just make sure you have a decent aftermarket cooler.

As you've got a relatively high budget I might suggest opting for the 5870 if you game at that resolution. I'm very happy with my 5850, and I play at 1920x1080 slightly lower than you. It depends on what deals you can get though, I mean a 5850 at £190 is great value, but so is a 5870 at £280 imo.

I definitely agree you dont need to replace your CPU yet, an overclock to 3ghz would keep it going that little bit longer, if it started to become the bottleneck, which I doubt in the short term.

As it looks like you wont need to buy too much with your budget I would suggest the 5870 is the way to go. I think there might be one being sold in hexus classifieds at the moment, if you are OK with buying from there.

If the money is just burning a hole in your pocket I might suggest investing in an SSD as well (Intel X25-M at 80gb or 160gb is the sweetspot if you ask me). It will make the biggest difference to how fast and responsive your PC "feels" plus it will be great for boot and game loading times. Obviously with that size of system disc, you will want to keep your hard drive for supplementary storage.

If you wanted to go all out with the new case (which does look very snazzy), you could try the following:

Case: Silverstone Fortress FT02R-W £176.21 (TDO)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD3R (SATA III, USB 3.0) £151.57 (TDO)
CPU: Intel Core i7 920 D0 2.66GHz £151.57 (TDO)
CPU Cooler: Titan Fenrir V2 TTC-NK85TZ 120mm £29.95
RAM: Kingston HyperX 6GB (3x2048MB) 2000MHz DDR3 CAS9 £137.98
GPU: 2x 1GB Powercolor HD5770 £245.74
Boot HDD: 50GB OCZ Vertex II (Read: 285MB/s, Write: 275MB/s) £159.79 (TDO)
Storage HDD: Existing £0.00
PSU: 650W Corsair CMPSU-750HXUK £93.41
Optical Drives: Existing £0.00
Total: £1,146.22

It is all from Scan bar the RAM which is 1800344 from LambdaTek. I find Scan very expensive for RAM.

Hope this helps.

Looking at the various options the 5850 Toxic looks a nice card. Looking at its power requirements, though, suggests that I might need to upgrade the PSU. What do you guys think?

I'm also thinking about adding a Soundcard - always used to have one, but nothing fitted the bill last time I upgraded. Now the Asus Xonar looks nice - possibly the D2X Ultra.

I quite fancy an SSD, but would it mean a bunch of reinstalling of games (with all those chances of something going wrong) to get the files on the right HDD? No point in putting piccies, MP3s etc on the SSD, as there isn't enough space.

An HD5850 1GB has lower power requirements than an HD4870 1GB IIRC so your HX520W should be fine IMHO.