My first post here so please bear with me.
Haven't upgraded my pc for many a year - used to be well into modding and pc's - so am well over due for a complete upgrade and grateful of some advice.
I'm currently running two pc's (one as a server but sameish spec) Pentium 4 3.20, 2GB ram, supermicro P4SPE mainboard. When these systems were put together I made one a server due to storage needs at the time (films etc) am now just planning on having one machine.
The only bits I am planning on keeping are:
various sata hard drives
supermicro case (SC-750A - quite a monster! - has been modded to have a 120mm outlet fan on side as well). Being a newbie I can't post a direct link so add a couple of ww's to the addys
w.arstechnica.com/reviews/1298/sc750a.html
Enermax Liberty ELT500AWT psu
w.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817194003
I am thinking of an Intel i7 cpu (have always had intel since 8086's so want to stay).
SSD for o/s and progs (maybe 30gb enough??)
windows 7 64 bit
over to you experts for the rest !!
I am completely lost as regards graphics card - my system runs two monitors in independent mode (via DVI connectors). I would like to keep this set-up - at the time dual monitors was unusual and I used a matrox card for them. Do all reasonable cards give me dual DVI in independent mode now ? I see some are very fancy prices but I assume these are for the more hardcore gamers only ??
Do people think my existing case and psu will be ok ?
I do a lot of photography and since moving to a better camera with much larger image files I have really noticed the slow speed. So main application will be photo editing (photoshop) and sorting (lightroom). I do some video converstions too. Obviously the normal office and browsing stuff too, machine will also act as movie storage for downstairs media player.