New PC

[dave87]

With Uni looming in the not too distant future, its time for me to start looking at a new PC for my room at uni. Rents are considering buying me a laptop, and im kinda pushing them towards teh ultraportable ones (read no performance) in order to make it easier for me However therein lies a problem. What am I gunna use to play my games :S. Well, with roughly £1500-2000 to spend (possibly less depending on how much random stuff I buy before then) I was considering a shuttle, or a smaller atx case.

Any Suggestions/Specs for this sorta budget. I roughly thought athlon x2, 1-2gb ram, dvd-rw, decent gfx, 19-20" tft, raptor primary, spinpoint (large) secondary, wireless kb & mouse.

Cheers

Dave

[nvening]

this http://configure.euro.dell.com/dells...spn_xps_m170_3
@ £1800

[icq3800846]

Personally if I was going for a small form factor I'd be dead tempted to get one of the Silverstone Lascala chassis.

The chassis you settle on will almost definitely dictate the components you'll be able to buy. Silverstone do some Micro ATX cases that are just a little bit larger than Shuttles, but allow the fitting of regular sized PCI/AGP/PCI-E cards so you won't forever be worried about the size of the components you fit inside.

With one of these and a quality PSU the sky is the limit, you could go PCI-E and get a 7800GTX or go quiet and get something like a passively cooled 6600GT.

The extra size will also be of benefit to airflow and cooling and whilst your choice of AMD processor isn't the space heater P4s are, Raptors and high end graphics cards get nice and toasty.

You have lots of money at your disposal, if I had that much money I'd get a cheap 19" monitor with decent specs and buy a Lascala LC18 chassis. It costs 500 quid for the bare chassis, but the brute sex appeal of an inbuilt 7" touch screen TFT screen is unparalelled. Guaranteed to be stolen from digs within 3 months!

[oshta]

Ive just started uni about 3weeks ago.

I was going to build a SFF pc, and spec'd it all out, but then couldnt fund it, so i took my pc from home. And bought a 19" TFT (samsung 930bf)
- Tbh, im glad i didnt get the SFF, i could hide two atx towers under my desk and not notice, whereas the SFF would have to go on desk, which would be a pain.

Daniel

[Jinx]

Silverstone Sugo1 here

Weird name.....nice case.

Fully Micro ATX compiant, accepts full sized ATX power supply, so completely upgradeable.....and best of all, you can get nForce 4 Micro ATX boards that support Socket 939 (X2 or FX) and PCI-E (7800GTX or X1800XL)

Big power in a little upgradeable box...!

[Lu-tze]

I would recomend a tower aswell. Works out cheaper generally. Saves deck space, which is more important than floor space when you are surrounded by open books and journal photocopies. And has the potential be to quieter, which is important for studying. You'll also have space for future upgrades and additions too.

[sawyen]

but if ur living in some hall of residence, ur tower will be plagued with dust.. Its best just to leave ur books on the floor.. at least thats what I do.. I run my tower on my desk, only journals and books im actually reading come up to my table.. the rest will be on the floor..

But thats just me, and hey.. who would listen to a nerdy doctorate anyways?

[dave87]

Hmm, ill have a look into it. Jus working out how much I can spend if I still want a good pc

Dave