Advice please on new spec

B

budgie

Active member
Hello

I'm in need of a new PC to replace my five year old Pentium 4 PC. It will be used for office work, video editing (ideally rendering video while I'm working) and some gaming. I'm working my way through old games at the moment so don't need a new graphics card - I've got a 9600GT in my old PC which I'll move across while catching up with COD MW and MW2, Call of Juarez Bound in Blood, Crysis, Bioshock, Far Cry 2 etc., then look to get a decent card (eg GTX 560 Ti) in a year or two. I've also got some secondary hard drives from the old PC which I'll stick in the new one.

I've gone for the Enigma case due to space constraints at my workspace, hence the ultra quiet PSU and cooling to reduce noise. And have gone for Windows professional as a lot of my peripherals including video capture card are quite old so didn't want to risk them not working properly under Windows 7.

Budget is no more than £800.

Any advice gratefully received.

Cheers


Case
STYLISH PIANO BLACK ENIGMA CASE + 2 FRONT USB
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7-2600 Quad Core (3.40GHz, 8MB Cache) + HD Graphics
Motherboard
ASUS® P8H67-V (NEW REV 3.0): ATX, USB 3.0, SATA 6.0Gb/s, CROSSFIREX
Memory (RAM)
4GB SAMSUNG DDR3 DUAL-DDR3 1333MHz (2 X 2GB)
Graphics Card
INTEGRATED INTEL HD GRAPHICS (HDMI, DVI, 1920 X 1200)
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
640GB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD6402AAEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
2nd DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
4x BLU-RAY ROM DRIVE, 16x DVD ROM (£35)
Memory Card Reader
INTERNAL 52 IN 1 CARD READER (XD, MS, CF, SD, etc) + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT
Power Supply
CORSAIR 650W TX SERIES (TX650) 80+ ULTRA QUIET PSU (£72)
Processor Cooling
SUPER QUIET 22dBA TRIPLE COPPER HEATPIPE CPU COOLER (£19)
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Facilities
ONBOARD 10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT - AS STANDARD ON ALL PCs
USB Options
6 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL (MIN 2 FRONT PORTS) AS STANDARD
Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Professional 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£109)
Office Software
FREE Microsoft® Office Starter 2010 (Limited functionality Word & Excel)
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£5)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 11 to 13 working days
Quantity
1

Price: £775.00 including VAT and delivery.
 
Meds

Meds

Moderator
Moderator
Why wait for a GTX 560Ti, treat yourself today! :D

Case
STYLISH PIANO BLACK ENIGMA CASE + 2 FRONT USB
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i5-2500 Quad Core (3.30GHz, 6MB Cache) + HD Graphics
Motherboard
ASUS® P8H67-M LX SI (NEW REV 3.0): M-ATX, USB 2.0, SATA 6.0Gb/s, 2 x PCI
Memory (RAM)
4GB SAMSUNG DDR3 DUAL-DDR3 1333MHz (2 X 2GB)
Graphics Card
1GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 560 Ti - 2 DVI,HDMI,VGA - DX® 11, 3D Vision Ready
Free Item
FREE Need For Speed™ World Starter Pack with any Nvidia® GTS450 or above!
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
640GB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD6402AAEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
4x BLU-RAY ROM DRIVE, 16x DVD ROM (£35)
Memory Card Reader
INTERNAL 52 IN 1 CARD READER (XD, MS, CF, SD, etc) + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT
Power Supply
CORSAIR 650W TX SERIES (TX650) 80+ ULTRA QUIET PSU (£72)
Processor Cooling
SUPER QUIET 22dBA TRIPLE COPPER HEATPIPE CPU COOLER (£19)
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Facilities
ONBOARD 10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT - AS STANDARD ON ALL PCs
USB Options
6 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL (MIN 2 FRONT PORTS) AS STANDARD
Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£79)
Office Software
FREE Microsoft® Office Starter 2010 (Limited functionality Word & Excel)
Anti-Virus
BULLGUARD INTERNET SECURITY - FREE 90 DAY TRIAL
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£5)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 11 to 13 working days
Quantity
1

Price: £787.00 including VAT and delivery.

Configure Here: http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/computers/mainstream-intel-sandy-bridge/

- Drop CPU from i7-2600 to i5-2500. For gaming, the performance difference between the two is minimal.
- Why W7 Pro? Win7 HP is fine for most users unless you need the XP Mode feature.
- If you want an nVidia GPU, then there was no need to get the more expensive Motherboard as Crossfire is useless to you :)

Saved money = GTX560Ti now, within budget! You know you want to ....
 
B

budgie

Active member
Thanks for the advice Meds (and Teaz).

I'd gone for the more expensive mobo so I can increase the RAM later and fit 2 PCI cards in (wireless network card and firewire card) - from the looks of the M-ATX boards I wouldn't be able to fit them in and have a double height graphics card.

And W7 Pro was insurance against old peripherals not working under W7 - I could drop down to home premium, but then might need to spend £30 plus on a new video capture card for my old VHS-C tapes.

And regarding the CPU, the PC will primarily be a working PC with some gaming, rather than a gaming PC, and although a lot of reviews don't have much between the i7-2600 and i5-2500, I thought the i7 would be better for multi-tasking such as video rendering while doing data analysis with SPSS and having a few websites open etc. Would the i5 hold up as well as the i7 for that?

However, it's got me thinking, if I dropped down to the i5-2500, dropped the 2nd OD (still need a DVD writer) and dropped to W7 HP, I could get the spec below, which is tempting ...

Case
STYLISH PIANO BLACK ENIGMA CASE + 2 FRONT USB
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i5-2500 Quad Core (3.30GHz, 6MB Cache) + HD Graphics
Motherboard
ASUS® P8H67-V (NEW REV 3.0): ATX, USB 3.0, SATA 6.0Gb/s, CROSSFIREX
Memory (RAM)
4GB SAMSUNG DDR3 DUAL-DDR3 1333MHz (2 X 2GB)
Graphics Card
1GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 560 Ti - 2 DVI,HDMI,VGA - DX® 11, 3D Vision Ready
Free Item
FREE Need For Speed™ World Starter Pack with any Nvidia® GTS450 or above!
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
640GB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD6402AAEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
Memory Card Reader
INTERNAL 52 IN 1 CARD READER (XD, MS, CF, SD, etc) + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT
Power Supply
CORSAIR 650W TX SERIES (TX650) 80+ ULTRA QUIET PSU (£72)
Processor Cooling
SUPER QUIET 22dBA TRIPLE COPPER HEATPIPE CPU COOLER (£19)
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Facilities
ONBOARD 10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT - AS STANDARD ON ALL PCs
USB Options
6 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL (MIN 2 FRONT PORTS) AS STANDARD
Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£79)
Office Software
FREE Microsoft® Office Starter 2010 (Limited functionality Word & Excel)
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£5)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 11 to 13 working days
Quantity
1

Price: £820.00 including VAT and delivery.

Or the above with the P67 mobo (what's the difference between the P and the H boards apart from the onboard graphics?) for £2 more.
 
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