Building a new system..... Any Advice?

Hi,

I am building a new system and would like some advice on the parts i`ve chosen. I`ll be using it for various office based apps and some light picture and video editing. (Maybe the odd game.)

Processor - Intel P4 3.2 540 LGA775
Mobo - Asus P5WD2/premium
Cooling - Asetek VapoChill Micro - Extreme 775
HD - Western Digital Raptor (wd740gd) 74 GB Hard Drive
RAM - 512mb DDR2 PC2-5300
Graphics Card - SAPPHIRE TECHNOLOGY Radeon X550 256 MB PCI Express

I allready have all the rest soundcard, dvd drive etc

I have a budget of around £600

Any advice on a good power supply and case? (Not included in budget, I have one at the mo, 450w, but will want to upgrade eventually)
I have heard the P4 runs pretty hot, any advice on extra cooling - (Cant afford water cooling yet)

Some questions I anticipate - Small hd space and expensive - I agree is the 10000prm worth this extra cost?
Go with AMD - I am not anti AMD, thought about the 64 3500+ which is about the same price, but the ht on the p4 would be better for office based programs no?

Thanks in advance for your comments

 

Looks good to me.

The only thing i can think of is get 1gb of ram.

 

not bad. only thing bottle necking it would be teh video card.. fast harddrive and i have that same processor. but i highly recommend 1gig of ram if u want to do any gaming

 

I would recomend 1Gg of Ram like the other guys say..And a bigger and faster hardrive..like a SAta or something like that..Cause if your doing video editing your going to need the space and the speed to store it in..That is all this chick has to offer...

 

for your knowledge that is an SATA harddrive 10k rev

"Some questions I anticipate - Small hd space and expensive - I agree is the 10000prm worth this extra cost?"

 

Thanks for comments so far, Yea I realise that its a sata. Have a few sata wd 200g jobbies that I use for the main bulk of my storage. Was going to use the 10k raptor for the os and the files that I need to access often. Anyone any experience on how much 10krpm is different to 7200rpm

 

i heard it runs as a bat outta hell and even faster in RAID 0

 

the 10k raptor has better load and seek times as far as being worth the extra cost apps load some faster but if you only do occasional gaming the money would probably be better spent on a better video card or extra ram. As far as heat even with the stock cooler my 550 3.4 gig chip never went above 53c

 

Right....... Before I make the plunge and go for this setup, (with the extra ram... cheers guys) I still thinking whether long term I`m better off with a 64bit set up and say sod it to the seconds I`ll lose from not having hyper-threading and sticking with AMD

Whats your views on the best motherboard to go for with a AMD64 3800+

Ive seen this - ASUS A8N-SLI Premium

Any other suggestions? Not fussed about make. (And doesn`t have to have SLI support.)

 

I think the AMD and ASUS board are a much better choice.

As far as hard drive, I would go for a Maxtor DiamondMax 10 with 16 MB cache.

For graphics card, either a 6600 GT, or a 6800 if you have the money. Even better if money isn't an issue is a 7800 GT or GTX.

Also, don't skimp on power supply and get a good quality one as opposed to the cheap "high watt" ones that flood the market.

All that would easily fit in your budget.

 

Thanks Mate, I must admit I`m leaning more towards the amd now after reading so many good reviews, cant find many people that would choose intel over amd. The graphics card is the least of my priorities at the mo cos have never been a big pc gamer (PS2`s are alot cheaper )

This the hard drive your talking about ?
Think instead of the raptor I`ll get two of these and set up some sort of raid config.

Definently gonna boost up the ram to a gig.
Final thoughts on a good power supply? There are so many cheapo models that I could get lumbered with.

 

Yes, that's the hard drive I mean, but make sure it's the one with 16 MB cache and not 8 MB.

They are a very quiet and fast drive, even more so in Raid.

The only criticism that I've seen levelled at them is they can run a bit hot, but that's not been my experience.

As far as power supply, go for a good brand like Antec or Thermaltake.

 

definitely AMD. Its just a matter of time before intel is no more.. muwahahahahahahaha ha....

AMD rox. Get either the Asus A8N SLI Premium or an MSI K8N Neo 4 Platinum... they are both good boards... obviously socket 939... I would also recommend looking at the DFI Lanparty SLI boards.. they have been known to be good.


::Edit::
just looked again at your choices. with those board you gonna have to change you ram, at the moment AMD only supports DDR400 (pc3200) ram... which is actually cheaper than ddr2..

 

dammit, was too slow, 5 min limit. anyway PC Power and Cooling has some good PSUs. I currently use a PC Power and Cooling 510 Express with 650W peak power... they good but they expensive.. have a look at em.