Help me spend a couple of grand !! :-)

Hi Guys,

I'm getting a nice juicy bonus at the end of this year and am planning on upgrading my systems.

I'm gonna build 2 new pc's, one media center/home theatre and 1 main pc that will be used as a server for the house and all my other bits and bobs. (Video editing, basic office stuff etc)
(NB I'm not a gamer.)

Got about a £2000 ($4000 us) budget give or take £500.

The `decent` bits of kit at my disposal I have at the moment -

Intel Dual Core E6850 3ghz with this motherboard
1000w modular power supply
8 x sata 500gb drives
2 x HVR-900 usb WinTV sticks
Video Adapter - nVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT

4gb of not brilliant quality ddr2 ram

I also have a couple of smaller dual cores and a 4800x2 athlon. 2x500w power supplies and loads of bits of misc' kit.

Copy of Xp Pro and Vista (Ultimate)

Heres what ive got my eye on so far for the media center case

http://www.thermaltakeusa.com/Product.aspx?C=1319&ID=1425

Was thinking of loading this up with the gigabyte board , 500w psu and the 4 gb of not so great ram. Just need some advice on a GPU and CPU and TV card.

At present the system plays fine watching movies but im getting jumping when trying to watch live TV through the HVR-900. Could this be the Processor or the GPU or both? If so some advice on what to load up with would be much appreciated.

Now for the main baby.

Have my eye on this case

This PC will be used for all my Video editing and other stuff. Will be running o a dual display so with no need for major graphics performance am gonna stick with the 8800GT. Will obviously be still ok with the 1000w power supply and drives are all good.

On this system again I need some advice on a processor. Am in two minds about a quad core or dual core. Any opinions? Do the quad cores actually get used by many programs yet?

Also the ram. I am still using Xp at the moment cos I find Vista too sluggish but with some decent kit maybe it will grow on me. So will need a decent amount of some good quality ram, I have always gone budget on kingston ram in the past so haven't got a clue where to start on some good quality stuff.

Also anything new on the motherboard market? (I'll be looking for a board that has lots of sata connections, at least 8)

I'm sure ill come up with lots of other bits and bobs that ill be needing but that will do for now.

Many thanks for taking the time to read this. I'll take some pictures and post them on here to show you the end results.

R

 

Define live tv. Broadcast or internet?

While not many programs make use of quad cores, the extra cores come in hand when you run multiple programs at the same time. i.e. burning a disk, scanning for malware and watching a movie.

IMO, Vista needs 2 gigs to be useable. 1 gig is choking Vista. The harddisk is constantly working hard. I'd say 4 gigs at a minimum since ddr2 is dirt cheap. 1 gig minimum for XP. XP is flying on 2 gigs. Kingston works on almost anything. Decide on a mobo before ram.

You should look into X38/X48 mobos.

 

When are you going to build the computer? In the next few weeks or at the end of the year? If you are going to build it several months from now, the prices and stuff offered will be different then. Plus you might can catch some good sales after Xmas.

E

 

Thanks for replies so far....

Will be building in January to hopefully get some good value out of any sales.
(Nothing like planning early )

Live Tv - UK Digital TV via an outside aerial.

Thanks for the advice on X38 have read a bit on Toms Hardware site and a few others and it seems the consensus at the mo that x38 is better value.
Was thinking of an ASUS or GIGABYTE for the mobo (Only cos there brands i have used in the past and trust.... am open no new ideas)

Found these for ASUS

and these for GIGABYTE

(Am struggling to find a MOBO with more than 6 SATA connections.)

R

 

Re: Rackmount Server and Live UK DVB TV recording

Ok....... after a bit of thought with regards to the disk drive storage I think I'm going to change to a rackmount. This is going to be a 'tad' more expensive but with a decent 4u setup should be able to site up to 24 drives in the future if I ever need it.

Have built many PC's before but never built a rackmount. Only thing that's stumping me on the project so far is..... are most cases standard width 19" and length. Dont want to buy a cabinet and have it hanging over the edge

Still going to build the Media PC as explained below so any help with the problems Ive been having recording live UK digital TV would be great....

Many Thanks
R