New PC yes or no

Hi guys n' gals,
thinking of this what do you reckon for £1050.

Mesh PC's

System Base Price: £ 892.77 (including VAT £1050)
Intel® Core™ 2 Quad Q9450 Quad Core Processor(2.66GHz,12MB Cache,1333MHz)
Genuine Windows Vista™ Home Premium Edition with SP 1
Aluminium ATX Midi Tower + 550W PSU
PCI-Express Mainboard - Core2Duo/Quad Core/Penryn ATX
8GB DDR2 800MHz Memory (4 x 2GB)
1TB (1000GB) Serial ATA 2 Hard Drive with 32MB Buffer
Blu-ray ROM Player Dual layer DVD Writer 24 x CD Writer
512MB nVIDIA GeForce 9600GT - Dual DVI, HDTV, TV Out
22" Widescreen LCD TFT Digital Display (DVI, 5ms)
5.1 High Definition onboard sound card - 6 Channel Cinema sound
Logitech Desktop Keyboard & Optical Mouse
Free Microsoft® Works® 8.5 + Limited Microsoft Office Trial
Free Cyberlink Video Editing Suite - 7 titles (oem)
6x USB 2.0 Ports (10x possible on motherboard)
Network Ready integrated 10/100 Ethernet
Multi-format Memory Card Reader
1 Year Hardware Warranty - Back to Base (UK Mainland only)

I do like to play games and this would be in my price range.
Was also thinking if it was upgradeable if and when i need to.
Thanks for the help/advise in advance.

 

Unless you plan on running a 64bit version of Vista, the 8gb of RAM will be wasted. You can go with 3gb and apply some of the saving to a stronger power supply. While the 550w may be OK (if it's a quality brand, 80PLUS certified, with strong amps on the 12v rail(s) ), I would add another 100w or more; go with a 650w or 750w, but it really depends on the brand/specs of the 550w unit. I have seen some 400w power supplies out-last and provide better system stability than 550w power supplies that were from a 'no-name' company from Taiwan, and the 400w was made by Antec. Other than that, it looks good to me! :-D

 

I concur with dlb, PSU sounds suspect. Also, the video card looks weak as well. You can get a great deal on Nvidia and ATI cards right now. Maybe a 4850 in the ATI flavor, or if you like green, look at the Nvidia 8800GT's or some of their newer stuff.

E

 

Ok thanks guys i will see what i can do and let you know what happens.

 

dlb is on the money with the RAM, you will only ever get to use a little over 3Gb in a 32Bit Environment, here is a very good link explaining:

http://blogs.msdn.com/hiltonl/archive/2007/04/13/the-3gb-not-4gb-ram-problem.aspx

Once again I completely agree with both about a decent PSU, to many underestimate the importance of a decent PSU spend a ton of money on high end Video Card to come undone through poor power and later have to upgrade to a decent one. Once again dlb is spot on the decent brand PSU's can have an efficiency rating and you want to look for brands that are 80+:

http://www.80plus.org/manu/psu/psu_join.aspx

Fred is spot on about the Video Cards, ATi has come out with a budget but very good performing Video Card and has started a good old healthy price war. I would seriously consider either a 4850 or 8800GT (make sure it is the GT and not GTS etc etc (the 8800 will run circles around the 9600!)).

Finally are you considering OC the CPU at all? If so get a good name Motherboard and RAM (both you have linked are "generic" and thus if you get this pre-built they will most likely provide "budget" brands/makes!! and you will once again suffer the "efficiency" dilemma).

If you are getting this from an online store if you provide a link maybe we can help you with a "custom" list of parts for them to build so you get some "good quality".

Sadly up-gradability for Intel is now very limited with the Octa Core (a.k.a Nehalem) being a LGA1366 Socket and the motherboards will have 3xDDR3 (tri-channel RAM). But you will get a good 2 years from a LGA775 if you buy a decent Video Card (later get SLI or CrossFire);

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2008/05/30/nehalem-and-x58-show-up-in-taipei/1

 

Thanks for the advise guys but sadly i had an unexpected bill to pay so to cheer myself up i bought myself this baby(http://www.samsung.com/us/consumer/...ubtype=lcd&model_cd=LS22PEBSFV/XAA&fullspec=F). Before i was using a 15inch crt. Probably a couple or 3 months before i can get a new pc.