chasdrury Posted March 23, 2008 Report Share Posted March 23, 2008 I am after some help here guys! I need to build a new PC for my dad - I used to build lots of PCs but haven't done it for ages so am a bit out of touch with manufacturers, processors and what chipsets are what. Basically, he review technical dossiers for companies, so has 2x 22in screens, DVI that need to be powered. He is now finding most of the docs he gets are 700+page PDF files and are massive. He also runs word to write the review and Outlook at all times, as well as various time sheets in Excel etc. So, I don't need mega gaming spec or anything, just a solid system, reliable, fast, lots of memory and 2xDVI outputs. Just need the base unit, there will be nothing carried over from the previous PC. It will be running XP, not Vista - I don't think he could cope! LOL! Thanks Chas Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Waylander Posted March 23, 2008 Report Share Posted March 23, 2008 price limit? I reckon you can get a machine that does exactly what you want for ~<£600 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chasdrury Posted March 23, 2008 Author Report Share Posted March 23, 2008 Umm... Well that would be perfect, can go more than that, upto £1k I suppose, but obviously the cheaper the better! Chas Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Waylander Posted March 23, 2008 Report Share Posted March 23, 2008 Gigabyte DS4 X38 mobo ~£100 4 GB Ram PC6400 ~£60 E6750 Dual core or Q6600 quad CPU £116/£146 respectively Geoforce 9600GT 512MB ~£108 500GB hdd ~£60 DVDRW ~£20 Case/PSU as per pref Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chasdrury Posted March 23, 2008 Author Report Share Posted March 23, 2008 Nice one Waylander... Sounds good. Where are people bying from these days - who is good for components? And who make the decent cases these days? Chas Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Waylander Posted March 23, 2008 Report Share Posted March 23, 2008 I live near Aria and MD so always buy local; got monitor from Amazon though Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bullett Posted March 23, 2008 Report Share Posted March 23, 2008 Dabs, overclockers and komplett have all been good for me. If you want 4gb menory then you will need to run a 64bit os to take advantage. For business critical documents I'd say go for a smaller C drive and RAID up a pair of 250 or larger for storage. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thorburn Posted March 23, 2008 Report Share Posted March 23, 2008 WAY overspecced on motherboard and graphics there! X38 is pointless unless you are running dual GPUs and you don't need a graphics card anywhere near that powerful. An integrated graphics solution would do the job if it weren't for the dual DVI. Go with a G33 or P35 based motherboard (my choice would be on of the ASUS P5K family, like the P5K SE) and then one of the passively cooled ATI Radeon 3450 cards such as this. You could probably drop further down Core 2 Duo range too, but the E6750 doesn't break the bank and will improve his overall computing experience, so it's probably not worth it. Anyway, that's another £100 off As for retailers, I tend to stick to Scan, Dabs and Novatech. I don't LIKE OcUK, but I do sometimes have to use them as they tend to get things first, but that isn't really an issue here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Waylander Posted March 23, 2008 Report Share Posted March 23, 2008 [ QUOTE ] WAY overspecced on motherboard and graphics there! [/ QUOTE ] Oh the irony. I had lower spec GFx and a cheaper mobo and then figured you'd turn up and lambast me for being a cheapskate so upped the spec a little OCUk are the illigitimate demons of satan's whore. Avoid like the clap! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chasdrury Posted March 24, 2008 Author Report Share Posted March 24, 2008 So what RAM would I need with that Asus board? Also, will XP 64 bit cause me any trouble with regard to compatibility for other software etc? Cheers Chas Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Waylander Posted March 24, 2008 Report Share Posted March 24, 2008 buy any decent quality/brand PC6400 4gb ram [paired 2gb dimms] for about £60. I got the OCZ and it works fine Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chasdrury Posted March 24, 2008 Author Report Share Posted March 24, 2008 [ QUOTE ] WAY overspecced on motherboard and graphics there! X38 is pointless unless you are running dual GPUs and you don't need a graphics card anywhere near that powerful. An integrated graphics solution would do the job if it weren't for the dual DVI. Go with a G33 or P35 based motherboard (my choice would be on of the ASUS P5K family, like the P5K SE) and then one of the passively cooled ATI Radeon 3450 cards such as this. You could probably drop further down Core 2 Duo range too, but the E6750 doesn't break the bank and will improve his overall computing experience, so it's probably not worth it. Anyway, that's another £100 off As for retailers, I tend to stick to Scan, Dabs and Novatech. I don't LIKE OcUK, but I do sometimes have to use them as they tend to get things first, but that isn't really an issue here. [/ QUOTE ] Thanks for the advice - isn't that graphics card 1 D Sub and one DVI connector, as far as I can see? Chas Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chasdrury Posted March 25, 2008 Author Report Share Posted March 25, 2008 Oh, and if I get the E6750 do I need XP x64 and then I am all 64 bitted up, as it were!!? Thanks Chaz Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Waylander Posted March 25, 2008 Report Share Posted March 25, 2008 why do you even want X64? Nope you don't need X64 for any of the core2duo or quad core cpus. advantage is support >4gb Ram and err that's it I think. I am being slightly flippant and I am sure Cliff will educate us about it in due course [please] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chasdrury Posted March 25, 2008 Author Report Share Posted March 25, 2008 From the posts above it seems I need 64bit windows to take advantage of 4Gb RAM? Chas Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mac Posted March 25, 2008 Report Share Posted March 25, 2008 Not strictly true no. You need 64 bit to take advantage of more than 4Gb of RAM. Saying that there's a little weird oddity that on a machine with 4Gb and 32bit Vista you'll only get about 3.3Gb anyways due to the memory layout. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chasdrury Posted March 25, 2008 Author Report Share Posted March 25, 2008 Ha! Right, OK - so 4Gb is fine on normal XP... Chas Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mac Posted March 25, 2008 Report Share Posted March 25, 2008 It is but bear in mind due to memory-mapped IO on XP32 you'll get around 3.25 or 3.4Gb actually showing in hardware. It's a limitation of the platform unfortunately. If you move to x64 this limitation is alleviated and you'll get the full 4Gb. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mac Posted March 25, 2008 Report Share Posted March 25, 2008 Reasonable explanation here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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