Thank you for taking the time to read my posting. I’m new round here and require some help with components for the new PC I am planning to build. I have chosen the AMD X2 3800+ chip and now need help over choosing a suitable bits and pieces for it. I have not tried Overclocking, but am interested in trying it in the future. I have a budget of around £100 ($175) to spend on a Motherboard give or take and would like at least 6 USB2 & 2 Firewire ports if possible as well as it having PCI express. For the Graphics card I have around £170 ($250) to spend. I’m quite interested in the ATI in Wonder cards as would like the option of a TV turner and recorder as well as the option of fast encoding speeds. Are the All in wonder cards any good or is it better to buy a GFX card and add a separate TV tuner instead? I don’t really do much gaming but am into graphics apps like Photoshop & Illustrator CS2 etc.... I plan to add 1 gig of DDR for now and would be willing to spend up to around £75 ($140) on this. I am going to go for a Samsung HDD as I understand these are one of the quietest on the market. I would like to add a dual layer DVD burner and want the Light Scribe feature on it, any suggestions? For this I would like to spend no more than £40 ($75). I have chosen a good case but need a PSU and again would like to spend no more than £45 ($80). I would like it to have sufficient power and to be as quite as possible for the price. Is the heat sink fan that comes with the AMD 3800 ok to stick with? I would like it to be as quiet as possible - is it worth upgrading? Any other suggestions and additions would be greatly appreciated – thanks in advance!
The for £100 you can get a quality motherboard like this Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe. It only has 4 USB and 1 firewire, but you can always add a PCI card if you need more. I would recommend buying a separate graphics card and tv tuner/capture card. That way if you ever want to upgrade your graphics card you can just replace the graphics card. This X800 XT looks good for the price. For £70, you could get this Corsair ValueSelect and should be fine if you don't overclock too far, but if you want more overclockable RAM then its going to cost more. I haven't had problems with Samsung, but I can also recommend Seagate for quiet drives, tend to have a better reputation aswell. For DVD drives try this Lite-on. For your PSU, a good quality one from Thermaltake with 450W minimum is what I'd recommend. Go for 500W if you can.
hi mark, im guessing your based in the uk. for 185 pounds you could get a nvidia 7800GT from microdirect - http://www.microdirect.co.uk/ProductInfo.aspx?ProductID=10160&GroupID=1275 its 'one of the best' cards out at the moment, im considering buying one from there once they have some more in stock. i have bought from micro direct before and they deliver the goods usualy next morning so theres another graphics card you might want to think about (should play just about any game on max settings with no problems)
