just landed a brandspankin new job lots of moneh !! i've gone from earning nothing as a student, to earning just under £1,500 a month (at the age of 18) either way, not a great serious gamer, but my system is lacking some what in specific areas, my current system looks like this: 1.8ghz 2200+ 512mb pc2700 (argh its so shit it doesnt even have a brand name on it!) 300W ENCER PSU (its a good psu, but makes alot of noise, and i believe is holding my new grphx card back abit) ATI 9600XT LG 8X DUAL DVD-RW LG 16X DVD-ROM 2 x 60gb 7200RPM 8mb Seagates 21" Philips TFT @ 1152x864 ~ 85hz i use: onboard sound (which is good enough for Half-Life lol, but for HL2 i suspect i might want something more ) i need: a new PSU (has to be reliable, and quiet - 450W +) (perhaps a new case? i'm not fussed) PC3200+ DDR RAM (512mb or 2 x 512mb) a new sound card (nothing top of the range but a decent sound blaster or something wouldnt go amiss) case fans, that arn't louder than my vacoom cleaner (and im not joking) and finally... a bloody HSF that isn't louder than my case fans (my coolermaster makes so much fucking noise) if u can recommend good hardware for me i would appreciate it, tom
Sparkle or Antec get my vote for PSU's. For memory, Kingston's ValueRAM is good stuff as long as you're not into extreme tweaking and overclocking. If you can find it, Philips Dynamic Edge is a great low-cost 4.1 channel sound card. Their Thunderbird DSP is really tight, but they're not exactly easy to find.
For the heatsink, I highly suggest the slk-800 (get the U one if it fits on your mobo). This is a tad expensive but this heatsink is so good that you can put a very silent fan on it without having to fear heat. I suggest the Panaflo M1A or H1A.
Harrack and Big B will both have a lot of useful advice for you. Since we're all tossing our opinions into the mix, I'll add mine next. <my $.02> For the PSU, I'd get an Enermax 475watt or better; or if you don't want to spend much on it perhaps a Thermaltake 420watt. RAM: high-end Mushkin RAM seems to be going for extremely cheap these days and it's very overclockable. As for sound, the SB Live is a good 5.1 card for around $35 US. If you don't want super noisy fans, avoid Delta at all costs. They are terrific fans, but they run like jet engines. Instead take a look at Thermaltake's "smart" fans. They vary between 3,000 and 5,000 RPMs, depending on the temperature of your chassis. For the HSF, Thermaltake 'Volcano' series fans with an 80mm fan would be a good choice. The large scale of the fan moves more air and yet makes less noise than the traditional 40-60mm CPU fan. </my $.02>
i've decided to go for a new case, - an Antec PlusView 1000 and a 600W Ebuyer PSU (wouldn't normally buy this, but 1: it's £30 2: all the reveiws gave it 5 Star, and said it was fantastic. someone i know who has one, says that when he tested the power of his, it didn't come near a 600W it was more like 540W (but still £30 for a 530W is pretty good ) ram wise, i'm going to get some Kingstone Hyper X 2 x 256mb pc3200 400mhz (so i can use the Dual DDR on my mobo) fan wise, the case comes with 2 rear mounted 80mm antec fans, i am going to buy 1 smart fan, and stick it at the front. i'm tempted to buy a decent CPU as well (mines only 266)
