Hardware recomendations

[Pegasus]

Well my motherboard (ASUS P4C800-E Deluxe) finally gave up the ghost today, and to say I'm pissed off is a bit of an understatement. Granted it was an old s478 P4 @ 3.2GHz, but it moved quick enough for what I use it for (video & audio work).

Because the technology has moved on so quickly, I'm now looking at a new motherboard, new memory (minimum 2GB), new CPU, and a new graphics card.
I don't do gaming on the PC (except the odd bit of MAME), so the video card doesn't have to be shit hot....although it must be able to cope with having lots of windows open.

I've had my dabble with AMD in the past, but it's Intel for me now (and that includes the chipset on the motherboard). I should add that I also prefer ASUS motherboards.

I would like the board to have PS/2 connectors for the keyboard & mouse, Gigabit LAN, floppy drive interface, and it would also be a bonus if it has 2 IDE connectors as well as at least 4 SATA connectors.

I've had a quick look around but I'm not quite finding what I want.

So guys & girls, what's hot & what's not these days?


PS
I'm ideally looking to spend no more than £300.

[Over Carl]

I know this could be a bit over budget and doesn't have ide but I'm currently recommending anyone to look at dells on ebay - especially the precision range.

I only just picked up a t7400 with 4gb (+memory risers to allow max 16 dimms!), twin quadro fx1700's (these could be a hinderance or could be quite tasty depending on what kind of graphical work), 146gb sas drive and quad core xeon 2.66 for £430! I like this pc as it's got cooling fans everywhere, 4 onboard sas/raid ports, as well as 3 sata, has space for another xeon, 980w psu - I suspect I will still have the same case/mobo in 5 years. (Also meets fdd interface/ps2 ports/giga lan requirements)

Taking that as an example, if you scour ebay throughly and aren't in a rush, I wouldn't be surprised if you could get a t5400 in budget. Only pita with higher models in the precision range (5400/7400) is the FB-DIMM requirement, and case of 7400 is seriously enormous.

Edit: Actually my precision 390 on my desk at work has I think 2x ide channels, but that has no sas ports....

[Pegasus]

Thanks for your input Carl, but the rest of my system (Lian Li full tower server case, 1.5TB SATA drives), that all important sammy DVD with kreons, Pioneer burner, Silverstone ST1000 PSU, etc is just fine mate.

[warmachine]

well you'd probly be looking at a M/B from the ASUS P5Q range ? skip the normal p5q, get the pro or better, and prty sure they only got 1 ide, think it about $110gbp for pro ?
ram probly go with some corsair or ocz ? 2gb ddr2 800mhz cost about $40gbp
geforce 9500gt about $40gbp or ati 4650 $50gbp
and cpu the e5200 $80gbp or if you can dish out a bit more the e7300 $100gbp or 8400 $140gbp
dunno how correct pricing is, check the prices on some online shop

[broona]

I'd go with warmachine on this one.

Asus P5Q Pro - http://www.ebuyer.com/product/145751

4gb OCZ DDR2 - http://www.ebuyer.com/product/146049

Intel E7300 - http://www.ebuyer.com/product/150186

Ati HD4670 - http://www.ebuyer.com/product/150851

Comes to £290 with next day delivery.

If you want to spend a little less, you could buy a cheaper graphics card, but the 4670 is so much better than anything else at that price range or below that it's the only one I'd recommend.

[blacksheep]

no real point getting 4gb ram unless you're running a 64bit OS as windows will only address ~ 3.25gb of it. If you're doing a lot of video/graphic/audio work it might be worth looking at a quad core cpu, it's going to be about £140 for that but could be worth it depending on what you're doing/how many things you're doing at once.

[broona]

no real point getting 4gb ram unless you're running a 64bit OS as windows will only address ~ 3.25gb of it. If you're doing a lot of video/graphic/audio work it might be worth looking at a quad core cpu, it's going to be about £140 for that but could be worth it depending on what you're doing/how many things you're doing at once.

At £33 for 4gb, there's no real point in getting any less than that either, and 3gb is still FAR better than 2gb, especially if you're running Vista, I can vouch for that!

I agree that a quad core can be better for multitasking though, but my spec was just trying to stick to budget.

[Pegasus]

Many thanks to warmachine & broona, I ended up with the following...

ASUS P5Q3 (nobody had the P5Q Pro in stock)
Intel E8400
3GB Corsair DDR3 (matched)

That took me to £330 all in, and a mate gave me a GeForce 7300.

Karma & DF dollars to the pair of you.