Hi, I generally follow the "Buy a completely new computer every 3-4 years" approach, and my current computer is starting to hit the end of 4 years.
My interests have nearly completely left gaming, with me at most playing Warcraft 3 occasionally. That being said, I wouldn't mind the graphics performance at least being passable for potential future games.
There are only two things that I really want, the first being at least moderately quiet, the second being something I have been wanting for a few years, three monitors.
I would like to have a wide screen in the center, surrounded by two normal screens of the same resolution and height. I really couldn't care less about response time or quality, my current monitor is 30ms and I don't notice any problems. I have narrowed it down to the following monitors, as it seems that Dell is quite cheap:
http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/productdetail.aspx?c=us&l=en&s=bsd&cs=04&sku=320-4335
http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/productdetail.aspx?c=us&l=en&s=bsd&cs=04&sku=320-4687
I'd probbably be ok with one large monitor, but I don't like having to resize windows manually and having the bezel right in the middle of dual screens bugs me.
I was planning on running the wide screen on its own graphics card, and the two side screens on something minimal, but I will leave that up to you guys.
I am at a bit of a loss for operating system, I am probbably going to have to use XP or Vista, but I will install Linux on an older computer and see how that goes. Dx 10 compatibility would be a good idea.
The price range is pretty flexible, for the hardware only cost, 2500-3500$us would be preferable.
It will be used for almost everything, from programming to web design, and lots of multitasking, but I don't think its speed requirements will be that high, it will probbably be running eclipse, flash, mysql, a socket server (just for local testing, the old computers do the hosting) and possibly another program most of the time.
So just a quick configuration I have thrown together to get things started (I don't follow hardware all that closely)
Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 320Gb * 4 (Raid 0+1) = 320$
4Gb Ram (No idea which brand) = ~300$
Intel core 2 Duo E6700 = 340$
Intel BOXD975XBX2KR Motherboard = 250$
Video Cards:
(Preferably quiet, I have no idea what I am looking for here)
Nvidia 8600Gt 256Mb = ~170$ (The secondary card)
Nvidia 8600Gts 256Mb = ~230$ (Overkill? Underkill? Noisy?)
= 1600$
I believe those are the main components, I seem to have undershot my goal, I wasn't sure if I should be going for dual processors or not. The last time I did this was a long time ago so I was a bit shocked when I looked at the prices today.
I was looking at the Lian Li pc V1100 Silent as a case since it looks nice and it has some soundproofing, but again, I'll leave that to your judgment.
My interests have nearly completely left gaming, with me at most playing Warcraft 3 occasionally. That being said, I wouldn't mind the graphics performance at least being passable for potential future games.
There are only two things that I really want, the first being at least moderately quiet, the second being something I have been wanting for a few years, three monitors.
I would like to have a wide screen in the center, surrounded by two normal screens of the same resolution and height. I really couldn't care less about response time or quality, my current monitor is 30ms and I don't notice any problems. I have narrowed it down to the following monitors, as it seems that Dell is quite cheap:
http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/productdetail.aspx?c=us&l=en&s=bsd&cs=04&sku=320-4335
http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/productdetail.aspx?c=us&l=en&s=bsd&cs=04&sku=320-4687
I'd probbably be ok with one large monitor, but I don't like having to resize windows manually and having the bezel right in the middle of dual screens bugs me.
I was planning on running the wide screen on its own graphics card, and the two side screens on something minimal, but I will leave that up to you guys.
I am at a bit of a loss for operating system, I am probbably going to have to use XP or Vista, but I will install Linux on an older computer and see how that goes. Dx 10 compatibility would be a good idea.
The price range is pretty flexible, for the hardware only cost, 2500-3500$us would be preferable.
It will be used for almost everything, from programming to web design, and lots of multitasking, but I don't think its speed requirements will be that high, it will probbably be running eclipse, flash, mysql, a socket server (just for local testing, the old computers do the hosting) and possibly another program most of the time.
So just a quick configuration I have thrown together to get things started (I don't follow hardware all that closely)
Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 320Gb * 4 (Raid 0+1) = 320$
4Gb Ram (No idea which brand) = ~300$
Intel core 2 Duo E6700 = 340$
Intel BOXD975XBX2KR Motherboard = 250$
Video Cards:
(Preferably quiet, I have no idea what I am looking for here)
Nvidia 8600Gt 256Mb = ~170$ (The secondary card)
Nvidia 8600Gts 256Mb = ~230$ (Overkill? Underkill? Noisy?)
= 1600$
I believe those are the main components, I seem to have undershot my goal, I wasn't sure if I should be going for dual processors or not. The last time I did this was a long time ago so I was a bit shocked when I looked at the prices today.
I was looking at the Lian Li pc V1100 Silent as a case since it looks nice and it has some soundproofing, but again, I'll leave that to your judgment.
