Need help choosing new pc bits

Big McLargeHuge

Big McLargeHuge

New Member
Hi everyone/anyone

I'm looking at getting a new pc built but researching all the different processors, graphics cards etc just looks too daunting for someone how knows nowt about it. So i'm looking some kindly folk to offer some advice. I've put together some options using pc specialist but i'm pretty sure that i've gone a bit overkill on some of my requirements.

Basically:
Processor (CPU) AMD PHENOM II X2 555
Motherboard ASUS® M4A78LT-M
Memory (RAM) 4GB SAMSUNG DDR3 DUAL-DDR3 1333MHz (2x2GB)
Graphics Card 1GB ATI RADEON™ HD 5750
Memory – 1st Hard Disk 640GB SATA HDD 3Gb/s 640GB 7,200rpm 16MB
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive 24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER
Power Supply & Case Cooling 600w Quiet 80 Plus Quad Rail PSU + 120mm case fan
Processor Cooling Super Quiet 22dBA Triple Copper Heatpipe CPU Cooler
Sound Card Already got one (but onboard is likely to do anyway)
Networking Not considered important (not 100% sure though)
USB sockets 4 – 6 required
Firewire Could be handy in the future
OS Windows 7 64bit

No Office, Antivirus or any of that stuff needed

To be used for internet (general browsing, watching video), dvd’s, music (have a few hundred CD’s to put on it),
May use for digital video editing in the future (won’t be that much though)
Don’t really play many games (although I will most likely get Football Manager 2011)

My current one has a bit of an overheating problem and restarts a couple of times a month on average either because of overworking and/or its position. The position can’t really be moved though unfortunately so keeping a new one cool is important and opening my window further in December isn't my preferred option.

Any recommendations?
 
This system is solid, and is comparable to my best seller (I call it the SuperValue Gamer) although that uses an athlon ii x3

I'd just be cautious to not pay over $1000 without monitor, keyboard, mouse; and you'd see better performance with a hard drive with a larger cache (32 or 64 mb)

Are you building yourself, or having it built for you?
 
Thanks for replies. I'll most likely have someone build it for me. I'm not particularly looking to get 'into' computers. I know my way around one and can fix various problems but thats about all really.

Looking around, it seems like there's so much choice that i'd have to become some kind of amateur-expert to know if what i'm choosing is right for me and i just don't have that kind of interest in it.

Linkin, you mentioned unlocking cores - this doesn't sound like something i want to mess with. As they seem similar price the Athlon sounds fine (although its got 4 cores compared with 2?). Or if there's good reason i can go for the X3 (thanks rawcomputers) but the supplier i'm looking at doesn't offer it as standard.

I was hoping to reduce the package in some way to bring the cost down a little (20% would be great but doesn't seem too likely).
 
Post the specifications for the power supply you want again please. I think part of the power supply specifications were cut off. Did you mean a "PC Power and Cooling Power Supply"? What hard drive are you using for this system?

I also agree with Linkin. You can get an Athlon II 635 Quad-Core Processor for only $11 more. The extra two processor cores you get are well more than worth $11 more.
 
It wasn't the clearest was it. I just cut & pasted from the website i was using to get an idea. Anyhoo, here it is.

Power Supply & Case Cooling - 600w Quiet 80 Plus Quad Rail PSU + 120mm case fan

Processor Cooling - Super Quiet 22dBA Triple Copper Heatpipe CPU Cooler

The heatpipe thing is less than $30 but it was on this kind of thing that i was wondering if i had gone over the top.
 
It doesn't list the power supply specifications. If you really do not want to assemble your own system I would look into buying the quality custom parts yourself then paying someone to assemble the system for you. Many manufacturers cheap out on a poor quality power supply which will affect the life of your computer and system performance.

Do you know anyone who can assemble the system for you? If not you may want to get quotes from technicians around you for how much assembly would cost.
 
The difference between the Athlon and Phenom is the L3 Cache - unless you're doing alot of hi-res gaming, video editing, etc, the Athlon x3 or x4 is plenty fast. (Actually, any Athlon ii will do pretty well any task, the Phenom x4 will perform better than the Athlon x4 in benchmarks - i dare a user to actually see the difference though!)

Big McLargeHuge said:
Linkin, you mentioned unlocking cores - this doesn't sound like something i want to mess with. As they seem similar price the Athlon sounds fine (although its got 4 cores compared with 2?). Or if there's good reason i can go for the X3 (thanks rawcomputers) but the supplier i'm looking at doesn't offer it as standard.
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