Building a new system for gaming and 3D

[jonoshea]

Hi Everyone

I'm thinking of building a new system and was wondering if anyone could give any advice.

I like to play games and also do a bit of 3D work, I'm not really sure what I need to be up to date and futureproofed to some extent. I'd like to be able to build a half decent system for under £1000 if that's possible?

The thing is I recently looked into upgrading my graphics card and was told that my CPU would bottleneck it and I'd really need to upgrade it, and the whole system basically! Here's my specs

Intel Pentium 4 D 940 cpu 3.2Ghz
Motherboard: intel i945p/pl/g/gz
Graphics: ATi Radeon x1900 xtx 512MB
Sound: Creative Xfi Xtreme Sound Blaster
RAM: 2x 1GB Kingston DDR2 PC-4300 266Mhz
Hard Drive: 2 x 250GB WD SATA RAID 0
CD/DVD: Dell installed, 16x speed DVD+/-R/W (I think)
PSU: 375W
Windows version: XP Professional SP3
Drivers: Latest CCC 9.3, tried to update audio but sound stopped working so rolled back driver!

Any help appreciated

 

[jpdykes]

Hi Jono,

Have a look at this thread:
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/page-257075_13_0.html

It is the forum "what parts should I choose" thread.

As for recommendations, see what you can do with this:
- Intel i7 920
- X58 motherboard
- Triple channel DDR3 RAM (those three will probably be ~£600)

- Read some reviews on graphics cards, look at GTX 260 / ATi 4870. Also check if your 3D programs use NVidia CUDA GPU acceleration, that would probably sway your choice.

- WD 640Gb is often recommended for HDD
- New PSU - Corsair are good, see what you can find
- Case
- Windows Vista 64bit

Not sure if that will quite stay under your budget but give it a shot and get back on the forum again.

Jeremy

Edit: If you are looking for a screen as well the above won't stay under budget. You need to be going for Core 2 Duo / Quad.

 

[jonoshea]

Hi

Here's something i put together on Newegg, any good? Would I be able to use my old pc case? It''s a Dell 9150... would i be able to build it fairly easy myself?

[/URL][/img]

Thanks

 

[jonoshea]

Hi Jono,

Have a look at this thread:
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/page-257075_13_0.html

It is the forum "what parts should I choose" thread.

As for recommendations, see what you can do with this:
- Intel i7 920
- X58 motherboard
- Triple channel DDR3 RAM (those three will probably be ~£600)

- Read some reviews on graphics cards, look at GTX 260 / ATi 4870. Also check if your 3D programs use NVidia CUDA GPU acceleration, that would probably sway your choice.

- WD 640Gb is often recommended for HDD
- New PSU - Corsair are good, see what you can find
- Case
- Windows Vista 64bit

Not sure if that will quite stay under your budget but give it a shot and get back on the forum again.

Jeremy

Edit: If you are looking for a screen as well the above won't stay under budget. You need to be going for Core 2 Duo / Quad.

Look at the list of stuff I found above, I already have a decent HDD and external 1TB, also methinks my case might be ok? Any thoughts?

 

[jonoshea]

Also, is there any point in getting 6gb of ram? I thought Vista only supported 4? The motherboard can apparently take 24gb?? Whats that about?

John

 

[shortstuff_mt]

The 4GB limit doesn't have anything to do with Vista. It's a 32-bit OS limit. You will need a 64-bit OS to fully use 4GB of RAM.

Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium SP1 64-bit for System Builders - OEM
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832116488 $99.99

 

[Helloworld_98]

that cpu won't go with that mobo

 

[geofelt]

The Q9550 you listed is not compatible with a X58 motherboard. The cpu of choice is an i7 920 which is actually cheaper and performs better.
The preferred X58 motherboards are from asus, gigabyte and evga. There are others, but check them out carefully.

 

[jonoshea]

is this better?