Hi folks, I'm thinking of making the jump to core2 setup as my my daughter's pc has given up the ghost (and was struggling anyway, it was an old P3-500), so she'll get most of my kit and I get a nice new quieter and smaller machine. I'm a bit out of touch though, so wondered what you knowledgeable types out there thought of this for about £480 (anything you think I should add or change): Intel Core 2 Duo E6400 Shuttle SD32G2 Socket 775 Barebones 1GB PC5300 Elixir DDR2 320GB Seagate 7200.10 SATA2 (3Gb/s) (and keeping my existing floppy, dvdwriter and external peripherals) I don't do really hardcore gaming but do a fair bit of photo & video editing/encoding if that helps. I wasn't planning on getting a new graphics card to start off with as it comes with graphics built in, but I not sure how to tell how good it'll be. It says: "Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 950 (GMA950) with PCI-E x1 improved bandwidth, features 333MHz graphics core DX8/DX9 support and enhanced 3D performance Dynamic Video Memory Technology (DVMT) 3.0, shared Memory max. 224MB" Any idea how to compare this to the card in my current PC, for example (Ati Radeon 9600 Pro Advantage 128Mb) ? Many thanks!
It will be a difference but its still pure pants for intergrated gfx card. Actually most intergrated stuffs are only good for the basics. If you need graphical power then i'd suggest to upgrade to a independant card but if all you are doing is 2D work then it should be fine. As for super quiet HDD's go for Samgsung Spinpoint series as they are the best in that department. Other than that it looks cool. Tho what i'd suggest is getting 2GB of ram minium if your doing hefty vid/editing work. Also there is a high chance that the intergrated gfx card will take a chunk of ram for its uses, so go with 2GB.
real nice rig 2gigs of ram is nice if your editing large files A 9600pro will prob be faster than the 950
I have to admit that I wasn't sure about the PSU - the Shuttle only has a 250W in. Isn't the HX520 too big for a Shuttle XPC though?
I've heard only bad things about Elixir ram.. But then again I guess it was about DDR and not DDR2. You may want to look for something else.
Thanks for the feedback guys - anyone else know of any problems with Elixir DDR2 memory (just in case)?
I would switch the CPU to an E6300. Its identical to the E6400 but clocked slightly lower and you could save a little cash and OC the CPU slightly if you felt the need for more power. No real comments on the shuttle as I've not had any experience with it. Try putting 'Shuttle SD32G2 review' into Google and having a read for user opinions. Might also give you an idea about how good the built-in GFX is. Memory, I would avoid Elixir. I've had bad experiences with it in the past too. I'd get Corsair Value Select memory, excellent stuff and excellent warranty direct from Corsair. I'd also look into 2GB if the budget allows, depending on how large the images are you edit. HDD should be fine. That's the new perpendicular recording model IIRC so should in theory be more reliable than other drives. Samsung Spinpoints are also very good. I'd look for something with a 16MB cache tbh. Shouldn't be much of a price premium on them. Seperate GFX, maybe consider an ATi X1300 or something?