£2000-£3000 for new pc can anyone give me some advice

System Overview

Custom Coloured Cases: *No Custom Colour Required*

Case: Coolermaster RC-1100 Cosmos S (Sport) Black Full Tower Case Silent w o PSU

CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 Wolfdale Core S775 3.0 GHz 1333MHz 6MB Cache Retail

CPU Coolers: NorthQ Siberian Tiger Liquid Cooling AMD Intel with 120mm Ceramic NorthQ Fan control. Retail

Overclocking: 3XS System Core-Logic Overclocking*10 - 20%*

Memory: 2GB (2x1GB) CorsairTwinX XMS3 DDR3 PC3-14400 (1800) 240 Pin Non-ECC Unbuffered CAS 7-7-7-20 XMP, 2 selected

NVIDIA VGA-The Way It's Meant To Be Played™: 1GB XFX 9800 GX2 PCI-E 2.0 Mem 2000MHz GDDR3 GPU 600MHz Stream 256 2x DL DVI-I HDMI

Cooling Fans: 120mm Coolermaster Internal Case Fan with GREEN LED, 6 selected

System Drives: 750 GB Samsung HD753LJ Spinpoint SATA II 7200 rpm 32MB Cache 8.9 ms NCQ, 2 selected
in raid 1 mirrored

Floppy Drive Flash - Card Readers & Writers: Heisei Black Floppy Disk +Int Combo All in 1 Card Reader Fits 3.5" Bay USB2

Blu Ray Writer: LG GGW-H20L Super Multi Blu-Ray Writer & HD-ROM Reader - SATA Retail kit

DVD Writer: Samsung SH-S203P RSMN Lightscribe SATA 3 Bezels + Nero Retail

Sound Card: Creative SoundBlaster X-Fi Xtreme Gamer Fatal1ty Professional

Gaming Network Card: *On Board Network Card Only*

Edimax EW-7718Un 802.11n *Draft "n" v2.0* 300Mbps Wireless USB adapter

Operating system: Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate 64Bit

Software - DVD Decoding: NVIDIA DVD - Bronze edition - Dolby 2.1

Software Security: Kaspersky Internet Security v7.0 UK Edition Single Disk - 1 year - 3 User - OEM

Gaming Keyboard : Logitech G15 Gaming Keyboard USB Wired Silver Black New Built In GamePanel™ LCD

Gaming Mouse Option: Logitech G5 Laser Mouse 2000 dpi USB 1.1 2.0 7 Buttons Black

Speakers: Creative GigaWorks T20 2.0 Speakers 28W RMS Retail Hi-End

Extended Warranty: Extended Warranty (Insurance-Backed) - 2nd and 3rd Year On-Site Service* Covers Upto £2000 See Information for Systems above this.



or change the ram to 4gb of 1600mhz and up the cpu to a q9450 for same price of 3k?
what you guys think?

 

The sound card you want to use is not very good; creative sound cards are notorious for terrible driver support, bloated features and unstable with a wide range of associated hardware. Considering the amount of money you’re willing to spend on your computer the HT Omega Claro Plus+ and Asus Xonar are much better sound cards when paired with Klipsch 2.1 Promedia speakers. If you have to use a Creative product the AuzenTech Auzen X-Fi Prelude has the X-Fi chipset and better driver support in Vista.

 

As a X-fi owner, I can spend all day talking about how horrible the sound card is. I am a shamed at many review sites, including this one (probably paid by Creative), for saying it's anything above 5/10. And I think every X-fi owner will agree with this.

The drivers are so bad, I keep changing between my X-Fi to my motherboard onborad sound card, As for some reason it magically decide to stop working, or the drivers crashes (I had this with WinXP SP2 Vista32 and 64-bit, and Vista 64-bit SP1). Sure the sound on my onboard, sounds like everything coming out from Transformers, however it works.

 

I haven't had any problems with my X-Fi Gamer card... runs my 5.1 system fine, and sounds good whilst it's at it.

 

Hey guys I think a lot of you are missing the point here. All this guy wants is a reccommendation of a pre-built computer within his budget for £3000. There is no point telling him to build his own as he doesn't want to nor is there any point trying to save pennies as he is very willing to pay £3000.

Find a top spec computer, agree on it and offer this advice to bobreece.

Bobreece, personally if you have £3000 to spend use £1500 on a computer and the ohter £1500 on a bigger/another monitor and a decent sound system and perhipials.

 

Err SKULLTRAIL!!!!!


No really build your own and go the Skulltrail route.....

 

Still think my Vadim spec in the first couple posts was perfect.

 

Have to agree with that to be honest.

 

not keen on vadim seems very very over priced compared to scan. what would be the best monitor for my system was thinking anywhere from a 19inch widescreen to a 22inch widescreen but nothing over 22inch

 

If you're limiting yourself to a 22", then at least get that much. Anything smaller will be like looking at the world through a mail slot.

I plan on getting my brother an Acer AL2216Wbd in the next few weeks; while I've never used this particular monitor I've been impressed with the Acers I've seen. Basically, when looking for monitors, the most important things are a contrast ratio of at least 700:1 (1000:1 is preferred), a viewing angle greater than 170 degrees, and 16.7 million colors. Believe it or not, a low brightness is actually a good idea as well - many monitors are far too bright, even at their dimmest setting.

 

am only used to a 17 inch monitor

 

Bob - is physical desk space the limiting factor in your monitor size?
If not, and you're spending £3000 on a top-notch PC, Go for a 24" chap. They're higher resolutions than the 22" Monitors - 1920x1200 istead of 1650x1020 and things will be a lot clearer. With the budget you have, driving it in the latest games shouldn't be a problem either.

As for the PC, I priced this up on www.cyberpowersystem.co.uk - a bit expensive, but a fairly good system I think?

£2310.00 ex. VAT
£2714.25 in. VAT

Case: CoolerMaster Cosmos S Gaming Tower Case w/ Side-Panel Window (Original Color)
CPU: (Quad-Core)Intel® Core™ 2 Quad Q6600 @ 2.4GHz 1066FSB 8MB L2 Cache 64-bit
Motherboard: (3-Way SLI & QX9650 Support) Asus P5N-T Deluxe nForce 780i SLI Mainboard FSB1333 DDR2 3 x PCIe x16 SATA RAID w/ USB2.0, IEEE1394, & 7.1Audio
Memory: (Req.DDR2 MainBoard)4GB (2x2GB) PC6400 DDR2/800 Dual Channel Memory (OCZ Gold w/ HeatSpreader)
Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTX 768MB 16X PCI Express Video Card (XFX Extreme Edition Geforce 8800 GTX 768)
Video Card 2: NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTX 768MB 16X PCI Express Video Card (XFX Extreme Edition Geforce 8800 GTX 768)
Hard Drive: Single Hard Drive (1TB SATA-II 3.0Gb/s 32MB Cache 7200RPM HDD)
Data Hard Drive: 1TB SATA-II 3.0Gb/s 32M Cache 7200RPM Hard Drive
Optical Drive: LG GGW-H20L 6X INTERNAL SUPER MULTI BLUE BLU-RAY DISC REWRITER & HD DVD-ROM DRIVE (Black Color)
Optical Drive 2: LiteOn LH-20A1H 20X Double Layer DVD±RW Super Allwrite + Lightscribe Technology (Black Color)

Need a Monitor to go with it though.

 

I would definatly go for the 22inch, if you where just using a 17 which I assume is 1280x1024, or a 19inch which is going to be 1440x900 right? If you where to use either of them then there really wouldnt be any point in getting more than 1 8800GTX or 9800GX2.

If you go with a 22inch, not only will it look really really good on your desk next to your monstor system, but it would really make good use for the 9800GX2 or maybe even 2 of them.

Also looking at your system above, are you going to use the bluray drive. If not you could get rid of it.

As a rough guide, go for a qaud, go for 4gb of ram whether it be ddr2 or ddr3, and get 1 9800GX2. then the rest is up to you (and because I cant be bothered to spec it, hehe)

EDIT: Badders system is about spot on

 

pfff 24inch..
Get this!
http://www.trustedreviews.com/displays/review/2007/04/12/NEC-MultiSync-LCD2690WUXi/p1

Also, Acer monitor sucks, on black they don't show the same light level everywhere on the screen. Not having this is the the pure basic of a good screen.

 

That's nearly as thick as a CRT!!!

 

how about this Apple HD 30inch
it's THE monitor to get if you've got money to burn

that monitor plus 2 8800GTX be well worth your money

 

Dell offers a 30" monitor with better color reproduction for $600 less.

At any rate, he's interested in playing Crysis. I read a recent review (if I can remember where it was, I'll update this post to include it) which stated that there is no single card, nor 2, 3, or 4-way SLI system currently available which can play Crysis at 2560x1600 at full settings at more than 12 frames per second. I don't think it's entirely a hardware limitation, and some of the blame lies in the drivers, so it might improve shortly...but it's still there.

 

Have you seen the response time for that monitor. It really isnt for games. Though the resolution would make sure that games would run nice and slowly so maybe ghosting isnt an issue

 

yeah, Dell monitors are also good. but it's a Dell.......

for Crysis, 8800GTX in Sli will max 24inch resolution no problem. and almost all LCD monitors can do a notch below its standard resolution with little scaling problem (at least that's the case with my LG and my friend's Dell)