my limit is £800 and i need the following for a gaimg computer (COD4) CPU - Dualcore(is quadcore wasted on gaming) Motherboard - Anyone that can support 4gb ram Memory - 4gb Hard Drive - minimum 150gb Video Card - 8800gt? Computer Case - gloss black with 5 5.25" drive bays and a plain rectangular window with no fan in the window Power Supply - anyone CD/DVD Drive - anyone Watercooling - anything that's internal and will fit in a drive bay(Bigwater SE?) fan controller - ? lighting contoller - ?
Intel E8400 Abit IP35 Pro / Darkraider 4Gb DDR2 (Speed depends on money available) 8800GT / 8800GTS Enermax / Corsair / Antec / Seasonic / PC Power & Cooling PSU, 500W+ CD/DVD - whichever, they're all very similar
Look for other people asking for hardware suggestion on their new computer on the product that I mention... Sorry but it gets annoying to type everything back. PSU: Corsair HX 620W. More than what you need, 5 year warranty, perfect review score everywhere, modular cables, excellent quality, one of the quietest PSU you can possibly find today. OS: Vista 64-bit. Take full advantage of your multi-core PSU, and take full advantage of your 64-bit CPU. Don't limit it for no reason with a 32-bit OS. Moreover if you have 4GB you dont' have teh choice to go with Vista 64-bit. DVD-RW: Anything is good, I have an ASUS one on SATA. I know SATA speed is useless here, but it is the same price as IDE. And SATA cables are thinner to easier to cable manage, and doesn't reduce air flow. Unless you burn DVD's everyday, anything will do. Case: Get the Antec SOLO or the Antec P180/P190 series. I say go with quiet computing. Both cases feature great sound damping technology for your HDD and your overall case with sound damping panels. They both have great professional, modern looks, however nothing super flashy. Excellent for any room. both cases has excellent review scores, and will support your Geforce 8800GT (not the Ultra or GTX for the SOLO without a little tiny case modification). Fan in side panel/window, is useless... these are nothing more then noise maker. Real, well engineered cases like the one mentioned above don't need such idiocy. And if you want watercolling, YOU REALLY don't need it. Lighting/fan control panels, a waist of money. Everything is temp controlled these days, so no worries. As for case fan, minimum speed is more than what you need. Again I remind you, that you seams to want a water cooling system. As for the lights... everyone knows how a computer works... your waisting money for nothing. In fact I personally will laugh at you, your waisting electricity, and it will bug the hell out of you when you will be running your comp 24/7. Window panel, poor sound damping... a simple steal door form a basic case does a better job. Again we all know how a computer works, there is nothing interesting inside, you are waisting your money. Spend that money on a more powerful computer parts, or save it for future upgrades. HDD: Western Digital 7200RPM 16MB Buffer SATA-II HDD. Or a Western Digital Raptor 10 000RPM HDD for your applications and Windows, and a normal HDD. That will make your computer very fast. You will be bale to offord that HDD is you don't buy useless stuff like lights and windowed side panel.
Have a look in the £600 pc thread that is also up here, then add your choice of hard drives, optical drives and case. The raptors are, I think, outperformed by the newer 7200 rpm hard drives and are very noisy. If you want a case smaller than the huge Antecs have a look at the recently reviewed Lancool case, though all case are personal preference really.
I've just added a second 250Gb one (WD2500AAKS) as my backup drive; I am well pleased with performance and low noise. There's a 160Gb but it's not much cheaper. Gigabyte P35-DS3L is a nice little board if you don't need fancy features.
