Hardware What Hardware Should I Buy? - Dec 2008

Hell yes!

Go for the biggest screen available that doesn't look piss to you in the shops.

 

I think you might have just started another one of those 'is bigger always better?' discussions.
What I've learned so far is the following:

If you're just gaming, follow Xtra. (TN+ panel)
If you're doing stuff like working with images/videos a lot, rather go for a smaller, more expensive but better screen. (IPS, PVA, ...)

 

very easy, to my knowledge you still need a floppy disk (and drive) to set up raid on sata disks in windows xp, but that's about it.

For a long time I used 2 36gb raptors in raid as my os drive. Then I switched to 1 76gb raptor + 500 gig storage drive and eventually I'll be jumping to the newest raptor or maybe a SSD.

in terms of disabling defrag? in a stock xp install it's already disabled you have to either set up the schedule or manually defrag the drive. Not that defragging will really do/ hurt anything.

 

What makes you think I'd install XP on the premium system? I'd be installing Vista x64 (I was under the impression that Vista defrags in the background by default), and depending on which motherboard I get, I may not even have a floppy connector.

 

With vista you don't need to do anything at all to get raid running, go in bios, enable raid, then enter raid config utility, set up raid as you wish, reboot with boot from cd as first boot option and install vista as usual.

 

I've just finished ordering the "affordable" PC piece for piece. I was lucky enough to find some Palit 4850 Sonic cards so I got that over the powercube, but otherwise went for your recommended setup.

Picking parts used to be a huge job, with this monthly feature it only took me a few days to finalise my shopping.

The addition of the displays at the end is magic too, although I cannot find an FP241W anywhere here, so had to go for the Dell 2408WFP instead.

Can't thank you guys enough.

 

Interestingly the Palit just went up 8 quid on Scan.
The ASUS one is still 113£ and pre-order. HiS (120£) and Sapphire (127£) both on stock.
I think my christmas money will go to an e-tailer for a new graphics card as my 8800GTS/640 seems to die slowly.

Any comments if I should invest the 20-25£ more to get a 1GB though I think it's not worth it just for FarCry2 and maybe 1-2 FPS in other titles. Gaming on a 22" 1680x1050 here btw.

 

Love the series, but I noticed that the us price link for the Noctua cooler actually brings up a page with the NH-U9B, not the NH-U12P.

 

just out of interest for the affordable system wouldnt a p43 board make a better choice than a p31 one?

 

Find us one for a good price and we'll certainly consider it!

 

The Big VS Small monitor is a difficult one.... as usual, no graphicscards on the earth can deliver good enough framerates for big screens, unless you have 3-4 in tri-sli or crossfire. I have a 22" wide, and an ATI4870, and by no means does it deliver the framerates i want in either Crysis, Age of Conan or Fallout 3. My friends laugh at me when i play games with black bars on the side to get 1280x1024 resolution. Playing counter-strike on widescreens is something i also can't get used too.
I say go with lower resolution and crank up the AA

I have had something like the "High-end" setup for a year or two now, except for the graphics cards of course.

 

well the asus p5ql p43 range starts at £55 on scan, tho it is the budget board of the budget range so i doubt it is that feature/connector rich...

 

I've got the mobo/cpu/cooler from this article and there all working fantastically (except the cooler fan is flakey but is being replaced by ebuyer without me having to send the old one back - score) Got it running at 3.125GHz, on stock voltage effectively passively cooled in my antec P180 case, idle temps ~44, full load mid 60's with the rear fan on min and the roof on medium, once i get a working fan i'll be letting the cpu fly!

Thanks for the awesome recommendations, that gigabyte board is awesome and the only thing missing is firewire connectivity, now where did I put that pci card........

 

The SSDs for the premium system are 2.5 inch drives, so they need a mounting kit to go into most tower cases. I couldn't find any such mounting kits at local stores, so I finally ordered this one: http://www.startech.com/item/SATA35252X-35-Bay-to-Dual-25-SATA-HDD-Adapter.aspx

If your next set of recommendations still include 2.5 inch SSDs, please also provide a link for buying such a mounting kit (or did you expect to put the SSDs in that Cooler Master case loose?)