PSD99 needs to upgrade

[psd99]

I have decided it is time after all this time. My current main machine is unreliable and deserves to be upgraded.

I aim to rip everything out and leave in the hard drives and 2 dvd rw drives.
I was thinking of getting the Coolermaster Cosmos but I am going to stick with my Chiftech Tower for now.

Budget is a generous £450

I need the following:

1. New motherboard - needs 6-8 sata slots, inbuilt wifi, 2 pci cards,(one for my current tv card another for an eventual sound card) at LEAST 1 IDE (aim to put my 2 dvd rw drives but don't know how to add my IDE hdds), and a silent board solution.

2. New DDR2 Ram (2gb)

3. New PSU - 500 W and modular

4. New CPU - the plan was to go Intel quad core but I am still considering dual core.

5. New graphics Card - Silenced or fanless

6. New CPU Fan - Some sort of Silenced Zalman fan who have served me so well over the years.

I aim to obtain a system that is silent, full of storage and a system that has an ample amount of speed.

First challenge is to find the right motherboard so far here is my suggestion:

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/143227

 

[psd99]

p.s admin please change my thread title and take away the ' and s thanks so it reads

PSD99 needs to upgrade.

 

[itsme]

Here you are This will do the job for you no problem. A good company to deal with also.

 

[Becky]

p.s admin please change my thread title and take away the ' and s thanks so it reads

PSD99 needs to upgrade.

Done

 

[Waynos_Face]

YOu should be able to put a real good system together for about £400, not sure on that board though, cheaper options available, without sacrificing power and performance.

Hiper & Thermaletake both do a 500W ish Modular PSU.

Hard Drives are cheap.

I know i recommend them all the time but they really are very good.

ARIA. Have a look in the superspecials, you are allowed one per order and can save a packet.

MSI P45 & Zalman silent CNPS9500 £110
Intel Q6600 G0 Stepping £105
2GB Patriot Extreme £24
Thermaltake 500W Modular £54
750GB Samsung 32mb cache £51

Don't know what kind of graphics card you need whether powerful or not.

The motherboard isn't wireless but a belkin pci card is a good idea.

 

[psd99]

Hi

Thanks Sexy Bex

Thanks itsme

and thanks Waynos - I'll check out Aria. The reason I would like inbuilt wlan is to save myself a PCI card slot but that might be an idea that I would scrap if the board has coaxial for sound.

The graphics card doesn't have to be that powerful I don't do much gaming I mainly watch videos and watch TV through the card. This PC is used for occasional DVD making, surfing net and it is the hub of my media so it streams it and plays it across the house.

Hard drives do not come into the equation I got all of them sorted. I am using my existing ones.
Out of your suggestions I will take a look into the Zalman CPU fan, PSU and the memory.
I was thinking Gigabyte or Asus for my board are MSI any good?

 

[Waynos_Face]

Yeah nothing wrong with MSI mate.

 

[psd99]

I want to get the ball moving would it be wise to buy the parts seperately? If I were what kind of combinations would be good?
Motherboard and Memory
CPU fan and CPU
PSU + Graphics card



Doubt I can afford it all at once.
I might end up buying it from different places but I think ebuyer will be used a lot for their FREE delivery.

 

[psd99]

Yeah nothing wrong with MSI mate.

Had their boards in the past then?

Gosh I was tempted to stip this PC, sell it on part by part and then buy but I think I will do that at the end.
I can't sleep at night when this thing isn't on or working!

 

[floppybootstomp]

MSI make good boards, if a little lacklustre. I've also had two crap out on me several years ago, I haven't bought another one since because of that.

Current favourite motherboards are Asus, Gigabyte and DFI but PSD99 probably won't buy DFI cos they cost lots

Asus make quiet boards, many have passive cooling, including the one in my sig.

Beware Hiper PSU's they are cheap and nasty, over-rated, under-powered and prone to failure.

I shall have a think on this and post after I've showered, I'm covered in brick dust

Oh, and unless you're a cruncher or severely into multi-tasking, go dual core and save money.

 

[psd99]

Conflicting about Hiper there but I think I would go for an Enermax or a Cosair power supply providing it is modular saving some space and patience.

Well truth be told in this situation (i'm not thinking about stamps) I am paying very close attention to a motherboard. Price doesn't bother me much on this part of the upgrade it is the nucleus of any setup. It isn't easy to upgrade this so the decision is a key. Why are DFI so expensive then?

Well Gigabyte I am infatuated with, Asus I dislike for their branded bioses (I know you can turn off the adverts) as for DFI not dealt with them much probably because I am cheap and cheerful.

 

[floppybootstomp]

Enermax; Tagan; Corsair are all good, there are others that are good. OCZ also good and competitively priced which should suit you. Avoid Antec.

DFI cost a little more because they're made to a high standard, have nice little touches such as onboard switches for the on-off switch and bios reset and they supply a cartload of goodies and accessories with each product. Technical support is also good.

My next build will probably be with a DFI board and my last Socket A system had a DFI board. That system is still running, btw, it's the rig I have with multi hard disk caddies where I can try out different OS's including Linux distros.

I haven't a clue what you mean about Asus supplying bios's with adverts, I've never seen one and I have three Asus boards, all with latest bios.

 

[psd99]

ahh nice one I'll look into DFI what I meant with Asus is they always have their LOGO somewhere and it's agitating!

 

[psd99]

DFI what do you think of this one:

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/147779

It has got TWO IDE CHANNES! WOW that is perfect

 

[psd99]

How comes on ebuyer not many people have left a review for any DFI boards? mmmmmm

 

[psd99]

IS esata any good?

does anyone use it?

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/145748

Don't worry just bookmarking some suggestions can come back to it later.

 

[floppybootstomp]

That board only has one IDE slot but as you know each IDE slot takes two devices so you could use your optical drives with it.

You're going to be hard pushed to find a current day motherboard with two IDE slots, it's old technology now.

It's about time you broke from the past and junked your IDE drives and bought one or two large capacity SATA drives.

The board itself is good but is looking a little long in the tooth now.

The reason there aren't many DFI board reviews at e-buyer is because e-buyer is frequented by people looking for cheap, not quality and as I mentioned DFI boards are not cheap.

Here's a link to the board at DFI's site, giving more details:

Link

 

[psd99]

Cheers yes my bad only one IDE channel. You are right Flopps as ever not many boards have got 2 IDE left.
Well I would ditch the IDE drives but I would have to replace them with SATA ONES. Right now I got 3 IDE Drives in the machine I wish to upgrade just a little shame for me to have to ditch them.

I think I will have to use my two DVDRW drives for the IDE channel on the board and then research into getting some sort of PCI E IDE expansion card.

 

[floppybootstomp]

How much total storage do you have on your three IDE drives?

You can get 2 x 250Gb SATA drives for less than £60.00.

You were willing to pay £110.00 for an old technology motherboard, you can get a modern motherboard for the same price or even less that will suit you.

Then there's the cost of the IDE expansion card to consider.

You're going to have to change your mindset and your priorities if you want to build an up to date system.

Why spend a considerable sum unless you have the latest technology?

The way you're going you're going to have an outmoded system that won't be a great deal better than what you already have.

And you can always make a few pennies selling your IDE drives. Not much, I'll admit, but every little helps, as they say.

 

[psd99]

Well at the moment the OS is installed on the 250GB IDE but I already have another 250GB SATA drive that I pulled out of another machine.

Then I have got 1 X 120gb and 1 X 160GB drive in current machine. I reckon if I could get that new board from ebay working on my computer number 2 I could put all the IDE drives in that machine. Yes I will ditch the idea having IDE drives in my new build good idead.

The decision is to find the right board now
the links I have provided all have a price range of around £110 it is about making the decision now. Is esata worth it?