Ok, I finally decided it's time for me to build a new PC. My current PC is not really upgradeable properly anymore.
I've always built my own and other people's systems. But during the last years I've been quite out of the loop on developments so I'd like some help and advice from you lot.

My goal is to build a new PC with a pricetag of around the €500 mark. I'm not looking for the latest and greatest, just a nicely balanced system that will be good for several years of use / upgrading. I'm not a hardcore gamer. I don't play as much games as I used to, except for LFS ofcourse. Yet, when I do play a game I want it to be smooth and looking good. I'm picky like that.
I'm what you would call a poweruser I guess. I do a lot of different things on my PC. Graphics and webdev, 3D modeling/rendering, video editing, basically anything that captures my interest. So I need an allround balanced system, not especially excelling in one aspect. Also, I would like it to be reasonably quiet without much hassle. At least less noisy than my current system, which is like an Airbus taking off (although that's probably mainly because my PSU isn't what it used to be)

This is what I have come up with until now:

Cooler Master Centurion 5 (Retail, Zwart/Zilver)
http://www.alternate.nl/html/p ... 306&showTechData=true
€59
(A friend of mine recently got this, seems pretty nice and solid) I like a clean, simple look no FnF cases.

Asus P5K (Retail, FireWire, RAID, Gb-LAN, Sound, ATX)
http://www.alternate.nl/html/p ... 054&showTechData=true
€99

Intel® Core™ 2 Quad Q6600 (Boxed, FC-LGA4)
http://www.alternate.nl/html/p ... 045&showTechData=true
€239

GeiL 1 GB DDR2-800 Kit (Retail, GX21GB6400UDC)
http://www.alternate.nl/html/p ... 054&showTechData=true
€29

Western Digital Caviar SE16 (Bulk, WD5000AAKS)
http://www.alternate.nl/html/p ... 259&showTechData=true
€89

A DVD rewriter, not sure yet
around €30

The links point to a dutch site, but the specs are clear I assume.
I'll keep using the speaker set, monitor, keyboard and such that I currently have.
I've had good experiences with Asus and WD, so these are my brands of preference. I'll be keeping one of my IDE hard drives, so an IDE channel is a must.
The hardest part is the videocard. There's so much I can't see the trees through the forest anymore.

The main questions are:

• Which graphics card would you recommend for this system?
  
• Is what I have until now pretty balanced or are there big bottlenecks, is the quad core overkill? (With a videocard I'll be exceeding my aimed price, if it's overkill I might just take a dualcore)
  
• What PSU would you recommend? Mainly in regard to noise production and power?

Thanks for reading, I would like to hear people's opinions

note: I don't know if there's a big difference in pricing compared to other countries.

you would be better of with this CPU for the same price:

http://www.alternate.nl/html/p ... Details.html?artno=HPHI37

Also, get another 1 GB of RAM.

Regarding the video card, if you want the best, buy a geforce 8800GT with 512 RAM (http://www.alternate.nl/html/p ... Details.html?artno=JBXVL1) 270 EUR

But if you want a cheaper card, for LFS at max details and most games a x1950 pro would be fine (for other games at 1280x1028, medium detail, no AA, AF), but considering the 3850 costs the same on this site (150 EUR), go for that. If you want a little better performance choose the 3870 (200EUR).

Otherwise it looks fine, though I have been told to stay away from WD hard disks, went for a hitachi instead, but it's up to you.

edit: ah and the PSU. I have a seasonic S12-II 430W. One of the most silent 12 cm fan PSU there is and it will handle your system without issues. (http://www.alternate.nl/html/p ... Details.html?artno=TN4E50)

1GB Ram with a Q6600 is a bit like a FWD V8. Yea, it is possible, but why.

GPU: 8800GT or 3870 can both be had for around $200 USD and offer Outstanding performance, so I imagine they're near your budget.

E6850 Ftw

I've tried a Quad Core and 1 GB of RAM and i would of given away my two extra cores for 2 GB of RAM no problem, it's terrible.

IMO Seagate make the best HDD's, followed by WD, Hitatchi seem to be a bit generic, and Maxtor are bottom of the heap.

i have a q6600 G0 and its great, but you need at least 2gb of ram, if you cant get an 8800gts get an 8600gts there are good cards i have one in my system, i use 4gb in my machine(with p5kc which the only big difference is ability to run ddr2 or 3) it only shows at 3.25 cos of 32bit but its good enough for me, i use ocz ram which i would highly recomend

8800GT is the best value card out atm, although if thats too much then get an ATi 3850.

oh i forgot, psu again ocz is great, i got a 600w stealthxstream, its gr8 quiet and cheap but great quality, and if you can afford the extra for a p5kc they are more future proof

edit: i have a samsung spinpoint 500gb hdd and have had no probs so far, do not touch maxtor unless you want to loose your data

Quote from andybarsblade :

E6850 Ftw

No!!!

E8400 will cost the same as the E6750 and outperform the E6850 (3.0ghz) while running cooler and yielding higher OC's. Just wait till Jan 20.

If you're going to get an 8800GT, check out cool-prices.nl and dollarshops.eu, they're much cheaper than alternate, and their stock is also quite good:

http://www.cool-prices.nl/Prod ... %20kaarten-PCI-E%20Nvidia

http://www.dollarshops.eu/index.php/cPath/1_37_42_182

Thank you all for your input

I forgot to mention two things:
- I can get another 1GB from a friend for free so I only need 1GB extra.
- Regarding the videocard, I have a widescreen TFT and I'd like to play LFS at least on 1440*900 with AA and medium to high detail.

As for the hard drive. Well, I don't mind getting something other than WD. I have had a Seagate, a Hitachi and 2 Maxtor's in the past. I'm not going anywhere near Maxtor anymore as 1 died within a year and the other one in 6 months.
I have had 3 WD's of which 2 are in my current PC both of them running with 0 problems now for about 5 years or so. I don't use the third anymore but it was working fine when I replaced it, just needed a bigger one. So although it's no guarantee I have had nothing but good experience with WD.

@csurdongulos: yes, I am in doubt about the quad core and I'm considering the E6850 as well.
Would I benefit more from the E6850 than the Q6600 because of the bigger cache?
Thanks for the info about the PSU, will definitely consider that one

@srdsprinter: I'm planning to build my new system somewhere in February so I'll keep an eye on the E8400, thanks

@Jakg: I don't know about the 8800GT. I'm sure it's a great card and I can afford it but I have to set boundaries for myself otherwise I know I'll let it go out of hand The 3850 seems like a good alternative

So, what's the situation with graphics cards atm? Are nVidia and ATI roughly on the same level? I've used nVidia the most, my latest experience with ATI wasn't too great.

@Jertje, thanks for the links, looks interesting. I haven't made my mind up yet about where I'll buy it, I'm just using alternate to browse since they have a pretty large catalog.

@James12s: Yeah I guess the P5KC would be a better choice. You mean because of the DDR3 support right?
How common is DDR3 anyway atm? Is DDR2 going to phase out any time soon?

Thanks again

DDR3 is just very expensive at the moment, my motherboard has DDR2 and DDR3 support, when the price comes down (a lot) I'll get some.

I have a sata Maxtor drive that I've had for years and it's in perfect working order, never had any problems at all. I've heard nightmare stoires about Western Digital drives (which I have now, it's great) just goes to show that it really doesn't matter which one you get. Some people will swear they are great and others that they are rubbish.

Quote from joen :

Thank you all for your input

@csurdongulos: yes, I am in doubt about the quad core and I'm considering the E6850 as well.
Would I benefit more from the E6850 than the Q6600 because of the bigger cache?
Thanks for the info about the PSU, will definitely consider that one


So, what's the situation with graphics cards atm? Are nVidia and ATI roughly on the same level? I've used nVidia the most, my latest experience with ATI wasn't too great.

regarding the CPU: you would benefit from the higher frequency, q6600 is supposed to have more cache, doesn't it? I am not sure on that one. but it is not yet worth purchasing a quad core, no games take advantage of it, especially not LFS. For the OS, dual core is enough.

Regarding GFX cards. Nvidia are ahead with their 8800 series, but ATI are somewhat cheaper with the 3850-70 cards, and the factory cooling is also better/quieter. For LFS in that resolution a 3850 with 256 ram is plenty enough, but you might want to get one with 512, just for the sake of it, not much difference in price, but could come in handy for the future.

Q6600 is a Quad, and while ATM most games only use one core, games like SupCom, Crysis and stuff like Brazil use 4 cores or more, and this is the way that games of the future will go.

make sure the second stick is exactly the same make and everything, cos for propper dual channel you need 2 idntial sticks, thats you you buy them as a pair, ddr2 is safe ftm but ddr3 with get cheaper and would be a slightly better choice i think, but not nessisery, as for the hard drives, i just know of a lot mor maxtor going wrong, samh has had several go on him, as for gfx im not an ati fan but this is a bit mor personal preferance although again my last ati experiance was not gr8, and one other thing about the cpu, make sure it is the G0 stepping

Quote from Jakg :

IMO Seagate make the best HDD's, followed by WD, Hitatchi seem to be a bit generic, and Maxtor are bottom of the heap.

I presume that excludes the Maxtor's that are made by Seagate?

Any proof that Maxtor has changed any policies regarding making drives since they were bought by Seagate?

They were still seperate companies i thought. Either way, the price difference between an AAKS or a 7200.10 drive is only a few quid from a slower Maxtor.

Well honestly i don't have any proof to hand to that effect no. But i do have 2 Maxtor drive's in my machine that are Seagtes, they are in a rack next to a branded Seagate drive and they are identical, i believe they are even detected as Seagates. It also says manufactured by Seagate on them, i know that doesn't mean anything though.

i think some maxtor are seagate made and some maxtor made, it is the maxtor made which are the problem, though im not sure how true this is

Yeah, i hear bad things about Maxtors, but i have an old 120gb Maxtor, i think it's around 6 years old, still going strong.

some do many dont

Quote from garph :

DDR3 is just very expensive at the moment, my motherboard has DDR2 and DDR3 support, when the price comes down (a lot) I'll get some.

I see, well it seems like a good idea to have DDR3 support and the P5KC is just a bit higher price with DDR3 support so I'll probably go for that.

Quote :

I have a sata Maxtor drive that I've had for years and it's in perfect working order, never had any problems at all. I've heard nightmare stoires about Western Digital drives (which I have now, it's great) just goes to show that it really doesn't matter which one you get. Some people will swear they are great and others that they are rubbish.

I know what you mean about people having different experiences with certain brands, yet it still makes me a bit reluctant. The biggest difference I noticed when going from Maxtor to WD though was that the WD was much less noisy. Although in all fairness it was a long time ago,so it could be totally different now.

Quote from csurdongulos :

regarding the CPU: you would benefit from the higher frequency, q6600 is supposed to have more cache, doesn't it? I am not sure on that one.

Yes you're right, the quad has a bigger cache, I misread

Quote :

but it is not yet worth purchasing a quad core, no games take advantage of it, especially not LFS. For the OS, dual core is enough.

That's my general feeling about it yes. If in the future quad really becomes a necessity I can always upgrade. I don't think I need it at the moment. Like I said, I'm not really a hardcore gamer.

Quote :

Regarding GFX cards. Nvidia are ahead with their 8800 series, but ATI are somewhat cheaper with the 3850-70 cards, and the factory cooling is also better/quieter. For LFS in that resolution a 3850 with 256 ram is plenty enough, but you might want to get one with 512, just for the sake of it, not much difference in price, but could come in handy for the future.

Good to know about the cooling, I'm leaning towards the 3850 at the moment.

About the Maxtor/Seagate thing, I remember that the Maxtor's I had were one of the last models before they were bought by Seagate (DX40 I believe they were called). afaik after that they basically just became rebranded Seagates. But I could be wrong.

I couldn't wait until February and this week I decided to get my new system, which I put together yesterday.
Loving it so far, I succeeded in getting it quiet without much hassle, such a difference with my old system.
I went for the P5KC, and a E6850, with a 8600GTS. I got the Seasonic PSU which is lovely. I did go over my desired budget though but it was worth it
I'm already a lot faster in LFS just because of the much smoother movement even though I myself am still a bit rusty
I can definitely recommend the Coolermaster case, it's a great value case with excellent airflow

Anyway, thanks again, your comments helped a lot

8600GTS? Well ok, I thought you get 8800GT, awesome performance for great price.....

Regarding the HD debate, the first PC Hard drive I ever bought was a 4GB Maxtor and that's still going strong 8 years or so later in this very PC.