OK, Possibly time for a new PC

OK, So i've been out of action for a while now, using a laptop with an nvidia 7600gs built in (that thing gets HOT!)

as you may have seen, I recently setup my 1.5 year old PC as a gaming system, with a 7600gs in. I screwed the system fan into the gfx card heatsing and chopped an amazing 12c off the operating temp, bringing it down to 52c during heavy usage! :D (a few days ago, this system fried a GFX card...) I was able to OC this by 25% and get smooth framerate in Test Drive Unlimited at 1600x1020! :D

So, yesterday I got some wierd sound out of my sound card. Its a few years old so I figured it was wearing out, so I default to onboard sound. System wouldnt boot!

So i'm going to guess my mobo's on its way out. The PSU is new so it's not going to be that just yet...

Since i'm out of practice, I have no idea whats actually the latest hardware is. What would I go for? I'm not specifically looking for an uber-system. I don't need SLI. though It would be nice to be able to run games at 1920x1020, I don't expect to be able to do that just yet, however, making an upgrade path available would be nice.

QUESTION: What would I go for for a decent gaming rig?

So what kit would I go for? I almost bought some 8600gts, but after looking online they actually UNDERperform compared to the 7600 I already have..... and also found out I needed a new PSU!


What I need:

Motherboard.
Processor. (IC2Ds I suppose are the best these days. Quad cores maybe, but I dont see the need just yet.)
PSU. (what would I need these days, surely not 1000w!??)
Ram.
Graphics card. (Low power yet high performance.)

The system needs to be capable of running Windows AND Ubuntu.... (My current systems can't play sound!?)

I dont want to spend £1500 on this thing, £1000 is about it. I need it to run games, not encode videos at 1h per minute....

[edit]

Note that I'll probably buy a new x360 before buying a new PC. The idea of using the PC was to save money and avoid buying the x360 ;)

Asus P5K-E WiFi Intel P35
Antec Truepower 550W (650W if you have lots of components)
Intel E6750 or quad Q6600
2GB ram (crucial are reliable)
8800GTS 640mb
Samsung Spinpoint HDDs

You can get a pukka system for £1000!

Core2DUO motherboard, with 2GB ram and processor. I had one from Novatech and was very pleased with it.

http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/products/a825x1y0z1p0s0n0m0
Let's say £270, and that's including processor and memory

Gfx card -
320mb overclocked 8800GTS. These offer really good bang/buck ratio.
http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/131673
£205

PSU -
600W will suffice. £50

HD-
Assuming your old HD isn't SATA
500Gb Samsung SpinPoint around £60 on Ebuyer.

Total:
£585 inc vat

Woo, I haven't wasted enough of your cash...
Stick it in a nice quiet case for an extra £50...
http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/112659

This will give you a rig almost identical to mine (depending which mobo you plump for). I'm currently playing Bioshock at 1300*768 with all the bells and whistles on and it's smooth as silk.

I hear nvidia have a new round of cards on the way, so you may want to wait a couple of months, but then you can always wait a little longer for the next thing...

Check out this one: YUM

http://www.meshcomputers.com/Default.aspx?PAGE=PRODUCTCONFIGPAGE&USG=PRODUCT&ENT=PRODUCT&KEY=232137

Basic unit £898.99 inc vat... (or < £30.00 per month)
includes loads of stuff.

IPete2.

my PC is 3.5 years old and going strong. I've no need to upgrade until I can actually find the time to play games! :-O

Interesting, looks like things are still cheap.

My old HDD is Sata and still going strong but I wont put off getting a new one. Hard drives have a habbit of dying on me hahaha...

Quite like the Mesh machine....

Don't need a monitor though, just the base unit will do! :D

Ta guys, that'll get me going for now, I have cought up on modern processors etc.

Mesh do some nice base units for around the £800-£1000 mark...that's where I'll be going when crysis comes out.

when I purchased mine a few months ago, I got the following:

- MSI P6N motherboard (does both SATA and 4xIDE, firewire, quad-core capable, onboard 7.1 surround sound, takes many different types & speeds of RAM
- Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 (the lowest model with 4MB cache at the time, it's a big performance jump in some applications compared with similar speed with less cache)
- Mushkin DDR2 6400, 2 x 1 GB, 800MHz (2 identical sticks can run in dual mode, so operate faster than a single large(er) stick)
- 2 x Samsung Spinpoint 500GB SATA (large, speedy, and quiet)
- Seasonic S12 Energy Plus 550W PSU. *very* quiet, high-efficiency (=less wasted heat) Not a very well known name, but they do manufacture most of the Antec PSU's in their factories as well.
- Antec Solo case (looks slick, with sound-deadening panels and suspension mounted harddrives for less vibration noise
- couple of antec tri-speed casefans, running at their lowest speed setting
- Also got a different CPU fan to keep the noise down further

the motherboad supported smart cpu fan settings, so I could set it to keep the CPU temp at a specific level (I picked 45C) It will then spin the CPU fan as slowly as it need to keep that temperature, as opposed to going full-speed and knocking of another of couple of degrees. Now my main CPU fan typically only does 300RPM, which means it's pretty much silent. If it gets busy and warms up, then the fan spins a little faster to try to keep the temperature at 45C.

I went with an ATI X1650XT video adapter, which IIRC is very close to the 7600GT performance wise. DEfinitely not top of the line, but it was in a price range that I was willing to pay, plus it was the fastest passively cooled video card I could find. (no VGA fan = less noise again)

At this point the loudest component in my machine by far is the DVD drive. It's kind of refreshing to need to look at your power light to see if your PC is actually on when you're sitting right next to it, instead of my old Pc where I could hear it loudly from the other side of the room.

Well, this is what I'm going with here:

Compucase IC8290 ATX Mid Tower (jeez, almost looks like a full tower, but it's mid surprisingly), has 2 12cm fans
ASUS P5K-E/WIFI-AP LGA 775 Intel P35 ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail
SAMSUNG Black 20X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 12X DVD+R DL 20X DVD-R 6X DVD-RW 12X DVD-RAM 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-R 32X CD-RW 48X CD-ROM 2MB Cache SATA 20X DVD±R DVD Burner - OEM
Intel Core 2 Duo E6750 Conroe 2.66GHz 4M shared L2 Cache LGA 775 Processor - Retail
Crucial Ballistix 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory - Retail
SAMSUNG SpinPoint T Series HD501LJ 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM
CORSAIR CMPSU-620HX ATX12V v2.2 and EPS12V 2.91 620W Power Supply 100 - 240 V UL, CUL, CE, CB, FCC Class B, TUV, CCC, C-tick - Retail
LOGISYS FP521 52-in-1 USB 2.0 Card Reader - Retail
Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeGamer 7.1 Channels 24-bit 96KHz PCI Interface Sound Card - Retail
EVGA 640-P2-N821-AR GeForce 8800GTS 640MB 320-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card - Retail

Seems like it may do quite decent. I'm hoping that this would be a recommended setup, IMHO.

Looks pretty nice!

Do you already have a flat panel? I'd sacrifice many other parts of a machine before going back to a CRT myself.

Well, my HDTV is what I was gonna hook this up to, and yes, it's a flat panel LCD. A JVC 32" LT-32X667, to be more precise.

I will wait until the launch of Barcellona...only to see a drop price for 'older' CPU...
It's not safe to buy new hardware in this moment (for me of course!)