Lol the fact is he will say he's using XP.. and he's just a tit....
its not a pricey setup these days either so nothing to drool over would cost about 700/800 to build that..
I only played 300 for my setup.. and it does the trick no bother, and has done for a solid year now overclocked without 1 problem.Its only going to cost me max of £500 for basically a whole new setup that will match a lot of the 800/900 systems with just a little overclocking... best way to go about it, why pay £300 for a CPU that has quad core 3.0GHZ say ( for instance ) when you can buy one for 100 and @ 2.3 and OC to 3.0 with top components... the only difference you will see is in transferring speeds / zipping speed due to a little less on the cache. When it comes to GFX if im going to also play Mir on my new setup when i get it. Im a bit worried about getting a 4780 X2 atm as my g/f's brother just got one today and has had a lot of problems, they may be due to his new PSU being faulty tho as he had to upgrade for the power hungry beast of a card. By im not sure if the newer generation of stream processes works with older games, ive read of people getting this card and in older games just getting a white screen.. but i will be testing it when he's up and running and if any of you arent sure also i will post back to let you know the outcome..
CPU -
For any of you who are building these days and are either overclockers or not.. in my opinion there is no need for Quad for atm.. dual core will give you much better performance / value compared to quad core as it is @ least £200+ for a decent quad core spec from intel and i wouldnt touch the AMD quads atm as they havent released anythin impressive yet.. where as if you got for dual you can get a very nice spec CPU for around £120/130 with Intel and an amazing £80 for the AMD x2 6000+ 3.0 Dual core.
MOTHERBOARD -
When it comes to motherboards i would always suggest either Asus or DFI.. in my experience they have always giving great quality parts both in lower and top range products.. i would always advise to get a top spec motherboard.. this is they main component afterall and if they isnt running to a fine tune.. all the rest of the components wont get a full crack at it..
RAM -
Ram is a dodgy one these days with more manufacturers bringing out very nice spec'd/quality ram i personally always stick with the faithful Corsair brand.. always have great quality and great performance RAM, im looking forward to trying the Dominator ram and the price is great these days..
http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebProductId=632575 .. but dont forget * going back to the first part * if you are using 4GB of ram, you need to run Vista as XP only reads up to 3.5 GB.
GFX -
GFX the best part of your comp.. we all know these days the 4870 X2 is.. no doubt the best card in the world.. and in Xfire its just crazy.. if you have the £350 for one i would strongly recommend it, but.. if your looking for value / performance.. you cant look past the 4850.. for around £100 / £120 it has great performance.. and when you compare the Nvidia price range alt, the 8800GS or 9800 the performance is pretty close but thats really a personal choice on what you prefer if you ask me. Alough i would suggest if you are going for a 9800 look at the GTX+.
PSU -
To run these top end card you do need a nice bit of power.. but what they dont tell you is you also need a good quality PSU, i found this out with my X1950XT when i got it, my 550W PSU just couldnt run it for any length of time and i couldnt find out why till i found a forum that clearly stated a letter from ATI saying you need at least 28amps going through the 12V rail to run this card.. so i had a look and found my current PSU, Corsair VX 550W, it has a decent 41 AMP going through the 12V good for mid range cards these days, if your going top end i would suggest the TX range.. a lot more power from them, and the quality is stunning on them.
Case -
But dont forget about your cooling, if your going budget i would tell you to get a Antec 900 or i can say myself is a great case Xclio Propeller, Massive fan is pretty quite, and i also have 2 12cm fans and there isnt much noise, great cooling, and it looks mint with the 36cm fan on the left side of the case.
http://scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebProductId=584953.
Right im gonna shut up now this post must be massive and might actually be pointless.. but dont flame me im just giving you my opinon on what you can get for you money these days and what i think you should look for in a good value / performance or top end system.
/Sic