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No such thing as future proofing with pc's, as soon as you leave the shop it will be outdated, but saying that as long as you are not a gamer or into animation or other high load /processing activities you should get 3 years out of it - and 320gig is too small for a hdd, a 500gig sata is only $85 so may add $20 on top of your 320g hdd or budget for a 2nd hdd later on.
Dual core v quad core
Hmmmmm now there’s an interesting question, OK so maybe not interesting but here goes anyway.
In theory a quad core will beat a dual core hands down.
Its like shoving a 2L 4pot against a 4L V8 the V8 is going to win as it simply has more CC’s. Lets not get bogged down with the analogy lest assume the engines are both petrol and both from Land Rover and the same year ;)
Anyhow the quad should win BUT at the moment most, (not all) software is not coded to specifically take into account the additional cores so what you have just done is pulled off two ignition leads. But hey it’s a V8 its still going to limp past the line first.
Then you have to consider the architecture of the board and memory, what’s happening with a quad core, presuming its fully utilized by the application, its trying to shove twice as much data down the bus as it does with a dual core. So now you have a nice fast V8 but your stuck in sand, and in sand its more about the gears and driving ability than the horses and because the dual core and quad core use the same transmission, (trust Land Rover) then you are neck and neck.
At the moment, here comes the but ………
IF software companies decide to make full use of the quad core and produce code accordingly then they just shoved the ignition leads back on and towed you out of the sand and onto tarmac, then they threw in a set of racing slicks, but land rover being land rover didn’t bother changing the transmission so it gets hot now and again but will still beat the pants of the 2L.
In reality, at the moment given that both processors are about the same price the dual core should be that little bit better value as its faster with day to day applications like MS office and playing games but the quad core will be faster at stuff that can multi-thread like video encoding/editing. With a bit of luck however programmers will learn the error of their ways and change the way they code then you wont see the dualcore for your dust cloud.
Still not an easy choice but hope it helped a bit.
**it would be useful to know what motherboard they are putting in the other system.
Probably I'm late, anyway desided to post my budget custom PC config:
1. Mobo - Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3R
2. CPU - Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 (comparison charts)
3. Video - Gigabyte ATI HD4670 GV-R467D3-1GI
4. RAM -Kingston HyperX 4GB KHX8500D2K2/4G
5. Power Supply - Corsair VX-450 450W
6. HDD - Western Digital 3.5" Caviar Green Power 1TB WD10EADS
7. CPU Fan - Arctic Cooling 92mm, ceramic bearing.
Total $1012.00. All go in my old case, dvd burner already there. MacOSx86(Leopard), Photoshop, Final Cut Studio.
Listed CPU paired with Kingston HyperX (or similar) capable to run safely at ~3.8-4GHz. The more the better for encoding. And better for Photoshop, which is 2D application and can't really use multicore, so quad core not in my list - expensive, overkill. The motherboard takes some upper CPUs, if I'll need it can be upgraded later.
My wife just ordered Apple MacBookPro 17" (educational discount, I can't do it :twisted: )
It is time to upgrade!
Yep, your right. Too late.
Mobo - MSI G31M3 V2
CPU - Intel Core 2 Duo 8400
Video - Gigabyte 9500gt Overclock GV-N95TOC-512I
Ram - 4G 800mhz
Power Supply - 550W
HDD - Seagate 250gb
Monitor - Benq E2200 HD with HDMI input - Brilliantly beautiful.
Cooling - big fan...spins round and round :D
Permission to spend more........
REFUSED :mad:
always worth a look if you are in the market--
Best Graphics Cards For The Money: Feb. '09 : January Review/February Updates - Review Tom's Hardware
Spend the extra few bucks and get a 500gig hdd.Quote:
Originally Posted by feral