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jdc2000--Your post is most helpful in narrowing things down.
In an earlier post you said "Id' go for an LGA 1366 i7 motherboard, probably Gigabyte or ASUS, rather than an LGA 1156 i3 or i5 board. The i9 chips are supposed to be out later this year and will use the LGA 1366 socket."
But based on your latest post, the LGA1156 P55 motherboard (probably with Intel i5)seems adequate for my middle-end needs. Any more info to help a decision? I suspect the i9 is more than I will need. Or will the next few years bring a need for it?
I feel either the GeForce GT 240 or 220 graphics cards will be fine. I do not feel I need to overclock with the eVGA.
What about chipset? Or does that just come with the motherboard?
Any recommendations on manufacturer of Drives--both hard and DVD-ROM and DVD-RW?
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LGA1366 boards have the X58 chipset. LGA1156 boards have the P55 chipset, except for 1 or 2 that may have the H57 chipset (i3 support). As long as you are using only one graphics card, you should be ok with the LGA1156 P55 boards. I still recommend checking out NewEgg's reviews (and others) for any potential issues on the board(s) you are looking closely at.
As for whether you will wish for more power in the next few years, it depends on what you are wanting to do then. These days, when I visit a news web site to read articles, the page usually has half a dozen flash video ads that make it take forever to load and requires a dual quad-core Xeon system to allow scrolling that doesn't take 30 seconds per screen. Software bloat will likely continue.
I like LG CD/DVD drives. For hard drives, I have used Seagate for quite some time. However, they have had some issues with certain models and firmware in the last year. Western Digital Caviar Black drives have good reviews on NewEgg. I'd check out drive reviews there as well. Files will expand to occupy available space, so get plenty of storage.
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You should have a look at AMD as well, in the mid-range market they can be better value than Intel.
For optical drives I like LG or Samsung. For hard drives I like Seagate, Samsung or Hitachi. For RAM I like Corsair, OCZ or Crucial. In the last 10 years I haven't been let down by a single one of those makes, touch wood :)
And don't forget the power supply, it is a very underrated component, and it never ceases to amaze me how many folks will spend a lot of money on good quality hardware and then throw in any old cheap and nasty PSU. Low quality power supplies can cause all kinds of hard to diagnose problems, as well as taking out some (or even all) of the other components when they fail :eek:
Good ones are Tagan, OCZ, Thermaltake, Enermax, Hiper, Xion, PC Power & Cooling.
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You have given me great leads and ideas--certainly pointing out and narrowing the choices.
Two more questions.
1) Recommendations for AMD chips.
2) I want the ability to use the XPMode with Win 7 Ultimate. Does that mean I need anything special such as a specific chip to handle virtualization? I read about Intel VT or AMD-V somewhere, but find little info.
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NewEgg to the rescue again. The Advanced Search selections allow you to select for Virtualization Technology Support.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...e=&srchInDesc=
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For XP-Mode you do need to have hardware virtualisation support on the CPU, but that's not anything to worry about as all except the very low-end processors have it these days.
AMD chips - look at Athlon II, Phenom and Phenom II CPUs.
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The list of AMD chips is pretty long. Can you suggest any narrowing down based on the requirements in my original post?
And I guess I want a TV tuner also?
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I have built PC's with both Hauppauge and Terratec TV tuners, both are equally good, and work superbly with Windows Media Centre. However I can't give specific recommendations, as US TV is different to ours, and they sell different tuner cards over there.
This is a really nice AMD processor for the money, it compares in price to a Core i3, but is a lot more powerful:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819103656
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SuperSparks--Many thanks.
What AMD chip(s) would compare to Intel i5?
I think I am close to having an excellent list of recommendations to study and make a decision.
Thanks to all.
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Many thanks. I'll let you know what I finally get.
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Not trying to be rude here, what so ever. However, for the uses that you have described. It seems that you do very very light computing. With the computer that you have now, it seems more than capable of doing the things you want without any issues. However, if you really feel the need to upgrade. I would suggest going with the i3 processor for your needs, anything more is over kill. Heck, even a good old Core 2 Duo would be more than fast enough for your needs. Even a gaming PC doesn't really need more than a Core 2 Duo at this point. I know your not strapped for cash, but don't just throw your money at something you dont need! Go with the i3 you will be happy. Get 2 GB of Ram and a decent video card from either ati or nvidia, I'm not sure which one you prefer. I can give you some recommendations if you would like.
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atigamer4life--Thanks much for your comments. You are not rude at all. I appreciate what you have said.
The main reason for wanting a new PC is that the old (present) one is acting flakely from time to time. I can only run IE for so long before it really slows down or stalls (Yes, I do delete TIF, etc.). I suspect the hard drive which is almost six years old. And my RAM is too small. In light of the other problem(s), I do not think it is worthwhile to upgrade the RAM (if I even could--I have not opened the case to see). And finally, I want to learn to use Win7 (Ultimate).
You can see I used to post quite a bit here attempting to help others concerning non-hardware problems. I would like to be more active in this again, so I need to get up to date.
Having said all that, I would more than welcome your recommendations for a new PC. But remember, I want to be ready for what the next 3-4 years will bring. Hence the interest in i5 and other moderately up to date components. I agree I do not need what a gamer would need. But I did not skimp when I bought the present PC (except for RAM, about which I did not appreciate what would be needed such as for Virtual PC). I do not want to skimp now.
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If all else fails - I'll probably be getting one of these real soon:
http://configure.us.dell.com/dellsto...customer_picks
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I agree with those sentiments. It is always good to have a computer that is capable of whatever the next few years will bring. There's nothing more frustrating than wanting to do something and finding that you can't because the PC isn't capable of it - personally, I'd rather have the power available even if it isn't fully utilised most of the time.
