Richgit

There is an article comparing processors in the June edidion of PC Pro which is well worth reading.

According to their tests, nearly all of the AMD processors were slower than nearly all the Intel ones although the AMD may be cheaper. Of the Intel ones, the Core 2 Duo E8000 series apear to be the best performance at a reasonable price. Some Core 2 Quad's are faster but very expensive.

Do not confuse the Core 2 Duo with the now obsolete Core Duo which was never very good.

PCI-E expansion slots are the future.

Optimist, thanks I'll see if I can find a copy ;-)

rich,some major parts for you to look at.

Product Name Qty Price Line Total
Seasonic X900 SS-900HP 900w PSU 109.99

Lian Li PC-A71B Aluminium Tower Case - Black 119.99

OcUK GeForce 8800 GT 512MB GDDR3 HDTV/DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail 93.99

Abit IP35 Pro (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard 86.99

Intel Core 2 Quad Pro Q6600 "Energy Efficient SLACR 95W Edition" 2.40GHz (1066FSB) - Retail 119.99

Corsair 4GB DDR2 XMS2 Dominator PC2-8500C5 TwinX (2x2GB) Supplied with Airflow Fan (TWIN2X4096-8500C5DF) 99.99

Samsung SpinPoint F1 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (HD103UJ) 83.99

Sub Total : 808.92
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : 12.95
VAT is being charged at 17.5% VAT : 143.83
Total : 965.70

rich,or something like THIS

scussy, thanks ;-)

I think I looked at a Duo Core 3.00 GHz, with 2 x Geforce 8800 1gb dd2 dual dvi as I saw the games now need 3.00GHz to play especialy FEAR and UNREAL Tournement

Am I right about this??

you will need to overclock the cpu to get 3.00ghz,or you can get Intel Core 2 Quad Extreme Edition QX9650 for 650 that does 3ghz as standard,(not worth the money unless your rich,)
the Intel Core 2 Quad Pro Q6600 2.40GHz easy overclocks to 3ghz, 140

Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 LGA775 'Wolfdale' 3.00GHz (1333FSB) - Retail 150

i dont think many games use the quad core at the moment,but its best to have quad for the other programs that are CPU hungry,
my IT friend has one and he says it goes like stink and he has loads of programs working at the same time,
as this PC is not a standard,have you got an IT man to biuld it,

Scussy, no IT man, might find someone to put it together thou, not sure if they know how to overcock it ;)

Thought I could get the PC off the self, which will the cheaper do you think, build it or off the self?

you can get one off the shelf from http://www.overclockers.co.uk
you dont want it in SLI mode as the two graphics go to one screen,its only a software change so cannot be hard for them,
best bet is to ring them at OC's and tell them what you want,after added more mem (4gig) the case you want and windows that you want its about 1,000
i have bought parts to build 2 overclocked pcs from them in the past,when i get a new PC next i will go this way as my IT friend just said he prob could not get the parts that cheap,

i like this one

Just loaded SP3 to my XP Pro.

Apart from the fact it failed yesterday, having done it without a hitch today, I am sure my laptop is running faster.

The download and installation seemed to take a couple of hours, but appears to be worth it - and a good excuse to pop out to the boozer.

TP

Tried the SP3 download but ended up with error message 0x80072F78. Can't understand the Microsoft explanations so I'll try again tomorrow.

ok - am I screwed?

my pc won't run any executable files whatsoever so I can't get into etrade or outlook or even worse system restore.

Can't even run the cd burning software. However i have managed to get my files off to a memory stick

I would just restore xp but I'd quite like to get my outlook emails before I do that.
Tried sticking in the ms office cd to repair things but of course it's an exe file and won't run. aarrgghh.

any clues anyone ?

edit : i know if I create an outlook backup file it is *.pst. what does it call the live file?

I am looking for a PC with this spec or better and cheaper

CC, is your virius software stopping exe files from running. Try turning it off

well i'm getting as a typical example : "choose the program you want to use to open the file rundll32.exe
most annoying one is the "choose the program you want to use to open the file rstrui.exe" which is the system restore option.


No virus software on my pc.

Just done a windows reload on the repair option but it hasn't worked so going for the install another one next.

CC

Assuming that you are using Outlook and not Outlook Express, then everything should be in a *.pst file which you can copy using Windows Explorer or even from a safe mode command prompt.

What caused it to stop working? Are you sure that it is not virus related?

Whatever caused it, using system restore in safe mode should get you going again, but if it was caused by a virus then it will still be there.

It could just be a coincidence but it happenned straight after I tried to load sp2 for xp.

CC

Do you mean SP2 or SP3?

sorry SP3.

I've loaded a second version of xp now. It advised me to be partion the disk to do so then refused to let me. ahh windows - don't you just love it.

PC working fine now but I can't find a recent *.pst file. Going to worry about it later. Trying to set my computer up enough now to do some trading

CC

That makes sense, I've been running an early RC version of SP3 since December and allthough generally I'm pleased with it, I have had some issues with some programs not running under some user accounts.

I haven't reasearched it yet, but I'm beginning to think that SP3 causes problems with some permissions.

Huffed and puffed and finally loaded SP3. Not easy and now I'm not sure of the benefits, if any.