Hello all!

I'm looking at building a PC, or at least buying a new one over the summer holidays. However I have little, if any, experience to speak of. So I'm asking you great ICT know it alls out there to lend a hand!

Current Specs
OS: Windows XP Pro SP2 (OEM)
GPU: 8800GTS 640mb OC2
CPU: Intel Core Duo E6400 2.13GHz
PSU: 475W & a separate GPU PSU of 250W taking a single Driver bay
Ram: 2GB DDR2 667MHz (Or some such - 4x512mb)
Case: Dimension 9200 Dell Case
Drive: Standard DVD 16x-RW & Memory Bay
Harddrive: 250GB 7200RPM
Motherboard: Standard Dell

New Specs
OS: Vista Ultimate 64bit (OEM) - Don't ask
GPU: One above.
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 Socket 775 (OEM)
PSU: Corsair TX 650W PSU
Ram: Ballistix Tracer 240-pin DIMM PC-6400 (2x2GB)
Case: Antec Nine Hundred 900 - Gaming Case
Drive: Pioneer DVR-215BK 20X SATA DVD±RW (OEM)
Harddrive: Samsung HD753LJ 750GB Hard Drive
Soundcard: None
Motherboard: Asus P5Q Deluxe P45
Extra: Arctic Cooling AC-FRZ-7P Freezer 7 Pro

Current Price: £666.24 - Could improve ram back to 8500, but you said the cheaper versions just as good so I went down to save £40 and get some shiny ones

-Edit-
04-06-08 Added in some recommend gear.
05-06-08 Changed Spec to Dual rather than Quad.
05-06-08 Changed Ram & GPU + Looking for Sound Card.
08-06-08 Drastic Changes - Case, Ram, Harddrive, Extra etc.

If you are looking to spend cash no matter what, then I would go for something like this..

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-EX38-DS4 (£120)
CPU: Intel Q9450 ( £210)
GPU: 9800gtx (£190)
PSU: Corsair HX620 (£80)
RAM: OCZ 4gb Memory Kit (£64)
DRIVER: Pioneer DVR-215 sata (£18)
CASE: Antec P182 (£80ish) - cases are very subjective though, I just recently built a pc with this case and it was nice and quiet with good temps. Plastic door is a let down tho.
OS: Windows Vista Premium 64bit (OEM) - (£62)
HDD: Western Digital WD5000AAKS (£50) or whatever you prefer

= £874

however as socket 775 is going to be phased out within a year I would perhaps go for the following more sensible bits:

Motherboard: MSI P35 Neo2-FR or Gigabyte P35 DS3(£63)
CPU: Intel E8400 (£120)

(you would need to make sure a P35 board is running with the latest BIOS versions that enable wolfdale/yorkdale support, the X38 board I listed above would be ready out of the box guaranteed)

plus the other stuff would = £727

If you are mainly looking for game performance then I would go for the raw clock speed of a dual core. By the time multi-core enabled games are the norm the Q9450 will be slow and obsolete.

I would also consider getting a dedicated sound card as I find onboard sound to never be as good.

Plus I would get a big heatsink on that CPU and crank it up to 3.6 ~ 4ghz

Yeah, tbh the only things your gonna be able to port are the GPU, and the cd. Have a butchers at http://www.overclockers.co.uk usually the best deals on there, if price range is around £800 you should be able to get nearly top of the line (my comp which was second to highest spec 2 years ago cost me £700)

Bit of advice:

1) Dont go for the best of the best graphics card, they usually end up at £50 more for only a fraction more power (i.e. your paying extra to simply have the best), go for the second best and put the extra to a cpy

2) KEEP EVERYTHING YOU GET WITH THE COMPONENTS ESPECIALLY THE DRIVER CDS, lost mine when i was building mine took me 5 hours to find it to get the SATA drive to work with windows XP.

3) Also windows vista, at least consider partitioning in an xp OS, vista has direct x 10 true but its not worth it for the sheer incompatability of a fair amount of software, hell take for example TS overlay, doesnt work with vista, and is bloody usefull, also tf2 doesnt have dx10, so you dont need vista at all really

Id keep your current gfx card. If you want to sell on your old pc buy something like a radeon X1950 Pro to go in it for £50 odd quid and maintain the illisuion of high spec :p.

I take it you're not overclocking? Also like extra cold said - ditch vista. Bad idea, crappy support and the extra overhead from 64bit takes much of your extra ram away from you anyway. Stick with XP and 2 gig.

Also the gigabyte board you listed is now out of date - its been replaced by the EP35-DS3.

I would recommend the following:

E8400 (£114)
Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro (£14)
2 x 1GB Crucial Ballistix PC5300 Cas 3 (£30)
8800 GTS 640mb (Free )
Asus P5Q based motherboard (new P45 chipset, out any day now £65 - £130 depending on model)
Corsair TX650 Power Supply (single rail instead of dual, far better for numerous technical electrical details :p - approx £65)
Any samsung F1 spinpoint drive - the 1tb 32mb cache model is only £95 atm.
Case and DVD drive are personal choice. I like th pioneer drives tho like you, but case wise Id hesitate to spend that much when you arent filling it with hardware. Take a look at the gigabyte NZXT 1 2 or 3 series - excellent cooling, looks and capability for £30 - £50).

Total is about £450.

Enough left over for a 24" widescreen monitor (£200) and an X1950 Pro (£50 - £65) to go in your old machine to pass it on / sell it on.

The ep35 ds3 is pretty much identical to the latest v2.1 p35-ds3. Only difference is dynamic energy saving nonsense plus it costs a lot extra.

"Building a computer, for teh Pwnerer. Building a computer for teh Pwnereeeer"

Love that song.

OK let me explain a few things.

1. I plan to overclock, not heavily mind due to not wanting to pay out for alot of cooling gear.

2. The case is a good one because I play to use this rig to carry on upgrading, so if the Motherboard is shite please DO point out a good one.

3. Monitors, Mice etc I've already got. Curved Keyboard, G9, 19" Monitor all does me fine

4. I only go for Vista because I have a DX10 Card, it's cheaper, plus newer. However if everyone's voting to stick with XP I think I will..

All advice is welcome!

Trust me on this, dx10 is not that amazing, sure it looks good but how many games actually really need it in comparison to bioshock.
Assassins Creed, which looks ace anyways, without dx10
Bioshock: In which dx10 does bugger all
and Crysis: Which youl be able to run better in dx9 and it will still look amazing.

So tbh dx10 really isnt worth it, especially for all the performance loss and work youl have to go through to get stuff working on it.

Xp on the other hand, hogs a tiny amount of resource by comparison, and every program under the sun will work on it (except mac ones, natch)..

Hmm. Is it worth going 64bit on that then for 4GB? Or should I get some decent 2GB Ram and stick with 32bit? No price different between the software there, just the amount of ram.

And thanks for all the help so far guys!

As a 32 bit Vista user I feel I should speak up.

Sure, not EVERY single program works in it but I have had no problems with it other than the occasional hiccup. I've even become quite used to Vista and like the desktop interface and the way it works.

Excel, Word and all that on the other hand are SHIT in Vista. Really, what the fuck is up with all of this tab nonsense?!