So my parents and I finally decided to buy a new computer. What could you guys recommend me considering that I will use the PC mostly for games, maybe some Photoshop, CorelDRAW, Ilustrator etc.

BUDGET: around 520 pounds

Thanks in advance

What i currently have in mind:
http://www.pcgarage.ro/sisteme-pc-garag ... age/Smart/ which costs 400 and something pounds.

are you able to build it yourself?

And can you order it from a site from another country?

not enough ram and too slow a hdd for photoshop imho; i built this which is a little over budget [as always with my specs] but think would get you more smiles =)



edited cos sodding botophucket resized my image beyond legibility,

also add £12.50 for dvd drive

Thx a lot kinetic. I actually love the way prices drop after a while after new technologies appear on the market. Who knows, maybe if I hold on to it I can actually buy better things. If it wasn't you I would never have noticed that the 5800 series' prices dropped so much.

And yes, I am able to build it myself. Also we have a great online store here for IT.

Might aswell consider the 6xxx series, just came out and is not much more expensive than the 5800 series.

to keep close to budget the 5850 was the winner - the 6xxx series becomes worth it only in the 69xx grouping iirc - if you do go 69xx, get the 6950 - you can flash bios into a 6970 for nowt with no risk due to dual bios on that family, but this is a further £70 over the 5850 specced on the example build!

Kinetic's setup seems rather solid as a whole. If you want to stick to your budget, you could consider an X3 CPU. For most games, CPU is far less important than GPU, and the X3 is still pretty good for most purposes.

there isn't a tricore phenom... not that i can find anyhow - just the dual cores for asmall amount less - given the price difference i'll stick to recommending the quad

Yes, there is : Phenom II X3 720 Black Edition
The X4 955 is obviously better, but the X3 720 is not that far behind. Don't know about the UK, but here it's about 30 euros difference in price. In terms of quality for money, I think it's also a good choice. I'm not saying he should buy the X3, only that if he really wants to stick to the budget, I would recommend downgrading to the X3, rather than saving on graphics card, memory, motherboard, etc.

Ok, granted, may be available over thar but I cant find it anywhere here therefore unawares of it =) thooough I'd be tempted to run win7 beta and keep the £70 over cutting hardware