[[HLF]Southclaw]

You want to look into the deeper statistics of these parts, don't just look at the Hz of the CPU or the size of the RAM! You want fast, efficient and reliable parts. And also, a really great point that Haydn mentioned was future proofing would you rather spend Ј200 on a pretty neat PC that won't support next years GPU? Or wait a little and get up to date gear that will be safe for the next 2-3 years of hardware.

Another tip is to completely ignore all the crap that is written with hardware, it's pretty much just the same stuff! You want to search straight for the tech-specs for each part:

CPUs:

Socket Type - This will determine what type of motherboard you need to get (one with the same socket number)

Lithography (or NM) - In short: A lower value is better (in long: It's to do with the spacing between certain parts, a smaller space means less distance for data to travel basically)

Speed (in Hz) - A higher value is better basically, but anything over 3.0 is decent enough, 3.4 is nice and anything above that might be unnecessary, it all depends on what you intend to do. CPU speeds aren't as much of a deciding factor in gaming, obviously you want a fast one but if you have a GPU that's decent then you shouldn't notice a massive frame drop between 3.4 and 3.0 GHz (I tested that myself but only on one system)

Max Temperature - Some CPUs operate at a higher temperature, sometimes due to factory overclocking or lithography. I wouldn't go for an overclocked CPU as you might need to bother around with fancy cooling systems etc.

Age - This might seem a little obvious, but I'll say it anyway: the newer the better. It also ties in with future proofing, I've not heard of programs or games refusing to run because of an outdated processor though. The CPU you posted is from early 2008, you might want something newer if you intend to upgrade other components.

Motherboards:

Compatibility is a big factor, as everything will be attached to it! You need to think about things such as:

RAM - Type (DDR2/3), maximum capacity (8/16GB), maximum slots (2/4), maximum speeds (1066/1333MHz) all these will have effect on what RAM you choose.

CPU - Socket type is pretty much all you need to worry about with this now days, if it fits then it was meant to fit, if not then you pushed it in too hard.

PCI and expansion slots - PCI express (2.0 - 3.0) is the current graphics interface, if you intend to upgrade to a modern GPU you want to ensure you have PCIe with a sufficient version number.

SLI/Crossfire - If you intend to get two graphics cards and hook them up to render half the screen each (which improves the FPS greatly!) make sure you've got two PCIe slots.

The point is that choosing one part pretty much affects all your other choices, the best thing to do is pick a motherboard first with the right compatibility for your price range, then choose the parts under that category of compatibility.

One last thing, power! You need to ensure your system has sufficient power coming from your PSU. Once you've chosen some parts, before buying go check out a PSU calculator like the one on ThermalTake, and if you think you need more power but can't get another PSU, choose some more parts. (You can find out what the wattage of a PSU is by looking on it's label)

That's all I can think of right now, the setup you already posted is pretty decent, it's just a little old, with some extra cash you could build a pretty modern i5 system that is pretty safe for a few years, and upgradable with RAM and a decent GPU.




I'm not a hardware specialist by trade, I just did a lot of research into this as four of my friends have asked me for help in selecting parts and building a PC after I built my own so I did spend a long time learning in depth about the subject so I didn't screw it up! I only looked at Intel based systems though, not AMD so I know none of the specifics of those setups, I imagine the internals are the same but I couldn't recommend an AMD build as well as I could an Intel one.

If you know any of the stuff I wrote is incorrect, please let me know! I don't want to give out false information!