Looking at everyone's Core duo and Quads etc I think mine seems like retro. God I need some money. The only spare cash I have at the moment is going to go on my Amiga (Repairs to PPC etc). At least I have my priorities correct.
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I've spent more money on Amigas than I have on PCs.
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If I totalled up how much I've spent on Amiga's over the years I'd weep in despair. The first expansion I got was a Blizzard 1220 with 8MB and then I had 1230 MKIV, 1240, 1260, PPC, ZIV, CV64/3D,Tower, Prelude 1200, various HDD, in all probably at least £2,000 not including software.
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After a recent upgrade I have the following spec machines.

Gaming/Main

Intel Q6600 2.6ghz (slight OC)
4GB Kingston HyperZ DDR2 Ram
250GB Main system drive
500GB Data Drive
G9600GT 512MB GFX
Duel DVDRW Drives
Asus P5QC Motherboard
Vista Ultimate


HTPC

AMD64 3000xp
1.5GB RAM
1TB Raid
Windows XP with MediaPortal

Main pc is sweet, fast booting and runs like a dream!
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I think you need to change your christmas avatar StuKeith. It's March.

xmaslogo.jpg
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I apologize, I did'nt notice!
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lol yea, not been on since xmas!
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Got all the bits for the new PC now. A few minor chanrges to the final components as they had some better parts for less money.

So the final PC setup will now be as follows:

Q6600 CPU
Arctic Freezer 7 Pro CPU cooler
Asus P5Q Deluxe Motherboard
8GB Corsair DDR2 Ram.
XFX Radeon HD 4870 XXX Edition 1GB Graphics card (factory over clocked!)
Creative XFi soundcard
2.5TB SATA HDD space (existing drives)
SATA DVD-RW (existing drive)
750W Thermaltake Toughpower modular PSU (seems to be a firm favourite among gaming pros).

And I'm biting the bullet and installing Vista 64-bit on it!
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The new PC is now all setup and running.

I've not installed an OS on it yet. In fact I've not put the drive cage in the case yet. However I'm posting this from the new PC! How you might ask? The new Asus motherboard has a version of Linux built into the motherboard on a small solid state drive, and this system is called "Express Gate". It includes a browser that looks like it is based on the same core as Firefox and it works really well. It also has a photo album viewer to look through the photos on the HDDs, Live Chat using MSN, and Skype. Quite cool to quickly get online and access various things, especially if the main OS has a problem such as not booting properly. You can quickly go online and troubleshoot something, or you could use it to download a BIOS update for the same system.

And Express Gate worked first time, without a single setting asked for. Just booted into the OS in about 5 seconds, clicked the browser icon, and it was loaded and online in about 2 seconds! And it just works. Now this is how to utilise Linux! And how an OS should work. Not hours of installing gigs of files, then reboots, then more installing, then lots of setup configuration before you can even use the OS, let alone get online.

And overall I love this new setup. Very quiet indeed, even with all the fans. However they are all very large and slower spinning as a result. 140mm fan on the PSU can't be heard. 120mm case fans are silent, and the CPU cooler fan is very quiet. The gaphics card fan is noisy when it first fires up, but quickly slows down to near silent.

I've just finished going through all of the BIOS settings and now am going to install the HD drive cage back in the case and install the OS.

One problem I do need to work out is that the two 6pin PCI-E power connectors plugged into the back of the graphics card are currently going right across where the drive cage slots in. I might be able to band the cables enough to allow it to go in OK. Otherwise I'm going to have to try and get some 90 degree right angle adapters for the power connectors. I want to know why the graphics card makers don't mount the power connectors vertically anyway. Would be so much easier.
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Yes but then you wouldn't have the opportunity to make a mistake and completely screw up you're brand new system.

Glad to hear your new PC is working...........For now.
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