What is hot and cool in PC World

[Salsa Party Animal]

I don't know anything about latest PC stuff. I might be in market to buy a PC in mid November (and Nintendo Wii) (Perhaps 750 pounds is my budget - no keyboard or mouse is needed) Need Windows XP Media centre as well as my XP is not genuine.

My PC is Dell Pentium III 550 MHZ PC with DVD writer, 80 gigabyte hard drive, 384 megabyte ram and old crappy 17 inch CRT TV and TNT 2 graphics card.

I want it for home cinema stuff taking advantages of Blu Ray / HD DVD, and use it as alterative to Sky+ and stream files to XBOX 360.

So which CPU is the best and which brand should I go for AMD or Intel.

Also which graphics card is the best, I am a fan of Ati output on XBOX 360/Gamecube.

I want quality and good value for money not stupid money ie 300 quids for a graphics card.

I probably will use it for Football manager, Total Wars games, and latest FPS.

I got wireless keyboard and mouse and 32 inch HDTV already.

Should I get a Dell widescreen monitor (Not at 700 quids)

For PC I need

CPU, Motheboard, Ram, Hard Drive, Disc drive, towercase, sound card graphics card, ethernet card, operating system, anything else.

[charlaph]

I've just put together a system for a friend so I'll make the following recommendations based on what I read before buying all his stuff, but although you're only talking about November, things will be changing in the next couple of months with new CPUs from Intel and the next generation of graphics card about to come out.

Intel Core Duo CPU (E6300=?130, E6600=?250) - by november the newer quad-core CPUs might be out and depending on pricing these would be better but for now nothing beats core duo.

Asus P5B Deluxe motherboard (?120) - the overclockers board of choice just now, although there are plenty of other good boards for similar prices - buy a name brand and buy on features, if you don't plan to overclock then a) more fool you and b) buy an Asrock ?50 motherboard instead

2Gb PC6400 DDR2 Ram (?140) - brand doesn't really matter, most manufacturers now offer lifetime warranties so buy on price and don't be swayed too much by low latencies as the higher the fsb and the more on-board cache your CPU has the less effect latencies have (flame suit firnly zipped up!) - if you can get low latency for a good price then go for it, but don't pay much of a premium for it.

2x250Gb HD (?80) - Hitachi are usually good, or Samsung if you want a quiet drive
Any dual layer DVD burner (?30) - I've read group tests and you're talking 5% difference in performance between almost all modern burners, so again just buy a decent brand name

Antec P180 case (?80) - arguably the best case around, if you can fit a larger case into your setup then you could just buy a Coolermaster Stacker, but it'll cost you more

Seasonic S12-500 PSU (?70) - excellent PSUs, stable and most importantly quiet.

Creative X-Fi Music (?80) - one of the best, and probably the best supported sound card at the moment

As for graphics, the new DX10 cards are to be released shortly so I'd advise against spending much just now until you see pricings and reviews of those. If you absolutely have to buy something then try to get an X1800XT (?150 from overclockers)

Scythe Ninja heatsink (?30) - quiet and effective

That's over your budget, but you could easily save money by buying 1Gb of RAM (there are only a couple of apps/games that really need 2Gb just now, but prices are dropping all the time so come November you should be able to get 2GB. Also I'd question whether you really need a seperate sound card. Yes, I appreciate the arguments especially if you're hooking up to your AV setup but I'd say try the onboard sound first before shelling out cash for a sound card - you never know if you don't try and you might end up saving yourself a bundle.

The other thing would be the case+PSU. I've specced ?150 - for half that you could get a good quality case with PSU included. It's something I always like to pay extra for, but unless you're planning on using dual graphics cards then it may be best the cheaper case/PSU combo - plus if you're intent on media functions you might want a dedicated HTPC case.

[phillai]

I just built a new PC recently and I can vouch for Intel's new Core Duo 2 CPU, Asus P5W DH Deluxe and 2GB GEIL PC6400 DDR2 Dual Channel Ultra ram... I've doubled my benchmarks from my old PC and I've not even overclocked it yet!
Everything seems so reponsive too!
Maybe it's also 'cause I'm making the most of the SATA300 bandwidth on my 2 x Hitachi Deskstar 7K500 SATA 500 GB 7200RPM 16MB Cache of which I couldn't before.