So this ancient machine of mine is getting flaky in it's old age; after random restarts and failing to boot I think I've narrowed the problem down to a failing stick of RAM, I've removed it and it's managed to stay stable so far.
But it has reminded me that technology has moved on and I've been meaning to replace it for some time now.
Inspired by Harmy's new rig, I went online and picked some components. I'm unlikely to be working with uncompressed HD video, so I don't require such a high-powered work horse, just something with reasonable all-round performance on a budget:
CPU: AMD FX-6300 - £81
MB: MSI 990FXA-GD65 - £86
RAM: 2 x Kingston 4GB DDR3 1600MHz - £56
GPU: some Nvidia card I have lying around spare - £0
SSD: Adata 64GB - £37.50
HDD: WD 1TB Green - £45
PSU: Corsair CX500 500W (have a spare) - £0
Case: Antec VSK-4000E Tower ATX (because it's about time I changed my current beige one) - £25
Total budget ~ £330
Suggestions/comments/thoughts welcomed.
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All looks pretty good. If it were me, I'd put a few quid extra into a Gigabyte or ASUS mobo due to poor experience with MSI products in the past. I'm an Intel guy these days, but all the AMD CPU's I've owned in the past have been solid and reliable. Corsair PSU's are bulletproof too provided you don't overload them. Looks like you've pretty much nailed it first time.
I'm curious, what is the read/write speed of the SSD? And which OS are you planning on running?
Thanks for your feedback.
Regarding the MB, a Gigabyte GA-990XA-UD3 is actually about £10 cheaper than the MSI board - I went with MSI because of issues I've had with Gigabyte's support in the past (availability of driver updates, etc.). But this current PC uses a Gigabyte board and it's performed OK.
The SSD had read/write speeds of 440 MB/s and 140 MB/s respectively. There's a faster version which is up to 550MB/s and 510MB/s for an extra £10 - maybe I'll swap the MB for the Gigabyte model and get the faster SSD instead.
Planning to run Windows 7 64-bit.
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