New PC time. Advice needed please.

Looks like a respectable machine. Should serve you well for a while.

If it were me I would make sure to max out on RAM even if I had to drop the printer to do it. Where I am RAM is cheap and I would assume it is everywhere so I would really look at the cost of buying the RAM locally and installing yourself vs having DELL do it. You might be surprised at how much RAM you can get and how much you will save doing it yourself. I just bought my wife a laptop and circuit city wanted $110.00 to upgrade with 1gig of ram and I can buy 2gig for $69.99 and install it myself. Big difference.

grimreaper wrote in post #4284166
Thanks for that

so now this is top money that I am willing to spend on the PC

intel core 2 quad-core q6600 processor (2.40ghz, 1066mhz, 8mb]
genuine windows vista home premium
3048mb 800mhz dual channel ddr2 sdram
320gb (7200rpm) serial ata/100 hard drive with 16mb databurst cache
256mb nVidia GeForce 8600gts
16x dvd +/- rw drive

That comes to £777, hopefully that should be sweet for a couple years at least ,

Now just the monitor to decide , I would like a smaller than 24" I think , someone i know as just got a 22" but he got it for games. the BenQ 24" FP241w is still number 1 at the min I think

Yeah that will last you a very good time frame. Mine is more then enough fro me. Go fo it. As for the monitor go big man, you won't regrett it, save up or spend the extra $$$ it is well worth it, the benq is a good brand. I prefer the dell or apple but that my taste.

Good luck. You will enjoy it very much so.

S.E.V. wrote in post #4284574
Yeah that will last you a very good time frame. Mine is more then enough fro me. Go fo it. As for the monitor go big man, you won't regrett it, save up or spend the extra $$$ it is well worth it, the benq is a good brand. I prefer the dell or apple but that my taste.

Good luck. You will enjoy it very much so.

thanks , i am still thinking it's between then benQ 24" and the dell 24" , the dell is a little cheaper and seems to be a more popular on here , but from what i read on reviews i found though google they favored the benQ,

I think 2GB is sufficient for XP, but with Vista maybe you want 4GB. The only time I hit 2GB memory used is when i'm using bridge and photoshop hard out with a lot of other apps at the same time. You could get dual core for now and upgrade to quad core in a couple of years - more bang for buck and dual core is still good. Maybe you could upgrade just the CPU to 8 core in a couple of years, if it's the same socket type.

Re the printer I think it's cheaper to use a lab, and easier too, unless you often need rush orders.

James, what is your current setup?
Another option is to upgrade the harddrive and increase the RAM on your laptop.

I recently upgraded my Pentium 4 laptop to 100Gb harddrive and 2Gb of RAM. Quite contented on the speed on photoshop. But now I added Lightroom to my workflow and some minor changes on Photoshop which makes it alot faster.

My 2 cents...

James, as you're in the midlands, i think you need to visit www.scan.co.uk for your shopping

and you're forgetting something from your shopping list - a Motherboard and Case

i'll go shopping at scan and give you what you need

Asus TA-861 Black Midi Tower Case w/o PSU £20.55

Samsung SH-S203N/BEBN 20x DVD±R, 16x DVD±DL, DVD+RW x8/-RW x6, ATA,Lightscribe, Black, OEM inc Nero £18.20

Intel Core 2 Duo E6750, S775, 2.66 GHz, 1333MHz FSB, Conroe Core, 4MB Cache, Retail £115.02

256MB XFX 7600GT 'Fatal1ty' PCI-E(x16), Mem 1600MHz, GPU 650MHz, 12Pipes, Dual DVI/HDTV SLi Passive £54.94

2x 250 Gb Western Digital WD2500AAJS Caviar SE, SATA300, 7200 rpm, 8MB Cache, 9 ms £81.00

2GB (2x1GB) Corsair TwinX DDR2 XMS2 Dominator, PC2-8500 (1066), 240 Pin, Non-ECC Unbuffered, CAS 5 £100.87

Asus P5N-E SLI NF650i SLi, S 775, PCI-E (x16), DDR2 533/667/800, SATA II, SATA RAID, ATX £69.96

500W Silverstone ST50EF-Plus SLi Dual +12V, ATX12V 2.2, 80%+ Eff' £58.70

because you're going vista, you don't need a Floppy Drive for drivers anymore
Total with VAT + P+P = £533

i'm guessing you'll use your mouse and keyboard you have right now?

i'd go for a Formac 2010 @ approx £289.00 (free P+P) i'll get the URL in a sec - got Dinner to eat

Make sure you get a nice HSF for that Q6600 if you are going to OC, which should be very easy for that chip...to go to at least 3Ghz.

It's been a few days since I upgraded myself.
Running the Q6600 steady at 3Ghz...I'm no OC buff so I am happy to leave it there.

I have a Zalman 9500 HSF + 4 case fans running FYI.