i like when i read this no one mentioned AMD for processors. x6 amd cpu's are great for the price over in the uk not sure about japan. i dont see what the intel platform gives you over AMD apart from the name and the considerable price rise. im running AMD on both my machines a x6 phenon and a x2 athlon much better than my old pentium D i had before on a differnt level
My suggestion below is more for if you want a system that's still going to be pulling it's weight years from now. Looking at the one shown above... eh, i'll be honest... it's something I'd build for a 50yr old that checks their emails once a fortnight and maybe types up some letters to print. In this day and age, it's quite low spec. Actually truthfully, I built my grandmother a PC last year with higher specifications. As far a RAM goes I would get 4GB at MINIMUM and I would drop 32bit and move up to 64bit. You might as well do it now to save you doing it later. If you want better performance I'd get something like a 60GB/120GB SSD, yes they are expensive, but they are excellent(Also, no defragmenting!). I would not go back to using IDE as my OS install drive again. Then use the extra 500gb IDE HDD as a storage drive. I would look at an i5 rather than an i3 and a 1GB graphics card will be fine. The PC case is also very important. Make sure it's a strong build, don't get anything really plasticly. Make sure the case has room for expansion. If you are going to upgrade in the future, you need a case that has room in them. The space in the case also helps air flow. A case should have at least 3 fans for cooling on a low-performance system (Mine has 7, 1 being a large 20cm one). A cool system runs better and lasts longer. If you want a system that will last you 2-4+ years, I suggest blowing a little more and getting some better parts.
the x2 athlon and the pent d are comparable, x2 seems faster but that might just be my mind playing tricks on me
My bad, I was thinking the Pentium D was ~2004 478pin. Still, there is no universal truth that "AMD are better" or vice versa.
im not saying amd is better im just saying its seems just as good option as intel and if your on a budget the amd's seem to give better power for the price.
Well yeah, of course the original hardware in the correct environment will always be the most authentic and preferable to most. Things like PCSX2 just make PS2 games much more better looking in HD resolutions than the PS3 does. (with the exception of some supersampling artifacts here and there, only in comparison to the so called PS3 remasters)
That's exactly what I'm saying though, it comes and goes. I don't know what the situation is right now (it'll change dramatically depending on your budget anyway) but you always need to check, it's not like AMDs are just always cheaper and faster.
I've always had problems with AMD's. They've never given me as good performance as they should've done. Compare a 1.1 Duron to a equivalent P3 and the P3 always seems to out perform. Another issue I had is the thermal paste they came with stock back in the day seems to bake on in a way that if your not careful you seem to always Yank the CPU out of the ZIF port connected to the heatsink. Even celerons seems to be better and I fucking HATE celerons usually.
I was mainly referring to the fact that overall emulation is still not on par with hardware from last I checked, I'd rather play at a lower resolution with everything as it should be than a high resolution with various graphical glitches strewn around I knew people who swore by saturn emulation 3+ years ago rather than just buying a system for 30 bucks, which was pretty stupid in my eyes
The P3 would've been more expensive. I can't remember how a Duron performed clock for clock against Intel chips but it was AMD's attempt at the Celeron so I wouldn't imagine it'd be favourable. Actually around that time I seem to remember a pretty long period where Athlon chips consistently kicked the shit out of Intel's line in the performance/price ratio at every level of the market. They had exposed CPU dies, though, which were very fragile. They often had heat issues too (cases and coolers at that time often weren't really designed for the kind of heat those chips could kick out).
Well, thanks for all the great advice guys. I finally bought a new PC (Not here yet) within my budget. It will defiantly do me for what I use a PC for and it can be upgraded to a i7 in the future with more memory. this is what I got. CPU - Intel Core i3-2100 3.10GHz 2Core 4 thread L3：3MB M/B BIOSTAR：H61MH Intel H61 MicroATX DDR3 2(0) Dual Channel 最大8GB SATA2 4(2) PCI 2(2) PCI-Ex1 1(1) PCI-Ex16 1(1) USB2.0Port 4(4) USB2.0Header 2(1) MEMORY - DDR3-1333 2GB(1GBx2) JEDEC HDD - 500GB 7200rpm SATA2 OPTICAL DRIVE - LG：GH24NS70 24xDVD Super Multi Drive （DVD±R/RW/RAM） VIDEO - Intel HD Graphics 2000 D-Sub DVI HDMI AUDIO - Realtek ALC662 6-Channel HD Audio LAN Realtek RTL8111E - 10/100/1000【ギガビットLAN】 All for 18'000 yen which is a good price in Japan. Even if I imported it would have cost more after shipping. In the future I'll get a kick arse graphics card but for now it will be a million times better than the 2.9Ghtz single core I'm using now. Yakumo
£130 for all that? Think I may get round to buying a i3 sometime soon. Dual core just aint cutting it for rendering HD. Where can I get one cheapest ? also hope I wont have to buy a new mobo
For desktops, you're best off building one yourself. It's much cheaper, you can get faster and better parts, and it's easy so long as you have some level of experience with electronics (this is a gaming forum, so I assume you do) and/or you are capable of reading and following instructions. In the US the best website for that is newegg.com. I don't know if it's an international site or not, but I'm sure there are similar sites in other countries.
This set up I bough is a do it yourself job. Basically you order a set of parts plus options then build your own PC You can't beat the US for PC parts prices though. A lot of the stuff in Japan is actually imported with a Japanese language sticker over the English.
