Hi Guys this is my first post and my first pc build in 7 years. my last was a dual piii 1ghz and i thought about time i replaced it. Could you please have a lookover this (i've been doing my head in with this stuff ) any help much appreciated - i have tried to follow existing advice from here.

From: Scan.co.uk
512MB Asus 9600GT - £111
Asus P5E, iX38 - £127
Intel C2D E8300 - £112
CoolermasterRPM520 £58
320GB SpinpointT166 £47
LiteON DH-20A1S-18C £18
2x1GB Corsair TwinX DDR2 XMS2 Dominator, PC2-8500 £46

Total £530

Case
Thermaltake DH 101 VF7001BNS £130

OS - XP Pro / Vista....

I've attempted to build a Mid range general purpose PC as i do programming, Large Databases, 2D & 3D Graphics, Video Editing, Virtual Machines, Would love todo Gaming and TV Recording (I'll get TV Adapter later). I'm Not sure about the motherboard or the RAM.

Just a few comments:
* Go with a p35 based mobo, it'll save you quite a bit of $ and still be quite capable. I'd recommend any one of these: Abit IP35-e/IP35, Gigabyte DS3L/DS3R, Asus P5K-e/P5K's. I'd go with which ever fits your budget and has your options that your looking for.
* Cooler Master PSU's are not the best ones to get. See my link in my signature on how the PSU's are layed out, in Tiers. Tier 1-3 would be the ones to look at. I'd prefer Antec Earthwatts 430w/500w or NeoHe 550w, Corsair vx 450w/vx 550w/tx 650w, PCP&C 610w, to name a few.
* For the memory I'd go with 800mHz stuff. The 1066 mhz isn't going to help you out much for the $. Most mobo's are not going to scale up to the 1066 mHz speed, so why waste the $ on them.
* With the savings on the Mobo and the Memory, you could put that extra cash into a better GPU. Mainly I'm talking about a 8800gt/gts (g92).
* The OS options are up to you. Both have positives/negatives, but eventually Vista will be the only option. I'm currently not running Vista and don't have plans to at this point.

I have taken yor advice about the GPU and the PSU i have gone for the:
520W Corsair HX Series - £65
512MB Asus 8800GT PCI-E 2 - £150

Not sure about motherboard or RAM. The price difference on RAM seems to only be about £10. If i can afford my Origonal Motherboard + RAM do you think i should still go for it or should i get something else?

The X38 mobo you originally picked out is only really necessary if you're planning to Crossfire two ATI video cards. If you would like to leave that option open, you would buy a HD 3870 or 3850 now and then a second one in the future. If you're looking at a single-GPU system, forego the P5E and get one of the boards lunyone suggested. I'm partial to the DS3L but they're all top performers.

Good PSU option!!! Glad to see that your going with a quality PSU. Cooler Master PSU's might be okay, but why chance it. Here is what I'd buy, if I was in your shoes for the budget that you had on the original build:

CPU - 112.10 Good solid CPU and still has plenty of power, plus you can OC later, when you feel you need more speed.
Intel Core 2 Duo, E8300, Wolfdale Core, S775, 2.83 GHz, 1333MHz, 6MB L2 Cache, Retail
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Pro [...] tID=778509

Mobo - 59.81 One the best budget p35 mobo's out there. It will OC like a mad man for the $.
Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L, iP35 Express, S 775, PCI-E (x16), DDR2 1066/667/800, SATA II, ATX
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Pro [...] tID=661326

GPU - 182.11 Why not get the best GPU you can for the $? This probably the best you can get right now for the $. You could go for more, but why waste the $ on it now.
512MB Gigabyte 8800GTS, PCI-E 2.0, Mem 1940MHz, GDDR3, GPU 650MHz, Streams 128, 2x DL DVI-I
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Pro [...] tID=719750

PSU - 55.21 One of the best PSU's in this price range out there. It has 41A on the 12V rail, so you'll be able to power just about any GPU out on the market right now. It also allows more room for upgrades.
550w Corsair VX Series PSU, ATX, PS/2, 5 year Warranty
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Pro [...] tID=664337

Memory - 32.89 This is one of the fastest DDR2 800mHz RAM that you can get. It's CAS 4 (4-4-4-12) and will allow you to OC your CPU to about 3.8-4 ghz without too much problem.
2GB (2x1GB) Corsair TwinX XMS2, DDR2 PC2-6400 (800), 240 Pins, Non-ECC Unbuffered, CAS 4-4-4-12
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Pro [...] tID=402849

HD - 47.58 Plenty of HD space to start out with. If you need more space just buy more now or add another HD later.
320 GB Samsung HD321KJ Spinpoint T166, SATA II, 7200 rpm, 16MB Cache, 9 ms, NCQ
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Pro [...] tID=529060

DVD Burner - 22.67 Nice solid DVD burner that includes all of the necessary DVD read/burning software.
LiteOn LH-20A1L-14C 20x DVD±R, 8x DVD±DL, DVD + RW x8/-RW x6, DVD-RAM x12, SATA, Retail, Lightscribe
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Pro [...] tID=775022

Total before the case ~522.97 and that includes the VAT!!!! So this build is about 7 pounds cheaper than your initial setup, plus you get one of the best GPU's out there!!

Now for some cases to consider, I'd get either one of these, since they keep things cool and have plenty of upgrade room too:

52.28 w/VAT
Coolermaster CM-690 V2 Dominator Black Midi Tower Case with Mesh Top Panel w/o PSU
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Pro [...] tID=644041
or
69.90 w/VAT
Antec 900 - Nine Hundred Ultimate Gamer Case with 200m Top Fan w/o PSU
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Pro [...] tID=501972

You are utimately the one to decide on what you get, but what I've listed above is probably what I'd get if I had around 600 pounds to spend. Hopefully this helps.

^ Don't know much about the Spinpoint HDD's, but otherwise I like the configuration above.

I would prefer to have a Raid capable motherboard. And Whilst i don't mind the option to overclock i'm not sure i'll be doing it for a while. Also the case is going in the lounge under the tv so it kinda has to be a desktop style case. Whilst i would normally go for a tower case (i have 3 full tower and 2 mid tower cases - old style and very basic though) i'm going to have to suffer style over substance for this particular bulid. I know it's a bit of a cliché but i would also like this machine to last a while and be upgradable in the future which is why i still not sure whether or not to go DDR3 - it's expensive now but when i upgrade next it probably will not be. Plus if i get the money i may build a much higher end workstation.

This board allows 2 x pcie v2 sli, Raid DDR2
Asus P5N-D, NF750i SLI £81
This board Raid, DDR2 / DDR3
Gigabyte GA P35C-DS3R, iP35 Express £73

If i could i would have a PCIE v2 SLi, Raid, DDR2 /DDR3 for about £100 ish. However i don't seem to be able to find such a board, let alone for £100

PS. I seem to only be able to "quick reply" the "postreply" button seems to just say "Sorry, this thread doesn't exist" is that normal?

if your doing virtual machines, you need more memory. 2 gigs is generaly considered the minimum for vista. sounds like you should be thinking about a 64 bit OS based on your previous uses, if so get 8 gigs of memory.

I think people are way too concerned about being able to use DDR3 in the future. we are a long way off from the point were you'll see a noticable difference beteen DDR2 and DDR3.

I built my current system just as AM2 came out, and I was looking at the performance difference between s939 and AM2 (DDR vs DDR2), and the performace gain was negligable (the only reason I ended up with an AM2 machine was that the s939 Mobo I wanted was perpetualy out of stock). remember DDR2 was about twice as fast as DDR. I'm not sure that DDR3 has to potential to be twice as fast as DDR2. and even if it does, I don't know how much real world difference you would see between them. you'd be better off with twice as much memory vs. twice as fast memory for most uses.

With 2 GB of memory, when you have open 2 virtual machines, you memory will run down to 256 MB or less. If you intend to use 2 virtual machines at the same time, I would recommend 4 GB of memory.

Going with the:
4GB (2x2GB) CorsairXMS2, DDR2 PC2-6400 (800MHz), Unbuffered, , DHX Technology 4-4-4-12 £70
It's Just the mobo now
How about this board
Gigabyte EP35-DS4 nearly twice the price of the GA-P35-DS3L.
but could it be worth the extra £35

I've Given up on the 3way SLi Didn't realise it only worked with Ultra's & GTX's.
Given up on the PCIE v2 - Probably no benifit over v1

there is a benifit, but its fairly slight.
the performance boost might be higher with next gen cards, but the future is always murky.

Reverted back to orginal suggestion thought the 4gb kit was same stuff.
Spec as of now:

LiteON DH-20A1S-18C £17.61
320 GB Samsung HD321KJ Spinpoint T166 £47.58
Intel Core 2 Duo, E8300 £112.10
512MB Asus 8800GT PCI-E 2.0 £149.21
520W Corsair HX Series Modular PSU £65.55
4x1GB Corsair TwinX XMS2, DDR2 PC2-6400 (800), CAS 4-4-4-12 £69.65

I am absolutly rubish i just can't decide between
Gigabyte EP35-DS4 -£110
Asus P5N-D, NF750i -£81

I've heard bad things about the 780i series but how about the 750i

Leaning towards the Asus
Thanks for the help so far guys
Any further recomendations on motherboards

512MB Asus 9600GT - £111 Good! Forget the previous 8800 series! But it is your choice.

Asus P5E, iX38 - £127 Very Good! Don't go back to P35 or nVidia chipsets, unless you can't afford one!!

Intel C2D E8300 - £112 You have another alternativ : Xeon E3110

CoolermasterRPM520 £58 Good!

320GB SpinpointT166 £47 Samsung!?! Seagate 7200.11 500GB 32MB is better. Why do you choose samsung? mine is broken only 2 months after I have just bought 'em, and then it has happened twice in a year period!! Stupid HDD!! On the other hand, my old Seagate 20GB, 40GB and 80GB are still working top fit 'till now.

LiteON DH-20A1S-18C £18 Good!

2x1GB Corsair TwinX DDR2 XMS2 Dominator, PC2-8500 £46 Good! But Isn't it still too expensive, why don't you stick with the normal PC2-800. 4GB if you can afford it.

Case
Thermaltake DH 101 VF7001BNS £130 Good!

Thanks for your help guys. I've ordered it just waiting delivery. E8300 due in end april sux, but i can be patience, plus if i want i'll just cancel and get e8200 instead.

I am a software developer too.

Trust me, buy 4GB and not 2GB. It's well worth it! Imagine being able to run multiple IDE's and being able to launch them again nearly instantly (because of massive disk cache) even after you loaded a different huge app. 4GB makes a big difference if you run big hogs even under XP 32-bit. (You'll have 3.5GB accessible, due to the video card using 512MB of the 32-bit address space). That extra 1.5 gigabytes allows you to turn off the swapfile completely. I don't even have a swapfile even though I run hogs on my computer. Even including two developer IDE's simultaneously, and keeping them minimized in my account, while my better half logs on to check email (Switch User). And disk defrags/virus scans will no longer cause the system to feel slow afterwards.

Also, 4GB of PC2-6400 is always better and faster than 2GB of PC2-8500. In fact, I'd prefer 2.66Ghz and 4GB as a developer, than 3Ghz and 2GB. Even compiles are faster in the background while I multitask in other big applications (i.e. Adobe Photoshop while waiting for a background build). The extra memory more than compensates for the performance degradation of a little extra swapping with 2GB with big apps and virtualization.

[quotemsg=1793682,1,318523]Hi Guys this is my first post and my first pc build in 7 years. my last was a dual piii 1ghz and i thought about time i replaced it. Could you please have a lookover this (i've been doing my head in with this stuff ) any help much appreciated - i have tried to follow existing advice from here.[/quote]