Build me a computer

[Flemingovia]

OK. My computer is on its way out. It was designed by Brunel, driven by steam and everyone who looks at it goes "my God! I haven't seen one of them for a decade or more!"

Time for a change.

I have a friend who will build me a machine, to my specs, for the price of the components.

Here are my requirements:

1. My MAXIMUM budget is about $2000. I would prefer not to go that high.
2. I will not be able to afford to replace it for a number of years, so it needs to be upgradable for some time.

WORK.

As well as office use, I regularly do sophisticated powerpoints and I am increasingly working with images, video clips, DVD clips and music/sound files.

My son is also about to start a media course, so I suspect actual editing of video will lie in the future.

PLAY.

I am happy with NS, but my kids want to be able to play online games like WOW, Middle Earth and shooters.

Any suggestions of specs I should look for?

 

[Eluvatar]

I would recommend some flavour of dual core (or, if you're feeling ambitious, quad core) processor at over 2 GHz, either AMD ( ~$100 ) or Intel ( ~$200 ). Your storage needs, given your description, would /probably/ be satisfied by a 750 GB hard drive, I'm quite happy with the Western Digital Caviar on the machine I assembled.

The motherboard depends on the processor, if you choose AMD I can speak highly of the BIOSTAR TF560 that I used on the aforementioned machine. You would however want to also find some PCI-E graphics card for this, as it has absolutely no on-board graphics!

As for RAM, I think DDR2 (Which the aforementioned Biostar would require) is still fast enough for most needs, and you can get affordable such memory. For example, the G Skill RAM I used would supply more than you could possibly need*.

In terms of a Case, I'd hesitate to give any advice, as part of the decision is personal aesthetics.

You could potentially stay under $500 with this set of stuff, assuming newegg-level prices.

(Note: Newegg does not ship to the UK)

*[size=-1] Unless you run Vista, in which case it probably merely supplies more than you're likely to need.[/size]

 

[Haor Chall]

PC Gamer has a list of components for building your own PC for around a grand every month- or something similar. I'll try and dig out a copy and see what it says.