Current best performance/price system sugestions

[powerarmour]

As for everything above me&er, sounds great and it's a good time to buy, and I've heard only good things about the cheap Geil 2GB PC6400 kits that OcUK are selling atm.

Luckily I've never had even a sniff of a stability problem with Sata AHCI setups in Vista (done about 6 installs so far, all with Seagate drives though), what I do get on my Laptop though, is every time I install a new Intel ACHI Sata driver my Vista needs to be activated again, sometimes it just works over the net, but sometimes I need to ring up and give the cheesy excuse.

[me&er]

...Luckily I've never had even a sniff of a stability problem with Sata AHCI setups in Vista (done about 6 installs so far, all with Seagate drives though), ...

You've kindly jogged my memory .. just so as not to confuse anyone..:

Older Raptors and the KS series WDs did/do not even support NCQ. My newer Raptor does, but I get no visible benefit when I enable AHCI and Command Queing. Turning it off simply decreases potential for conflicts between Bios>Hardware>OS>Driver>Software.

It is indeed much improved with Vista standard AHCI drivers now.. but still not good enough imo, because most m/b bios seem to come with AHCI settings firmly disabled as default and most desktop software/games developers do not factor in AHCI tools such as Command Queuing in their products, as it's primary functions are for Servers not Desktops. Unless Raid and hot-plugging sata drives is required I can see no reason to have AHCI enabled in Vista or XP.. it considerably increases the risk of conflict imo.

[impar]

Greetings!

Thanks, Me&er.

I always use a 800va+ UPS.. it works wonders for system stability and clean power usage.

Yep. An UPS is mandatory also.

[impar]

Greetings!

GPU of choice is now the 8800GT.

[impar]

Greetings!

9600GT?

[impar]

Greetings!

Update:
Case - with 120mm fans
PSU - good brand, at least 40A in 12v
Motherboard - P55 based
CPU - i5
RAM - 4GB
Video card - HD5850
Hard drive - SSD + a 500GB platter one
Monitor - 24" FullHD

[powerarmour]

Greetings!

Update:
Case - with 120mm fans
PSU - good brand, at least 40A in 12v
Motherboard - P55 based
CPU - i5
RAM - 4GB
Video card - HD5850
Hard drive - SSD + a 500GB platter one
Monitor - 24" FullHD

Yep, it's pretty much the best way to go at the moment for the money. Might as well get more than 4GB memory though, it's not much more expensive to double up.

[impar]

Greetings!

Might as well get more than 4GB memory though, it's not much more expensive to double up.

Going for 8Gb means twice the cost.

[impar]

Greetings!

Update:
Case - with 120mm fans
PSU - good brand, at least 40A in 12v
Motherboard - P55 based
CPU - i5
RAM - 4GB
Video card - HD5850
Hard drive - SSD + a 500GB platter one
Monitor - 24" FullHD

Six months...

[daglesj]

Yeah 4Gb of DDR3 was about £65 around September. Now its around £95!!

Overclockers dont even sell DDR3 8GB kits so thats £190 for 8GB.

No thank you.