thebeast Posted September 10, 2006 Share Posted September 10, 2006 Hey guys, My current PC is pretty old (Athlon 1800 or thereabouts) and has taken to locking up now and again. The memory and drive are OK as I've run low-level tests on these so I can only assume the board or CPU are up the spout. I have an ATX case, recent power supply (450W I believe), recent 300Gb parallel ATA hard drive, and all the other bits and pieces. So all I really need are a motherboard, CPU, and most likely memory as the stuff I have probably won't be compatible (I think it's PC2100 DDR1 stuff). So I'm looking for suggestions to a cheap motherboard and CPU. I seldom do any demanding stuff, occassionally some audio transcoding but I can run that overnight so performance isn't critical. Don't play games either, so I don't care for fancy graphics cards. In summary, my needs are: * Reasonable performance, but not critical (i.e. lower end of the price scale) * Good video performance for applications, not games. 1600x1200 and a DVI output would be ideal * Don't care much for fancy sound either, on-board will be fine * Needs to be ATX so I can use my existing case and PSU * A few parallel ATA sockets so I can run my existing HD, plus DVD-R drives etc. * On-board LAN, gigabit would be nice but not required. Wireless would be nice too if it's OSX compatible Just looking for some suggestions, mainly on the mobo rather than the processor, for compatibility with an OSX system, along with good performance for general Windows/*nix/whatever use. Cheaper is better of course! Oh and I'm in the UK, so if you want to post links to vendors it would be good if they're UK based so the prices are relevant to me. Cheers Paul. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/27238-upgrading-pc-need-hardware-suggestions-uk/ Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sabr Posted September 11, 2006 Share Posted September 11, 2006 Budget? Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/27238-upgrading-pc-need-hardware-suggestions-uk/#findComment-186286 Share on other sites More sharing options...
mac10 Posted September 12, 2006 Share Posted September 12, 2006 Go for something like the ASUS P5LD2 - http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ProductInfo...roductID=434318 Cheap, supports Core 2 and has onboard GMA950 that works perfectly in OS X. Can also get an ADD2 card for dual monitor support in OS X. Oh yeah and it's mATX so you can put it in a dinky little case. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/27238-upgrading-pc-need-hardware-suggestions-uk/#findComment-186347 Share on other sites More sharing options...
murcielago585 Posted September 12, 2006 Share Posted September 12, 2006 hopefully that 10.4.7 kernel could get decrypted soon and maybe advise the 7600 GT at that point for video or even the 7300 Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/27238-upgrading-pc-need-hardware-suggestions-uk/#findComment-186352 Share on other sites More sharing options...
thebeast Posted September 12, 2006 Author Share Posted September 12, 2006 I don't have a budget per-se, however as I don't use the PC for particularly demanding applications I'd rather not spend a substantial amount to get cutting edge parts, that in actual use won't make any noticable difference. So budget stuff, but still good quality, is the kind of target I'm looking for. Put it this way - if it wasn't for the problems I'm having with the stuff currently in the PC, I wouldn't bother upgrading for another year or so. If I can get both the board and processor for say £150, that'll be good. Then whatever I need to spend on memory (although that's easy to choose so no advice required!) The ASUS P5LD2 looks like a good choice, but it only has one IDE slot (meaning both my HD and DVD-R would be on the same channel) and it's Micro ATX. As I already have a good ATX case and PSU, is it really worth switching to Micro ATX and having to replace the lot? I don't see any advantage, other than smaller size, which isn't really an issue for me, and it seems you lose a few expansion capabilities compared to ATX. However I'm open to suggestions. Cheers Paul. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/27238-upgrading-pc-need-hardware-suggestions-uk/#findComment-186640 Share on other sites More sharing options...
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