"Computer Purchases"

It’s computer upgrade time, and I’ve just lightened my bank balance by a smidge under £400 for some nice new computer innards:

• Intel Core i7 860 – the most expensive component taking over half my total spend, but it is rated as one of the best processors to get.  I was considering going for a Core i5, but this i7 was only a few pounds more than the top i5, and comes with bonus street cred.
• Asus P7P55D-E LX – A nice mid range board straddling the low range P7P55D and mid-range P7P55D-E by foregoing SLI and Crossfire but keeping the faster S-ATA ports and USB 3.0 of the latter.
• 4Gb Corsair DDR3 1333 RAM – Standard RAM
• 500W PSU – The cheapest 500W PSU I could find that claimed to be silent.  I hope it stays that way as the PSU fan in my PC at the moment is the loudest fan in there, which you really notice when the other fans are turned down.

I brought the bits from scan.co.uk, who I’ve used in the past and found to be consistantly cheap and reliable.  A mention should also go to Tom’s Hardware, who suggested the motherboard.

Also placed on the Christmas list were a couple of hard drives: a 500Gb WD Caviar Black to replace the system drive in my PC, and a 1Tb WD Caviar Green to replace one of the backup drives, which will then replace the media drive in my PC.

Now I just have to work out some logistics with servers to get my documents backed up before I reinstall.