Recommended Hardware

Seems nearly everyone is thinking of an upgrade right now. To avoid repeating myself and give everyone the benefit of my research over the last month I've created this Hardware chart of what is worth considering to buy.

There are 3 categories of Hardware;

• Budget is the bare minimum you should be considering buying at this moment in time to give smooth performance on the lowest settings.
• Recommended is the best value for money combined with smooth performance on higher settings.
• Performance is for those who want absolutely flawless performance on the highest settings.

Also remember when you are buying your computer to think about the best Price/Performance ratio you can get for your money. Never best to buy the latest hardware just when its released. Look at the model new hardware is replacing or even the model before that that is probably going for clearance prices and still good enough for a basic gaming machine.

Best Buying Tip: Buy often, buy cheap! Remember this and you can't go wrong. No point buying the latest hardware for full price if you only use 50% of its potential in the first year. You might as well buy the bargains when you need them and run them at 100%. Then after 2 years you will have 2 machines instead of 1 and the second machine will probably be better then the expensive one you bought a year before.

Heat, Noise and Energy usage shouldn't be ignored either. Heat can be a real problem to deal with often requiring expensive cooling to fix stability problems. Constant noise from fans and drives will drive you mad. Try to buy quiet fans and drives. Energy is costing more and more and you will be throwing money away going for a high power consuming graphics card that gives fractionally more performance and 1000watt power supply.

Components

Component	Budget	Recommend	Performance
Processor	Intel E5200 - I'm replacing the E2180 with the E5200 as the ultimate bargin chip. The E5200 is based on the 45nm Wolfdale core and is therefore cooler giving much more room for overclocking. Easily hitting 4GHz (12x333) and with twice the cache of the E2180. Overclocked this brings performance beyond that of the E7x00 series and close to E8x00! An article on Bit-tech really shows off the benefits of overclocking this CPU.	Intel E7200 - Ideal processor for current games. Very overclockable chip based on the same Wolfdale core as the fast E8400. (Note: Two stepping out at the moment. No knowledge of what the difference is]	Intel Q6600 - Quad core may not be as fast as Dual Core right now. As more games become Multicore enabled and can take advantage of more then 2 cores then Quad core will out live a Dual Core. Easy to overclock processor similar to the E2180. Simply overclock to 3GHz (9x333). Be sure to get the G0 stepping.
Motherboard	Asus P5QL Pro - The P5K/EPU is old now and becoming hard to locate so I've replaced it. The P5QL Pro is very similar to the P5Q as the name suggestions. The main differences being the P5QL Pro uses the Intel P43 chipset not the P45 chipset the P5Q does. As a result it isn't as good an overclocking board for the higher end processors. An FSB above 420MHz is difficult to achieve according to reports. More then enough to overclock the E5x00 and E7x00 series CPU's though. This motherboard is around £20 cheaper then the P5Q so its a good saving allowing you to get an E5200 instead of E2180. Like the P5Q the motherboard power connector on the motherboard is in an awkward position between the CPU and PCI-E port. Might make cable management hard for cases with the PSU in the bottom of the case.	Asus P5Q - Part of the new Asus P5Q range with the new Intel P45 chipset. They are just as impressive as the P5K range but with faster memory support, better overclocking potential and some handy new features like Express Gate. Very good motherboard if you only want a single graphics card. This version of the P5Q doesn't include the Expressgate SSD or Crossfire.	Asus P5Q Deluxe - Includes improved cooling design for higher overclocks, ExpressGate SSD and 8x/8x Crossfire.
Memory	Corsair TWIN2X2048-6400 (2GB kit) - Minimum amount of memory you should be considering.	Corsair TWIN2X4096-6400C5 (4GB Kit)
Graphics card	Zotac 8800GT 512MB For under £100 this card is a bargain.	Sapphire HD4850 512MB Very fast and a bargain price.	Sapphire HD4870 512MB GDDR5 Even faster then the HD4850 thanks to GDDR5 memory.
Case	Antec Three Hundred or Antec Sonata III 500 - Really this is a matter of personal choice. The Antec Three Hundred is in my mind better looking. It also has the PSU at the bottom which gives better overall airflow in your case. This is the better choice if you plan to overclock because of the extra fans you can add to improve cooling. On the otherhand the Antec Sonata III 500 comes with a Antec EarthWatts 500watt highly efficient power supply. Which works out at great value for money. The Sonata is also quieter.	Antec Nine Hundred Two - This is the bigger brother to the Three Hundred, and the updated version of the 900 and awesome in just about every way you can think of. Dark notes that the overuse of LED fans leads to un-necessary noise here.	Twelve Hundred case is also worth considering if you need a BIG case!
Power Supply (PSU)
Hard Disk	Samsung SpinPoint F1 320GB SATA 16MB Cache - Although pretty much any hard disk will do as it won't effect your frame rate, just loading times. This hard disk uses 1 high desity platter meaning its fast and like other Samsung F1 drives cool, quiet and low power too.	Samsung Spinpoint F1 HD103UJ 1TB SATAII 32MB Cache - In a class of its own is this Samsung Hard Disk. Brilliant performance thanks to its large cache and high density platters. Several reviews show it matches the performance of 150GB Raptors but you get 1000GB of storage with the Samsung! Bit-tech review
DVD Drive
Soundcard

Peripherals

Peripheral	Budget	Recommended	Performance
Monitor		Samsung SM 2232BW - This is exceptionally highly recommended. Several people in the Community have one. All agree it is phenomenal. Its a 22'' widescreen meaning a 1680x1050 native resolution ideal for gaming. Looks amazing too and is really well priced!
Speakers
Keyboard
Mouse		Logitech G5 - Really accurate and comfortable. It is Wired and could probably benefit from the Scroll up button being moved in front of the mouse wheel like the old MX510.
Mouse Pad