Before buying PC please ask our advice first!

Replace the HD 6950 with the GTX 560 Ti. they're around same-ish performance but the 560 Ti is cheaper.
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/1gb-msi-gtx-560ti-oc-twin-frozr-ii-40nm-4200mhz-gddr5-gpu-880mhz-shader-1760mhz-384-cores

Other than that, the rest of the system seems good.

I've decided to build my own pc. I'm going to be using it mostly for gaming but I only have a budget of £600. So far I've got a list of components that I feel would satisfy what I'm looking for. All the parts are from ebuyer, and are as follows:

Intel Core i3 550 3.2GHz Socket 1156 4MB L3 Cache Retail Boxed Processor Dual core at this budget is a bit... underwhelming.
Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro rev 2 Socket 775, 1156, 1155, 1366, AM2, AM3 Heatpipe CPU Cooler I'd warn you off this one too
Asus M5A78L/USB3 AMD Socket AM3+ 8 Channel HD Audio ATX Motherboard Wrong motherboard platform...
Gainward GTX 550 Ti Golden Sample 1GB GDDR5 DVI VGA HDMI PCI-E Graphics Card
Kingston 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 1600MHz HyperX Blu Memory Kit CL9 1.65V Non-ECC Unbuffered
Corsair 500W CX V2 PSU
Antec 300 Three Hundred Case
LiteOn iHAS124 24x DVD±RW DL & RAM SATA Optical Drive - OEM Black with Nero Essentials
WD 2TB 3.5" SATA-III 6GB/s Caviar Green Hard Drive - 64MB Cache - WD20EARX
Windows 7 Home Premium

I copied and pasted this exactly as I'm unsure on how much of it is necessary. If someone could check this to see if there are any improvements to be made or, more importantly, if for some reason it wouldn't work, it would be much appreciated.

Try

http://www.dabs.com/products/asus-intel-performance-bundle--includes-p8z68-v-lx-motherboard--intel-core-i5-2500k---8gb-ddr3--7VJG.html?src=2

P8Z68-V LX Motherboard, Intel Core i5-2500K & 8GB DDR3

Can anyone help me out here;
I wish to buy a laptop.

I will use it for
-school work (all office programs)
-browsing the net (forums, social networking)
-using photoshop now and again
-occasionally making films with movie maker [NB I usually record in 1080p HD so this needs to be supported]
-the odd online flash game

I want it to be nice and fast, I don't have a great knowledge of computers so could someone else please tell me the sort of specs required for the above tasks. Also if anyone knows of a specific laptop that would meet my reqs please send me a link!

I am thinking of a Windows 7 OS, as a mac would probably be out of my price range.

I am feeling a max of ~£500, but if there is one that does my required tasks for less than that, please let me know!

That's a... brave... choice of motherboard for a processor like that
I'd personally be worried about cooking the mosfets. Seen it happen at least a dozen times on boards without proper cooling.

To be honest, I put THAT 6950 in there to demo the specification.
I have a bios-unlocked 6950 sat in my cupboard waiting to go in it, so he's getting 6970 performance for £200-ish regardless of the other components



for a budget like yours I'd be tempted to try an AMD build with nice reliable components:
http://i43.tinypic.com/b3lgnc.png
(the hard drive in this one's ****. I still object to hard drives costing triple what they should due to the shortage )

Probably best thing to do is, balance it out with a few extra fans in the cases and a different cooling system for the processor.

This thread has shown me just how little I know about PCs. So far this (http://i43.tinypic.com/b3lgnc.png) seems like the best for being a self-built gaming pc with a budget of £600. Should I get this, or has anyone got any other suggestions?

AMD? Ehh... Intel pounds them on performance on every front.

Case fans and CPU coolers will do sod all for mosfet cooling (with the possible exception of top-down cooling but that won't do much without actual mosfet heatsinks).
To clear up any confusion, the mosfets are these bits:

If they're not properly cooled (as above) it's a recipie for disaster with high-end CPUs.


The one edit I might recommend is that if you fancy having 6 CPU cores rather than 4 there's a 3.3Ghz hexacore model of that chip for £20 more:
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/15-cashback-amd-fx-6100-black-edition-orochi-core-s-am3plus-33ghz-12mb-total-cache-ht-5200mt-s-95w-r

Also you should probably switch to a different hard drive, western digital (particularly the caviar blue/black series) are generally better hard drives than these hitachis, I really just put it in there because it was cheap for what hard drives seem to cost at the minute...


Not really on this kind of budget.
If he was spending £1000, or even £750, then sure, go i5 2500k, I make a stupid number of machines with those chips and they perform very well. But you can't make a decent 2500k build for less than £700, and the AMD chips still perform admirably. The only modern applications that require really mega per-thread CPU performance (ie, applications in which the intel chip would be noticeably better) are in high-end simulation...
And on applications which can spread the CPU load around many cores, the AMD chips punch above their weight price-wise.
Also there will be no more new 1155 or 1156 socket performance chips, whereas AMD's platforms generally provide upgradability.

I'm thinking of going Bulldozer x8 for a simulation machine that pegs all cores at 100% all of the time, purely for the core count vs price.

Will it be possible to dual boot Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard and Windows 7 x64, + a ~5GB program on a 60GB SSD? Or will there not be enough room for everything to run comfortably?

The specs say that the Server version requires 32GB, and the 7x64 needs 20Gb, add 5 and its at 57 :/

Feck.

From what I've gathered; no, it won't be enough - not even a 64GB SSD would. You'd want 120/128GB(possibly more) and a Crucial M4. For more informed info ask at forums.overclockers.co.uk

With regards to the processor I'd ask there too because personally speaking I'd say that intel is better for this job but they'll know better.

It's a 64GB Crucial M4, but as always, a little less is actually available for use.

I've already got the disk, so this kind of sucks :/

Where can you find out whether or not your computer will have wi-fi. I already have internet set up in my house and I'm going to be building my own pc. So is the wi-fi enabler located in the motherboard specs or somewhere else?

Most mobos don't come with wifi I think, mine didn't. There are some that do, but it will specifically say so. Otherwise, you can get a cheap wifi card to stick in.

Are there any that you would suggest or should I just get a cheap one?

What's the difference (beside the obvious ones) between internal and external wi-fi enablers, and is there any clear advantage for getting one over the other?

What's the difference (beside the obvious ones) between internal and external wi-fi enablers, and is there any clear advantage for getting one over the other?