Why? The one I have now is a more updated model surely? Only reason I got it was because it was cheap... some guy selling it unused for £35 off the store price, and £30 above the i5 price. So thought I'd meet in the middle and get it.Should have gotten an i5 2500(K) to be honest. The SSD is good though.
Will do, so there is no concerns about the antec case then (as I have outlined)?Now that you have settled on a desktop, check out Zap's reply #10 for a general outline of what you should get.
Definitely an option I will consider, might get me used to the layout of the interface too.Before you buy the rest of the parts (motherboard and video card mainly) check out the OSX86 project and its compatibility list. If you buy the right parts you can pretty easily buy a copy of Lion from Apple and install a nice dual boot OSX and Windows 7 setup so you can play around in OSX and see if you like it. I think a Lion "upgrade," which includes the full version, is something like $30.
Why? The one I have now is a more updated model surely? Only reason I got it was because it was cheap... some guy selling it unused for £35 off the store price, and £30 above the i5 price. So thought I'd meet in the middle and get it.
Will do, so there is no concerns about the antec case then (as I have outlined)?
Just heard about this new IvyBridge coming out in a couple months, why wasn't I told about this
Noted. I'm returning it and getting the lesser version.No, actually the i7 2600 and i5 2500 came out on the same day. For the tasks you have listed, you have spent £30 for zero improvement, that's why you shouldn't have gotten it.
Sounds good to me. Got the PCI slot blocking thing from an Amazon review:Nope, no issue IMHO. The fan does indeed have a Molex that plugs into the power supply instead of a 3-pin for mobo fan header, but if you really want to speed control it, there are plenty of Molex to 3-pin adapters out there. As for the PCI slots being blocked, I don't really know what you're talking about there. From the pictures you can see that there are no drive bays in front of the slots.
Was thinking in terms of price dropsCause it's super irrelevant for what you want to do.
Was thinking in terms of price drops
Going to let the cat out of the bag now. Is there any more case options? While I do like the Antec NSK3480 (the colour, the size, the quietness), I can't help but feel the lack of USB3 ports might leave me hanging in tomorrows world. -- edit, can't find any with USB3, perhaps they aren't even created yet --
Also, what are reputable brands for RAM these days? Just going to go with whichever is cheapest.
What don't I get in W7? It's what I do - too many problems, viruses, registry cruft, gotchas, slowdowns, and unknown problems. Oh, it's not as bad as it was, but it's still annoying enough that I'd rather have the elegance of MacOS. Prices have come down (once you compare likes and likes, which people don't like to do) enough that the Mac premium isn't that much anymore, and resale value is so good that even that isn't a big deal anymore.
Is that case as quiet as the other one?There are plenty out there, but they tend to be more expensive. The Silverstone PS07 for example is classy and generally well-liked. You would also need to make sure that the motherboard you got has an internal USB 3.0 header like the ASUS P8Z68-V LE.
I will decide sometime soon though, probably end up flipping a coin.
Is that case as quiet as the other one?
Just out of interest, would it work if there was a USB2.0 front port, but you connected it to a USB3.0 header on the motherboard - would you get USB3.0 speeds?