Hi,
my 5 yr old AMD 64 3200+ tower is starting to creak somewhat, I am getting regular shut downs and disk errors. I have decided that now is the time to buy a new one, probably should have decided last year to save a bit of money . I have a budget of around £650. I will be playing games, using office and surfing. I want dual monitors (19" is probaly as big as I can go in the space I have. Currently have XP home sp2 and would be looking for win 7. Can anyone recommend something that would fit?

I wouldn't be confident of building one myself, but may be able to cajole a mate in to building it...

Are you including two 19" monitors in your £650 budget? If so you're going to struggle.

I was , but if it is a problem I would go with one as long as the graphics card will power 2 monitors.. I am so out of touch with what is available it's scary..

If you can reuse a current monitor, this looks a not unreasonable starting point:

http://3xs.scan.co.uk/ShowSystem.asp?SystemID=979

Or you can take that as a starting point for buying parts.

Is £650 sufficient or would an extra £50 get me a lot better system?

I could probably get away with a box only as I have speakers, monitor keyboard etc that can be reused.

Am I looking at it the wrong way? Should I start with a bunch of must have/minimum spec components and work from there - addding/removing etc?

Well for £650 I could build you a "box only" solution using the new SandyBridge i5 2400 processor but again it would be using the graphics that is built-in to the cpu ie. not a stand-alone - but if money is tight you could always get one at a later date and fit it yourself.

I am looking for the most bang for my buck, best value 'compromise' without a massive compromise... I was thinking of a system, but there is no reason why I can't use my current speakers, keyboard, mouse. I have a 17" TFT that would do for now, would like 2 monitors but this can wait for now. Looking for a spec that will last for a while (another 5 years). i would prefer a seperate graphics card as I have some games that I can't play on my current machine - should hae checked before I bought

If you can get your friend to build for you, this might be a worthwhile place to start:

http://www.bit-tech.net/blog/2011/01/19 ... uary-2010/

A friend of mine just bought one of these:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showprodu ... 92&subcat=

Sandybridge

Get a i5-2400 or i5-2500 (get the k version if you want to overlook).
Apparently they wipe the floor with everything else.

Yeah I looked at that - £692 - but they convienently forgot to cost-in Windows 7 licence - so add in a further £75-odd.

Clicky
You can reduce that £692 by going for a i5-2400 or a lower GPU'S. You could also use the hsf that comes with the chip rather than buying a 3rd party one.

i know this will be an obvious answer but, I read a review yesterday about the new sandy bridge processors, would it be worth waiting a month for the prices of the current i's to come down or is it worth going for a new sandy bridge cpu?

If you can afford it then I'd say plump for a Sandybridge.

The performance jump is way more than the price jump.

WAIT!!!!!!!!!!

nVidia are releasing the 560 within about a week. This could do all sorts to the mid-range GPU market. Personally, I would focus on a doesn't (i.e. not cheap) case and PSU, as a solid base. Let's say
Antec 300 £50
Antec Truepower New 650 £60
Then, HDD is easy - Sammy F3 1TB @ £40. If you want it to last, 8gig of RAM is the cheapest it's been possibly ever, so I'd be tempted to stump up the extra, although 4gig would be fine. Then I'd give it a fortnight and watch how the continuing onslaught of P67 mobos pans out. Even a 2300 will be plenty fast enough for you if you don't intend to overclock. As for GPU, once the 560 launches, you may be able to grab a 6mth old card for less than £130 that will run two monitors happily.