I am using my current pc for 4 years now. So it is time for something new

Should i go for dual or quad core.
Only what are the 'best' videocard nowadays within a reasoneable price. Especialy nvidia confuses me with their 'new' naming.
Also i dont like noisy pc's. I saw a hp firebird voodoo (fluid cooling and sli 9800S dual video cards) but that is beyond my budget and does not seem to be available in europe(netherlands).
Luckily audio card is easy with creative xfi with pci-e being the only choice.
I put myself on a budget so in total i would spend no more then 600-800 euro's.

Thanks in advance for helping me to put together the parts.

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I think that solely depends on what you want... For gaming I can't give you an advice. For most development, internet and office use a dual core is fit and you won't notice much difference to the quad core. But if you are interested in multicore programming for signal processing, raytracing, scientific computing or something else, you might be very interested in the quad.


I don't think there are lots of options. The easiest way is to find a retailer where you can listen to your favourite machines. Sometimes computer magazines have tests including sound measurements. Since most magazines did mass computer tests shortly before x-mas, you can expect that some magazines will run a new test including many machines soon - or they have already committed one recently. If you want to build your own system, the rule of thumb is that large propeller diameters and thus fewer RPMs make a cooler silent. Water cooling systems are silent when the pump is silent, which is not always the case. I haven't seen sawing hard drives for a while, so I don't think they make much trouble anymore. Coolers for graphics cards can sometimes be a real pain on that account.

Sorry that I can't give you very concrete advice. Haven't built up a silent system for a while. My desktop is about 5 years old, now; I found silent components with the help of my retailer who let me listen to some of their systems. That the graphics card was silent, I found out over the Internet. I found my newer notebook at the same shop going through the same test .

If you want the new computer to live around 4-5 years then it may be a good idea to get Quad core. By then there should be alot of things that take advantage of having more cores. Hopefully valve will add a real chess game in the back of "Half-Life 99" where the movements of each player are done in real time on a core, like they said as a suggestion for what they could do with CPU's that have several cores.

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