It looks like, i'll stick with XP for a while. I'll forget about vista till i have more money. Unless i notice premium on ebuyer for an ok-ish price :\.

EDIT: is it possible to go with an UPGRADE version?

Could i go from normal XP professional to 64 bit vista premium? i'm expecting no for some reason.

EDIT EDIT: If so there's this http://www.ebuyer.com/product/142785 but i can't see if its 32 or 64 does that mean it's both?

Just get the Vista HP 64bit, it will be back in stock very soon, eBuyer get stock muliple times a week.

Updated the graphics card to a sapphire version of the same card, and i found 64-bit vista for under £70 on Misco. If so what do i need to buy with it i could buy cheaply ^_^

I would always recommend Enermax for power supplies as they are one of the more established PSU manufacturers, and I have never had a problem with them (bought 3). You pay more for them but they are good.

Also, I think a 500W PSU will be fine for that spec.

Oh, in regards to OS, just remembered this, Vista Ultimate for £40 come Oct 10th. Not sure if they will do the 64bit version, though.

Thats lucky for you students ^_^ i still need to pay the full price though.

There we go finally complete i think, for now . Thank you for everyones help and unless you have anything to add or criticise in the next 10-20 minutes i'm gonna go book the above.

Yaya PC turned up at 7:10AM >.<

I was still asleep.

Get cracking and post photos

unfortunatly i took no photos whilst building dad's camera was flat and this replacement phoen and its 1MP was well useless. I'll post pictures fo the finished thing if you like.

Took me 4 hours near enough to set it up. Then again i was half asleep and in a limited space .

what sort of fps u guys get? I play on all high and get like 75-150. Tempted to lower some things, not a fan of it slowing down when 6 guys rush through a door

Kyhas, that's better than my 3 weeks (3days for just comp building).

Astro, if you mean in CSS, I get 300fps solid (it appears to be a hard limit) at 1600x1200 max quality. That's a HD4870 and Q6600.

4 hours build time is pretty good, about the same as my build time (not including software).

I get between 150 and 300fps in Team Fortress 2 at 2560x1600 maximum quality but that's with 2x 4870X2's and a Q9550.

Mine is still downloading steam etc so no games yet

I'm experiencing problems, with spore. (i haven't loaded other games on yet)

I'm experiencing graphical crashs at random intervals. i've listened to FAQ's and EA's other Q&A section and nothing so i've left my own question there.

you all know the specs i've fully updated everything the only thing i can think of is limited compatability with Vista 64 bit

Have you installed all the drivers? And check the cooling in the case.

well i'm unable to check temp of the GPU, but CPU says to be running at 35C. Turns out i was running a catalyst 8.51 but im now on 8.9.

Unfortunatly playing ANOTHER game it crashed near identical to the crash in spore. lots of little squares and locking up.

This is very strange

I would Prime95 your system for an hour or so and eliminate any potential hardware issues with the CPU and RAM. You can download version 25.6 here: http://www.mersenneforum.org/showthread.php?t=9779

Graphics errors are usually due to faulty card, video drivers or bad power supply (either faulty or the wattage rating too low).

Well the wattage is 620W so i doubt thats a problem. must be the graphics card

Did you plug the extra power cables into the graphics card? Sometimes it doesn't boot when you do this, though, and you would get low power messages. so I'm guessing you have.

Do you get the errors straight away or after a period of playing? If it's after a while, it's probably overheating. Do you get any visual errors (wrong textures, bright spots on screen etc) when playing, and if so, can we have screenshots?

You may want to check your graphics card is seated in the motherboard properly, aswell. It could actually be the motherboard, to try and rule that out you could move the card to the other slot, though I'm not sure it allows that, and it didn't help my broken mobo (I think the PCIE chip was bust), but it's worth a shot.

well actually 'I' didn't plug the power cables in. My dad was allowed to do that, shame he didn;t understand what i've now corrected. He had both the power connectors form he graphics card plugged into the same cable from the power supply.

He tried explaining fans can do it and the power supply adapts and should cope o.0

no crashes yet ^_^

Ah, yeah, that would explain it. Though with the Corsair HX620 power supply you should have had two separate power cables for the graphics card, and these plug into two separate dedicated sockets on the PSU. In other words, you shouldn't be able to use one cable for both sockets. If you're using a Molex to PCIE connector, don't, use the proper cables instead (the end with the extra 2 pins goes into the card, just leave the 2 pins hanging around, but secure them to keep them safe and to not let them contact other stuff).

Oh, and the PSU itself can cope, just the wires themselves aren't big enough to support the current. The comparison with fans is also a tad silly - fans consume <1W each (unless you have monster fans) and the HD4870 consumes about 175W, IIRC, 75W on each extra wire and 25W through the PCIE socket, under load (not sure the numbers are right, but they should give an example).

I think it's 75W through the motherboard and 150W additional per cable.

O.O now i feel like crying, blue screen, sound loop, slightly different crash to before but still crashed.

I feel doomed to having a PC that Crashes 20+ times a day

Can't be that, Aaron, the entire PC doesn't use 375W during load

Kyhas, try Prime95 to see if it's CPU/RAM related.