New Build - Advice

Squall

Hey all,

Considering this build at the moment. Comes in at just over 2K.

340676 Corsair Powersupply 650W Black, ATX/EPS,
341841 Antec Performance P182 Miditower,
391447 Intel Core™ i7 Quad Processor i7-920
387362 MSI X58 Platinum, X58, Socket-1366, DDR3
405642 Gainward Radeon HD 4870X2 2GB GDDR5,
347592 Samsung 22" Wide Syncmaster T220,
354066 Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate SP1
354996 Samsung DVD±RW burner, SH-S223F, 22x,
331024 Western Digital Caviar SE16 500GB SATA2
343985 OCZ Freeze Extreme Thermal Compound,
408720 Crucial DDR3 1333MHz 6GB KIT, CL9,

Any comments? Anything im missing? Is it worth going with an i7 build? This is a gaming rig and im hoping to get a few years out of it.

pogcica

Just a comment on the screen size, would the graphic card not be overkill for a 22" ?

samhail

if ur getting 6GB (over 4GB) of RAM make sure you get the 64bit vista or you will be missing out on the extra 2GB

TerrorFirmer

I would go for something like this for the following reasons:

i7. Good for encoding, poor for games (from a price perspective)

22" monitor? Waste with a 4870x2.

6Gb ram? Pointless for a gaming machine.

You've saving 200 quid (4 or 5 new release games to test out on your new machine) and have a 24" monitor, a bigger hard drive, a better power supply and a blu-ray drive to boot.

PogMoThoin

I'd not bother with i7, compared to 45nm quads there isn't any gain for gaming.
See this, some great bargains will come in quads soon. Also You'd need tri channel DDR3 ram to get the most of i7, not worth it when 4GB of DDR2 is only €60ish. Your money would be better spent on 2x SSD's & raid them for your OS.

Your long enough posting here m8 to know there's no point trying to futureproof, just opt for the best value as it will outdate and drop in price quicker than You realise.

Bigger monitor, min 24' with a resolution higher than HD, don't need to tell You why

Squall

Cheers for the advice lads. Just went and order the below.

341841 Antec Performance P182 Miditower, Gun Metal Black Aluminum (Without PSU)
340678 Corsair Powersupply 750W Black, ATX/EPS, 140mm Fan, 8xSATA, SLI
351612 Gigabyte GA-X48-DS4, X48, Socket-775, ATX, Silent Pipe, DDR2, 2xPCI-Ex(2.0)x16
330169 Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.4GHz Socket LGA775, 8MB, BOXED w/fan
343985 OCZ Freeze Extreme Thermal Compound,3 gram
378201 Club3D Radeon HD 4870 X2 Dual GPU
2048MB GDDR5, PCI-E, DVI/VGA, HDCP, HDMI
383884 OCZ Fatal1ty DDR2 PC8500 4096MB Kit,w/two 2GB PC8500, CL7
343054 Samsung SpinPoint F1 750GB SATA2 32MB 7200RPM
354066 Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate SP1, English OEM DVD 64bit
346243 Samsung 24" LCD Syncmaster 2493HM,1920x1200, 10000:1, 5ms, DVI/VGA/HDMI
347330 LG DVD±RW-burner, GGC-H20L,Blu-Ray & HD-DVD Reader

€1895 in total.

Squall

Not sure why I got the urge to look this post back up... possible boredom but anyway...

4+ years later and I'm posting off the same machine from above. Still kicking ass and taking names. Though I have been getting a hankering to upgrade lately (not really out of necessity as I have had no problems with an recent games which I am continually amazed at).

Anyone feel like throwing out some suggestions on what I could?

TerrorFirmer

Still a bit of life in it, really. Something like a 7870 2GB for about 190 shipped from Pixmania is a respectable GPU upgrade though not massive, course the problem is by going any higher, your CPU becomes a bottleneck, though if it's clocked pretty high the 7870 is a good pairing. As it is, at a decent clock with the 4870x2, it's still a good machine that doesn't urgently need upgrading unless you're looking at 64 player BF3 at 1920x1200 maxed out, or similar. But if that were the angle, I think you'd be looking at replacing the board and cpu, too. I suppose if you sell now, you'd still get good prices for the X2 and Q6600....both still popular enough pieces.

Squall

And I'm back again... this time I need an upgrade unfortunately. My 4870X2 looks to have died on me after near on 5 years of faithful service!

Looking at replacing the card but wondering if I will need a MB / CPU upgrade as well. I'm thinking maybe this:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sapphire-11196-09-40G-HD7950-Vapox-X-Graphics/dp/B0091MFBZC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1379001542&sr=8-1&keywords=7950

Its a great price for a 7950. Was thinking of something a little more powerful but not really worth the investment with the reduced amount of gaming time I get these days *sigh*. Any thoughts on the CPU / MB? Any other decent priced cards out there?

TerrorFirmer

It's a good buy. If you have a good cooler, there's still life in that Q6600, though there's still a healthy market out there for s775 boards and Q6600's, so you could be able to net 120+ for your board, ram, and cpu.

The Fx6300 is fantastic value for gamers at the moment, just over a hundred euro and when overclocked puts up a very good fight against the i5. Fx6300, 970 Extreme, Evo 12 cooler, and 8GB of ram wouldn't break the bank, would cost close enough to an i5k cpu on its own and you'd be sorted for another few years.

Squall

Just looking at the fx6300 now and it looks good. Where are you looking site wise?

The below along with the card and shipping are coming in around 580 euro. Assuming I can get 100 / 120 for my current MB, processor and RAM that's not bad.

Just checked hardwareversand and the MB / CPU / Cooler and RAM are coming in around 275 with shipping.

TerrorFirmer

Yeah, that's the price I had roughly worked out in my head as well. Great value, and while no-one's going to argue an Fx6300 is as good as an i5, given the price to performance ratio, it's a champion. I'm starting a new build, ordered the parts today, and actually went for another fx6300 myself!

SterlingArcher

Squall wrote: »

And I'm back again... this time I need an upgrade unfortunately. My 4870X2 looks to have died on me after near on 5 years of faithful service!

Looking at replacing the card but wondering if I will need a MB / CPU upgrade as well. I'm thinking maybe this:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sapphire-11196-09-40G-HD7950-Vapox-X-Graphics/dp/B0091MFBZC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1379001542&sr=8-1&keywords=7950

Its a great price for a 7950. Was thinking of something a little more powerful but not really worth the investment with the reduced amount of gaming time I get these days *sigh*. Any thoughts on the CPU / MB? Any other decent priced cards out there?

There was similar card cheaper On the boards think was on overclockers?

game4it70

SterlingArcher wrote: »

There was similar card cheaper On the boards think was on overclockers?

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-049-HS&tool=3

Has a blower style cooler so might be a bit noisy.

TerrorFirmer

Yeah Pixmania have cheaper 7950's as well but the vapor-x is worth the extra.