Advice on a 1000 euro build

Horsefumbler

hi

I really shouldn't because i'm a casual gamer nowadays but I'm half thinking about upgrading. I have a decent case, 850w psu, hard drive, sound scard so I would be just looking to get a new mobo,cpu, ram, GFX card(s). Budget is around 1k. Problem is I haven't been paying attention to computer technology since I last had to buy my PC two years ago now.

A lot of technolgies seem to have been upgraded and its hard to find my bearings with all this. ok main things are:

-we're using DDR3 trichannel now is that right?

-ATI seem to be leading nvidia at the moment from the looks of things? It was all about nvidia when I last checked

-Is there a new upgraded PCIE and SATA type out now?

So basically if any of the experts here would like to recomend some gear for me and also wheres a good website to get it from (bought last one from hardwareversand.de a german website but it was a bit messy getting it over. Also a case fan was broken from the moment I got it.) Should I bother with a duel GFX card setup or is one powerfull one better than most x2 setups?

One final thing, I always seem to buy at a bad time like when theres a new generation of gpus or cpus on the horizon. Is now a good time to buy or should one hang on for what ever is the next big thing?

cheers in advance

Ironbar

It depends what you want to do e.g. overclocking. I don't think Crossfire or SLi are really worth the money. If you get a decent enough GFX one should be enough especially if you're only a casual gamer.

If you don't want to overclock the cheapest Socket 1156 board will do.Therefore get a really good CPU and GFX and a minimum of 4GB RAM.

Don't forget that more than 3.5 GB of RAM are useless without a 64-bit OS.

a recommendation:

http://www.pixmania.ie/ie/uk/3544474/art/intel/core-i7-860-2-8-ghz-8mb-l.html

http://www.pixmania.ie/ie/uk/3637792/art/asrock/p55m-pro-1156-socket-p55.html

http://www.pixmania.ie/ie/uk/5383491/art/inno-3d/geforce-gtx-470-1280-mb-g.html

http://www.pixmania.ie/ie/uk/3708861/art/corsair/xms3-4-x-2-gb-ddr3-1333-p.html

this would come to 926.44 Euro plus around 12 Euro p&p and you would have a really good system.

Depending on the soundcard you have i would leave it away and use the onboard sound which is usually sufficient enough unless you have a creative X-Fi.

Good luck !

Forgot the 64-bit OS unless you already have a Win 7 license: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Microsoft-Windows-Home-Premium-Version/dp/B002DUCMT2/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=software&qid=1275120919&sr=1-2

Pi^2

I've gotta suggest the new AMD Phenom x6 1090t...

6 cores of number crunching goodness and it runs unbelievably cool under load.

There are some really good motherboards out with the new 890 chipset - The gigabyte ud5 comes to mind.

ATI 5870 definately - http://www.pixmania.ie/ie/uk/5050029/art/sapphire-technology/radeon-hd-5870-1-gb-gddr5.html

Corsair Dominator RAM 4 or 8 gigs.


In answer to your questions... not everything uses DDR3 but these new 6 core AMD processors do. But they are Dual channel. New Intel processors use DDR3 Tri channel, so you would want to get 3 or 6 gigs with them. Tri channel Ram is expensive... so are intel motherboards... and so are Intel processors


ATI far surpassed NVIDIA last summer right up to last March when the new NVIDIA cards were released. And they were a complete anti-climax. They require a stupid amount of power and in benchmarks against the 5870 they either lost or only outperformed it slightly... I'm talking a one frame per second increase in a game kinda thing.

One 5870 is all you will need. I game very rarely but it runs every game on max on my 30 inch 2560 x 1600 monitor.

I don't think there is any upgrade to PCI or SATA that isn't backwards compatible... MOre like a revision than an upgrade i'd say.


Some websties - Komplett, Ebuyer (my favourite), Pixmania. That should cover any build, between them they stock everything and all the prices are very good.


In terms of timing... the new AMDs came out like 2 weeks ago, so did the new 890 motherboards to accomodate them! The 5870 is great now because it can be found for under 400 euro... which is considerably less than it cost when it was released some time late last year.


So, in conclusion, great time to buy in terms of price and new tech. Go AMD rather than Intel. Oh and you must get two other things... the Corsair h50 and a solid state drive. Then you will be very happy. Goodluck

That will definately squeeze under your thousand euro budget.

Deano12345

I agree with some of the stuff above. However

Pi^2 wrote: »

I've gotta suggest the new AMD Phenom x6 1090t - Get the 1055T instead and overclock it up if you need to, save 30 quid

6 cores of number crunching goodness and it runs unbelievably cool under load - Cant argue there

There are some really good motherboards out with the new 890 chipset - The gigabyte ud5 comes to mind - IMO, the 890 is a bit too new, theres a much better selection of motherboards with the 790 chipset. Only really big new features on 890 are support for USB 3 (quite useful when teh peripherals come out to use it) and SATA 3 (not very useful)

ATI 5870 definately - Depending on his res, it might be more suitable to go with a 5850, but for full HD, go with the 5870

Corsair Dominator RAM 4 or 8 gigs - Expensive for what are basically XMS3 chips with fancy heatspreaders. Look for a kit with tighter timings than the Dom's (they are 9-9-9-24). Word of warning, the integrated memory controller on the Phenom II X4's did not place nice with ram faster than 1333Mhz., I don't know if his has changed with the X6's

cherryghost

Pi^2 wrote: »

What Pi^ said

You won't get all that for under 1000 euro. Enough said.

Deano12345

cherryghost wrote: »

You won't get all that for under 1000 euro. Enough said.

You'd get most of the things :

http://www.pixmania.ie/ie/uk/4959163/art/gigabyte/ga-890gpa-ud3h-am3-socket.html - UD3H - €119 @ Pixmania

http://www.pixmania.ie/ie/uk/5389623/art/amd/athlon-phenom-ii-x6-1055t.html - 1055T- €195 @ Pixmania

http://www.pixmania.ie/ie/uk/5050029/art/sapphire-technology/radeon-hd-5870-1-gb-gddr5.html - Sapphire 5870 - €360 @ Pixmania

http://www.pixmania.ie/ie/uk/3777368/art/ocz/platinum-low-voltage-2-x.html - 4GB OCZ DDR3 - €110 @ Pixmania

Total - €784

cherryghost

Sorry, I misread

Thought he was upgrading everything

Deano12345

cherryghost wrote: »

Sorry, I misread

Thought he was upgrading everything

He is upgrading nearly everything though

Horsefumbler

wow some great advice so far. Really appreciate people who've taken the time to give thorough answers

Didn't expect hear that amd cpus were any use but the 1090T does seem to be the business.

I'm kind of leaning towards the 5870 at the moment, considering how much cheaper it is to the gtx480 it definitely seems to give more bang for buck. theres a platinum edition of it with 2gb of ram, would that be the one to go for?

Deano12345

Horsefumbler wrote: »

I'm kind of leaning towards the 5870 at the moment, considering how much cheaper it is to the gtx480 it definitely seems to give more bang for buck. theres a platinum edition of it with 2gb of ram, would that be the one to go for?

Short answer : No.

Long Answer : Nooooooooooooooooooo . The 2GB 5870 is only really useful if you have multiple monitors and/or very high resolutions

Ironbar

If you have Win7 i would go for the GTX470. It's faster in DX11.

http://www.pixmania.ie/ie/uk/5383491/art/inno-3d/geforce-gtx-470-1280-mb-g.html

Deano12345

Ironbar wrote: »

If you have Win7 i would go for the GTX470. It's faster in DX11.

http://www.pixmania.ie/ie/uk/5383491/art/inno-3d/geforce-gtx-470-1280-mb-g.html

It also produces enough heat to boil a kettle on and chugs as much power as a small town....do not want

Noodleworm

It might help to browse through a few Computer magazines to brush up on the newest components, Im gonna start my first build in the next few months and have been buying Custom PC to prepare.
The 5870 got some pretty good reviews. If your budget gets too tight the 5850 seems nice too.

I'm thinking of getting
Gigabyte Ga-X58A UD3R motherboard with the Intel core i7-930.
then with 6gb ram.

Im trying to do the whole PC for €1500 so Im kind in a similar situation to you.

Deano12345

Noodleworm wrote: »

It might help to browse through a few Computer magazines to brush up on the newest components, Im gonna start my first build in the next few months and have been buying Custom PC to prepare.
The 5870 got some pretty good reviews. If your budget gets too tight the 5850 seems nice too.

I'm thinking of getting
Gigabyte Ga-X58A UD3R motherboard with the Intel core i7-930.
then with 6gb ram.

Im trying to do the whole PC for €1500 so Im kind in a similar situation to you.

Dont bother with PC magazines. Review sites like TechPowerUp and Hardware Canucks have great news sections and reviews.

You should be easily able to do a i7 930 + 6GB build for €1500 easily

Horsefumbler

Well my stuff arrived today, went with what was advised to me: phenom II 1050T, 5870, 4gb ram, corsair h50 cpu cooler. So anyway I spend a fair bit of time taking the all the componants out of my old machine, watching tutorials of how to fit the cpu cooler and then putting the new stuff in there. It took a fair amount of time because its good few years since i last tried this build-yur-own lark. And anyway after its all ****ing done I go to put the gfx card in and the horse****ing thing won't fit :mad: Stoopidly big card!

Anyway I'm pretty much going to have to get a new case now( was using a coolermaster mystique) so can anybody recomend a case that can accomodate a 5870 its made by saphire.

Man I have terrible luck with this DIY pc building. The last time I did I ended up having to buy extra things afterwards too.

On a completely different note since I'm going to have to spend more dosh I was half thinking of getting a SSD drive, around 100gb for the OS and games to be saved on. anyone recomend one? the prices seem to vary greatly even on drives of same capacity.

thanks in advance

Pi^2

Antec 1200 - 160 bucks on Komplett and free shipping at the moment which is what you want with a heavy item like a case

Intel 80 gig solid state drive 200 bucks on Komplett. Again, free shipping makes everything seem cheaper

Solitaire

That should be everything - no idea what happened, macro or webpage went beserk from the look of it

In any case, most cheap and/or compact cases won't be able to fit a card much longer than the mobo, but models with cable routing usually let you squeeze it in. Even a <€40 NZXT Gamma can squeeze in an 11" card given the 9.6" mobo tray is extended by the cable routing voids

cherryghost

Suggestion: Also look up the Coolermaster entry towers. 30-50 euro. Excellent size, excellent cooling, looks great

Darwin

Antec Nine Hundred Two should fit the 5870 no problems. This comes from Amazon UK with free shipping, I would be a little wary of Komplett given the problems many appear to be having with them. As mentioned above, Coolermaster make some nice cases that are good value too - just make sure whatever you buy will fit your card and PSU.
A 100GB SSD is going to be quite pricey. I would get a smaller SSD (say 30 to 32GB) for the OS and put the games on a cheap big capacity drive. For the SSD, OCZ vertex get the thumbs up from different review sites. For the HDD, the 1TB Samsung F3 or the Western Digital Caviar Black seem to come highly recommended. You can also get these from amazon with free delivery.