Yet another new build thread

[shomei]

Hi, I'm new here at Hexus.net and I was wondering if I could get some feedback on my thoughts about my new pc build. Note that the pc is mostly going to be used for gaming, photo editing, multicore programming and I'm planning to do some overclocking...

My initial choices and their price at Scan are:
CPU - Q9450. 185
RAM - 2x2GB Corsair 8500 5-5-5-15. 70
(CPU and RAM prices are today deals so I might order them before the rest of the stuff)
Motherboard - Probably Asus Maximus II Formula but gone up in price recently so now considering DFI P45 and Asus P5Q-deluxe
Power - 600W CoolerMaster iGreen Power SLi Silent 85% Eff' ATC 12V V2.2 EPS12V V2.91. 57 pounds
Graphics - Asus 4870 (My monitor is 24inch 1920-1200 so I need the power). 182 pounds
Case - Antec P182. 92 pounds (why is the colored ones 15 pounds cheaper?)
Disk - Western Digital 640gb. 48 pounds (is the 32mb one really deserve 10 pounds more?)
CPU cooler - Xigmatek S1283. 22 pounds

The maximum amount I am considering to spend is around 700-800 pounds.

I was thinking of waiting for the Nehalem cpu and stuff but found out that it's coming out in mid-November and I have been waiting already about a month so... What are your thoughts on that?

Thank you in advance for any reply.

P.S.Do you know how do I get free delivery from Scan, because I can't find it for the life of me.

[Rookie1986]

Originally Posted by shomei

I was thinking of waiting for the Nehalem cpu and stuff but found out that it's coming out in mid-November and I have been waiting already about a month so... What are your thoughts on that?

Thank you in advance for any reply.

P.S.Do you know how do I get free delivery from Scan, because I can't find it for the life of me.

I think were going to be waiting until next year this time before the Nahalem chipset is the standard across the board so i wouldn't worry to much about it, it will be over priced on release anyway so i would say leave it and think about it for your next upgrade,

Free shipping from scan.co.uk is after you have 20 posts on the Hexus forums, not sure how you go about taking advantage of it though,

Hi, I'm new here at Hexus.net and I was wondering if I could get some feedback on my thoughts about my new pc build. Note that the pc is mostly going to be used for gaming, photo editing, multicore programming and I'm planning to do some overclocking...

My initial choices and there price at Scan are these:
CPU - Q9450. 185
RAM - 2x2GB Corsair 8500 5-5-5-15. 70
(CPU and RAM prices are today deals so I might order them before the rest of the stuff)
Motherboard - Probably Asus Maximus II Formula but gone up in price recently so now considering DFI P45 and Asus P5Q-deluxe
Power - 600W CoolerMaster iGreen Power SLi Silent 85% Eff' ATC 12V V2.2 EPS12V V2.91. 57 pounds
Graphics - Asus 4870 (My monitor is 24inch 1920-1200 so I need the power). 182 pounds
Case - Antec P182. 92 pounds (why is the colored ones 15 pounds cheaper?)
Disk - Western Digital 640gb. 48 pounds (is the 32mb one really deserve 10 pounds more?)
CPU cooler - Xigmatek S1283. 22 pounds

The maximum amount I am considering to spend is around 700-800 pounds.

Looks promising to me, dont think i would change much, just bought this myself for a similar budget:

Case: Antec Three Hundred
Power Supply: Thermaltake Toughpower 850W Modular
Processor: Core 2 Duo E8500 6MB cache
CPU Cooler: Golden Orb Cooler
Graphics Card: BFG GeForce GTX 260 OC 896MB PCI Express 2.0
Memory: 4GB Corsair DDR2 800MHz C5 Twin2X
Motherboard: Asus P5Q Pro
Hard Disk Drive One: 500GB Caviar SE16 SATA 300
Optical Drive: NEC 4570A DVD-RW
Sound Card: Onboard sound
Operating System: Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium (64-bit)

And i think yours would out preform my new system!
/Rookie

[staffsMike]

That looks like a well rounded build The Q9550 might be worth the extra £30. The 9450 is OEM isn't it.. so only 1 years warranty, not that it will matter really. If it's just gaming you might consider a dual core but quads do have benefits if you want other applications going on behind the scenes of games. Also the Q6600 does still represnt pretty good value in quad core world.

Definatly skip the Asus maximum, the DFI P45 is pretty awesome and probably what I would buy. The Asus has more features though, so I'd check the specs and see if there is anything particuarly special about the Asus for you.

The 620W corsair is on the super savers on today only, £78. It's an awesome PSU and personally I wouldn't like a coolermaster PSU though I'm sure they are perfectly accpetable.

Stick with the 640GB 16mb, I doubt the 32MB will be all that much different especially if it's just loading times in games etc..

And for the P182.. would you want any of the decal ones?

[Rookie1986]

Originally Posted by staffsMike

That looks like a well rounded build The Q9550 might be worth the extra £30. The 9450 is OEM isn't it.. so only 1 years warranty, not that it will matter really. If it's just gaming you might consider a dual core but quads do have benefits if you want other applications going on behind the scenes of games. Also the Q6600 does still represnt pretty good value in quad core world.

Definatly skip the Asus maximum, the DFI P45 is pretty awesome and probably what I would buy. The Asus has more features though, so I'd check the specs and see if there is anything particuarly special about the Asus for you.

The 620W corsair is on the super savers on today only, £78. It's an awesome PSU and personally I wouldn't like a coolermaster PSU though I'm sure they are perfectly accpetable.

Stick with the 640GB 16mb, I doubt the 32MB will be all that much different especially if it's just loading times in games etc..

And for the P182.. would you want any of the decal ones?

Would anyone for that matter?

[shomei]

Thank you for the quick replies!

Probably i can't take advantage of the free delivery then

Staffsmike, you are probably right about the motherboard and I just looked for the DFI Lanparty DK P45-T2RS and it's only 109 pounds, 47 cheaper than the maximus. But I was wondering if the CPU cooler is going to fit because of the mobo's cooling system.

As for the cpu, I prefer the q9450 for the multiplier as well (8 not 8.5 of the 9550)...

I just found the corsair tx 650w for 63 pounds (I'm not really into modular since they tend to be less stable than their non-modular counter parts because of the inevitable, yet minor, voltage drop at the connection points). That seems great deal, right?

[staffsMike]

Yeah the 650W TX is a great PSU also (seasonic made).

I havn't had any problem with my HX (I have the 520W) and cabling the P182 is much.. MUCH easier in the P182 (where my HX resides) when you have modular cables.

I tried my OCZ in it and it was such a pain.

Your system would be fine with the 520W HX by the way which is around the same price as the tx

The cooler should be fine, it has very good height clearance.

[shomei]

Originally Posted by staffsMike

Yeah the 650W TX is a great PSU also (seasonic made).

I havn't had any problem with my HX (I have the 520W) and cabling the P182 is much.. MUCH easier in the P182 (where my HX resides) when you have modular cables.

I tried my OCZ in it and it was such a pain.

Your system would be fine with the 520W HX by the way which is around the same price as the tx

Ok I'll check it out.

Originally Posted by staffsMike

The cooler should be fine, it has very good height clearance.

Thanks

[DratUK]

If you go for the DFI Clunk has done a very nice write up on the DFI Intel Bios

http://www.clunk.org.uk/forums/hardw...herboards.html

Prepare for some tweaking on the DFI boards if you intend on OCing.

[Webby]

Now to throw a spanner in the works

Have you considered a crossfire rig? Now hear me out before going no thats a stupid idea!

You can buy 2x 4850s from Scan for a touch over £200 and they will out perform the 4870 and the GTX280 (in almost every game, crysis is an exception as crossfire scaling is not the best, but it still out performs the 4870 here). For this to be at its best you will need a x38 or x48 motherboard and the DFI DK X38 only costs £105.

So what do you think? a decent 600W ish PSU (Corsair HX620 or TX650, Enermax Mod82+ or Pro82+) will be required but you were looking at that size anyway.

This is just an idea, but one worth of some consideration in my opinion. Crossfire has matured a lot since it was first touted and it just so happens that the 4850 is probably the first card that actually makes it worth while over a faster single card option because of the great price to performance this card offers.

If you fancy a bit more reading on it then this is a good review comparing all the 4850/70 and GTX260/280 options including SLI and CF http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/articl...50aHVzaWFzdA==

[shomei]

Originally Posted by DratUK

If you go for the DFI Clunk has done a very nice write up on the DFI Intel Bios

Thanks.

Originally Posted by DratUK

Prepare for some tweaking on the DFI boards if you intend on OCing.

I know, that's part of the thrill, isn't it?

Originally Posted by Webby

Now to throw a spanner in the works

Have you considered a crossfire rig? Now hear me out before going no thats a stupid idea!

You can buy 2x 4850s from Scan for a touch over £200 and they will out perform the 4870 and the GTX280 (in almost every game, crysis is an exception as crossfire scaling is not the best, but it still out performs the 4870 here). For this to be at its best you will need a x38 or x48 motherboard and the DFI DK X38 only costs £105.

So what do you think? a decent 600W ish PSU (Corsair HX620 or TX650, Enermax Mod82+ or Pro82+) will be required but you were looking at that size anyway.

This is just an idea, but one worth of some consideration in my opinion. Crossfire has matured a lot since it was first touted and it just so happens that the 4850 is probably the first card that actually makes it worth while over a faster single card option because of the great price to performance this card offers.

If you fancy a bit more reading on it then this is a good review comparing all the 4850/70 and GTX260/280 options including SLI and CF

That's pretty good advice actually. The main downfall for me is that using 2 cards is more power hungry and therefore more noisy most of the time. But for the negligible price difference it my actually be worth it!

[shomei]

anybody knows the difference between DFI DK P45-T2RS and DFI DK P45-T2RS Plus?
They seem identical apart from the 2 pound difference in price.

[Webby]

Extra SATA ports, SMART connectors (allow speedy install and removal of front panel connectors) and the A03 revision of the north bridge.

(Thanks to Clunk who told me this previously knew it would come in handy! )

Definitely worth the £2.

[staffsMike]

I personally wouldn't get the crossfire setup, though it does prove quite effective you never know how a game is going to react to a dual card setup. Also those cards without aftermarket coolers run very hot and two them in close proximity wouldn't be something I would want to do.

[shomei]

Originally Posted by Webby

Extra SATA ports, SMART connectors (allow speedy install and removal of front panel connectors) and the A03 revision of the north bridge.

(Thanks to Clunk who told me this previously knew it would come in handy! )

Definitely worth the £2.

Thanks! Definitely worth it, especially for the SMART connectors and the new revision of the northbridge. Probably will be more stable and more overclockable.

Apart from that, I have noticed that the Xigmatek S1283 cooler has some optional bracket thing. Is it worth looking into that or is it overkill?

[staffsMike]

A lot of people go for the bracket to get a more secure and tighter fit. It probably is worth it.

[shomei]

Originally Posted by staffsMike

I personally wouldn't get the crossfire setup, though it does prove quite effective you never know how a game is going to react to a dual card setup. Also those cards without aftermarket coolers run very hot and two them in close proximity wouldn't be something I would want to do.

Good point.

Originally Posted by staffsMike

A lot of people go for the bracket to get a more secure and tighter fit. It probably is worth it.

Thanks. It's this one:Xigmatek Crossbow ACK-I7751, right?

Just a thought: if you also buy the brackets, then the price of this cooler isn't really cheaper than thermalright 120 which I consider a bit better..