PC Build - Suggestions?

[SiM]

well it will work fine James despite the fact that moogle can't read

[moogle]

I can! I just read it too fast, what with all these new post notifications I'm blasting through them

[Eddd]

Great! well you've all been a great help. The current spec is:

Memory
(2x) 4GB (2x2GB) Corsair TwinX DDR2 PC2-8500 (1066), 240 Pin, Non-ECC Unbuffered, CAS 5-5-5-15, EPP, DHX £168.85

Graphics Card
1GB XFX GTX 280, PCI-E 2.0 (x16), Mem 2214MHz, GDDR3, GPU 602MHz, 240 Cores, 2x DL DVI-I/HDTV £457.38

CPU
Intel Core 2 Quad Q9450, Yorkfield Core, S775, 2.66GHz, 1333MHz, 12MB Cache, Retail Assassin's Creed £226.70

Case
Antec 900 - Nine Hundred Ultimate Gamer Case with 200m Top Fan w/o PSU £72.84

PSU
625W Enermax MODU82+ EMD625AWT Modular Quad PCI-E Rail, ATX12v 2.3 , 88% Eff, AirGuard, SafeGuard £98.69

Hard Drive
750 GB Samsung HD753LJ Spinpoint F1, SATA 300, 7200 rpm, 32MB Cache, 8.9 ms, NCQ £60.82

Sound Card
Creative Soundblaster X-Fi Platinum Fatal1ty Champion Series Retail £98.10

Keyboard
Logitech G15 New Rev.2 Gaming Keyboard, USB, Wired, Silver/Black, GamePanel LCD, Illuminated £52.71

DVD Drive
Sony DRU-190S 20x DVD±R, 8x DVD±DL, DVD+RW x8 / -RW x 6, DVD-RAM x12, SATA, Retail (Black/Silver) £17.99

OS
Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium SP1* 64Bit 1Pk OEM (DVD) £62.62

Motherboard
Asus P5E, iX38, S 775, PCI-E (x16), DDR2 1066/1200/667/800, SATA II, SATA RAID, ATX £125.13

Brings it to £1441.83. Will stick a heatsink on there too, but other than that I think its pretty much done. Deciding to go for a top-end gfx card, simply because I can to be honest, and I'm still running AGP atm, so as I see it I won't be wasting that much money. I'll hang fire until I see how the new ATi card performs. I'm not sure about motherboards, but I'm sure my friend and I can look into that! So what do you all think? Hopefully it will last a good few years!

Any final thoughts are welcomed...

Memory: Good choice, but where have you got your prices from? Because the same RAM can be found here on scan for £85 - save nearly £100...

Graphics card: I'd wait for the ati cards to come out before you decide, I think they'll be around £200 and be of a very high quality.

CPU: I still think that the Q6600 will be fine and will save you the £100. Get a good heatsink and you will easily be able to overclock to 3.0GHz without increasing voltages (especially with PC8500 ram )

PSU: The Corsair HX620w is of the same quality of the enermax and is on scan's today only for £79 - £20 cheaper than the enermax.

Sound Card: It's good to see that you're not spending £200 on a sound card anymore. But before buying a sound card, I'd always test the onboard sound - you may well be surprised with the quality of onboard these days.

Motherboard: I'd stick to my recommendation of a P35 board, you'll find that most in that series are cheaper and well built. Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L and Asus IP-35 Dark Raider are two highly respectable good P35 boards.

Heatsink: I'd have a look at either the Scythe Ninja or the TRUE. tbh, all of the Scythes and thermalrights are good heatsinks.

[moogle]

he's getting 8gb of ram hence the 160 price,

q9450 will perform better for it's higher clocks and run cooler. Will also clock to 4ghz with some decent cooling *drool*
but anyway he's not ocing.

[Eddd]

he's getting 8gb of ram hence the 160 price,

q9450 will perform better for it's higher clocks and run cooler. Will also clock to 4ghz with some decent cooling *drool*
but anyway he's not ocing.

Ah, didn't see the (2x) at first glance. That explains it then, I was like WTFFF.

[SiM]

Also the enermax is a slightly better psu than corsair afaik... I would go for the enermax on this budget. I will probably get a 525w enermax for my rig soon

[purohitebay]

i would have though water cooling would be better than the air cooler.

[SiM]

i would have though water cooling would be better than the air cooler.

not always... and will cost a heck of a lot more too

[moogle]

i would have though water cooling would be better than the air cooler.

why need it if you aren't gonna overclock. plus it'll add 200 to his budget and a thermalright with a decent fan can keep the cpu cool.

[JamesD]

Eddd, thanks for the input. I will be waiting to see what ATi comes up with, but I'll still be getting the top-end card, if I don't need to save money then I won't I know what you're saying with regards to the soundcard but believe me the things that I do I need it to cope with low latencies whilst still delivering exceptional sound quality, such as recording and monitoring 24bit songs. Plus, the features of the external bay has been extremely useful on my current system, and this soundcard comes with one too

The other guys have cleared up any other queries. I think I'm going to stick to my spec and see what ATi have to offer, unless I'll lose drastic amounts of power with the spec I've chosen, which, from what's been said, I doubt.

I've stuck the Scythe ninja on the spec, just haven't updated it

[Eddd]

I've stuck the Scythe ninja on the spec, just haven't updated it

Good choice, I have one and they cool fantastically. Don't be put off by how hard the fan is to put on and it is to install, the effort will be worth it And ofc, don't forget to put it on before you put your mobo in your case, cus it would be impossible like that!

[staffsMike]

The fan isn't too bad to get on but deffinatly fit it outside of the case. And a quick check as to whether it's on properly is to carefully lift the mobo by it. Do it over the bed or something else soft and don't lift it too far though

[JamesD]

Haha, yeah that would be a disaster! Right, well I'll be ordering it in a couple of weeks time (if I can wait that long). May take some pics etc of the build if anybody is interested, if not then I'll just keep all the smiles to myself

[Eddd]

May take some pics etc of the build if anybody is interested, if not then I'll just keep all the smiles to myself

I'll definitely be interested. I keep meaning to take pictures of my rig and post them up but I haven't got round to it

[JamesD]

Cool, well I'll see what I can do. Deciding to go for the Coolermaster Cosmos case, I think it looks the part! Plus, the sound deadening features of it appeal to me. Will the 625W PSU be sufficient in powering the 280 then?

[SiM]

It will be more than enough