PC Build - Suggestions?

[JamesD]

Hi all. Me and a friend priced up this PC. It is going to be used for both gaming and uni work, which consists primarily of visual design (photoshop, indesign etc), web programming (dreamweaver) and animation (flash). I'm also into music production and use Sony Acid and Propellerheads' Reason4. I think its pretty much finalised, however some of you may have some better ideas, especially regarding motherboard as I'm pretty lost in that area (my friend reckons that the one chosen is decent).

Altogether it comes to £1,443.53. I have roughly £1,500 to play with. I already have the monitor (24" LG), and the other bits, although my g15's volume dial decided to break, which is probably the most used feature, hence the new keyboard on the list!



Thanks for the input guys.

[SiM]

1) Look at the Antec 1200, its a similar, but nicer case
2) New graphics cards just coming out, if you can wait a couple of days you might be able to save some money or get a better one.
3) DDR3 is a waste of money at the moment. The speed difference is barely measurable but it costs double or triple.
4) If you change to DDR2 you need to change motherboard. There is not much difference in performance between P35 or newer. If you specifically need a P45/x38/x48 feature (eg PCI-E 2.0) then choose one of the newer boards otherwise a P35 will do the job nicely.
5) PSU overkill. Corsair HX 620W or Enermax MODU82+ 625W will do the job nicely and are probably more efficient.
6) CPU cooler is expensive, this is cheaper and probably slightly better
7) With all the saved money get a couple of velociraptors (just kidding)

[JamesD]

Thanks. Any idea on when the graphics cards come out? What model am I looking for? I was thinking of a velociraptor for the OS, will this make much of a difference?

[staffsMike]

I'd miorror what SIM has said. Deffinatly don't go for DDR3 or the motherboards to suit.

I'd also consider saving a bit of money and getting the q6600. Are you considering overclocking?

As much as I like the Scythe Ninja copper, the thermalright at that price is a steal and well worth it.

As for the Antec 1200.. it will suit some and not others. It's a pretty huge from what I've seen. The coolermaster CM-690 is a bit cheaper than the antec 900 and has better cooling as well as better cable and drive management too

Do you need such an expensive sound card?

The velociraptor is a great drive, best power consumption, noise (if you take it off the heatsink thing its on) and performance of any drive. But at £200 it's obviously a very expensive drive. 1TB samsungs are pretty much the next quickest single drive and the 640GB drives that have just come out are very fast to. You could also consider two single platter 320GB drives in RAID 0..

You didn't really need the 9800GX2 in the first place for your resolution but look out for the Nvidia 260GTX and ATi HD4870 (although the 4850 will do a pretty good job and save you a tonne of money )

[Blitzen]

The coolermaster CM-690 is a bit cheaper than the antec 900 and has better cooling as well as better cable and drive management too

Sorry Mike but the Coolermaster doesnt have better cooling than the Antec 900. When i was buying i looked into this as cooling is number 1 priority for me.

The cabling is more difficult to get right in the Antec though I do agree.

[JamesD]

Right, so DDR3 is out of the question. Having a quick look around, the new GPU's are creating quite a debate as to which one will be the better. Ideally I want to get the best parts I can afford obviously, as money is no object. If I spend the full £1500 then so be it. I can't seem to find when these GPUs are coming out though?

I'll probably stick with the Antec 900, although I was originally considering the Coolermaster Cosmos (not the Cosmos S due to noise). How big are these compared to the Antec P180B, which I have but have idiotically broken the front USB ports!

With regards to the soundcard, I am a sound junkie and the external unit looks appealing, although the 5.25" bay unit with the fatality edition is the same as what I have currently (Audigy 2 platinum). I take it the soundcard itself is identical?

I'll probably go for a small capacity velociraptor just for the OS and software like Photoshop etc, and have other drives for storage. Would that be a good move?

Thanks for the continued help, appreciated.

[JamesD]

Will I notice much difference between the Q9450 and the Q6600? There's 4MB of cache in it. I may do a bit of overclocking, but nothing mental, probably limit myself to air cooling. Also, is this any good? I can get 8gb of those for what I could get for 4gb DDR3. For the time being I've stuck the Geforce 280 GTX on.

[staffsMike]

Sorry Mike but the Coolermaster doesnt have better cooling than the Antec 900. When i was buying i looked into this as cooling is number 1 priority for me.

The cabling is more difficult to get right in the Antec though I do agree.

Seem to remember certain reviews suggesting otherwise espeically when the bottom fan space(s) are used.

Dunno though, I bet it's close though and give the coolermaster has the better cable management and is significantly cheaper (perhaps not in this case considering the budget lol) it stands out as the better case to me.

That RAM is good yeah, stick with PC6400 and the Q6600 though. You won't notice a big difference in your sort of apps and the Q6600 will easily clock up to 3.0GHz without changing anything but the FSB in most cases

[Eddd]

I'd try the onboad sound first and see how you like it before spending nearly £200 on a sound card... Most would find the onboard sound perfectly fine.

The PSU is not needed for that system, I'd get the Corsair HX620w. I also consider Corsair PSUs to be of a higher quality.

The new graphics cards are out, so the prices of other ones should decrease. The nVidia ones: http://scan.co.uk/Index.aspx?NT=1-0-17-437%2c553-0

I'd agree with SiM and mike and go for ddr2 ram. Maybe PC8500 (around £20 more expensive than PC6400 now), considering you seem to have a large budget.

I agree with Mike, you could save £100 by getting the Q6600 and it can be easily overclocked to 3.0GHz without changing the voltages.

For the mobo, if you do get ddr2 ram. Then I'd consider a P35 board - Asus Dark Raider or Gigabyte P35-DS3L

The HSF you have chosen is overpriced, I'd get the Scythe Ninja - it's £10 less expensive and cools equally well.

Antec 900 is a very good case. If you want something smaller and quieter have a look at the 300. If you want something slightly louder with more room for HDDs, etc then look at the Antec 1200. If not, stick with the 900 - it's a very very good case and well worth the money. Also consider the Antec P180 if you want something more classy.

Other things to consider: Do you already have a mouse? If not I'd consider the Logitech G5 - very nice mouse. Have you considered getting a decent speaker system?

[JamesD]

Thanks guys. With regards to the CPU, I'll be doing a lot of multi-tasking, would the newer CPU be better for this if I'm not too bothered about OCing? I'm just concerned about the 12MB cache compared to 8MB.

I do need a good soundcard, because latency's are important when producing music with my midi keyboard. I've changed it to the fatality for now, seems to suit me better, and saves me about £100.

I've had lots of mice, mostly razer. I had the G5 but didn't get on with it, build quality not as good as razer, and Logitech are renowned for their clicky scroll-wheel (has been the case on all mine). Currently I have the Razer Deathadder, best mouse I've used, very very smooth movements when paired with the Steelpad 5L.

I have a good speaker system. A very high quality Creative 5.1 digital system, with the external amp. I'm not sat next to it so can't recall its name. Cost me £200 when it came out (about 4 years ago). Will only upgrade if I need to.

I think its pretty much down to the graphics cards. Obviously I'll be wanting to game at native res (1920x1200). What would be better to get? 9800GX2 or the GTX 280? Or maybe someone can recommend ATi? Although I tend to like the "solidness" of nVidia.

Thanks

[moogle]

the 45nm quads perform better at stock from what i've seen on par with a q6600 (q9300 vs q6600) but the q9300 is 0.1ghz faster. I suppose if you wont be overclocking get a q9450 as that will give you the best performance and less heat.

[JamesD]

Right, I guess it's just a decision I have to make really... Just read the hexus review for the GTX 280, I think I might pass on this and plunge for the 9800GX2? Any suggestions?

[SiM]

I would go for the GX2 if you had to buy now or the 4870 if you can wait a week (depending on the reviews)...

[JamesD]

I guess I can wait a week I don't think I'm going to be buying for another couple weeks anyway, depends how long I can hold out haha, the upgrade is long overdue!

[staffsMike]

Well there is always the £10 HD2350 on scan. That will tide you over and then you have a spare PCIe gfx card just in case

Waiting is the best advice we can give though. Of course it may not come to anything but I have high hopes for ATi this time. They won't beat the nvidia on performance but they won't need to

The Q9450 will prove the better chip if you remain at stock clocks, can't argue with that. It's not too much more in price either I guess. There is the Q6700 at around £160 now which might be worth a look. Similar to the Q6600 but runs at 2.67 (i think) out of the box. Like I said before though the Q6600 will almost always overclock to 3.0GHz without it really noticing

[JamesD]

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...