Advice needed for upgrade/new build...

[Dick Champion]

I've had my current computer for a while now and it's beginning to show its age. At the moment it runs Prey or an ugly scaled-down quake 4 with a crappy framerate, but I want to get a lot more out of it. As well as this, my girlfriend has been making do with a poor excuse for a laptop, and I've been meaning to build her a rig out of the various parts I've accumulated over the years.

My plan - such as it is - is to buy myself the heart of a new machine, plus a case to house it all, and fill in the gaps with stuff I already own. The leftovers can go towards making something for my girlfriend. Since she won't be needing it, I can poach the Graphics card (128Mb Asus Extreme 6600GT) knowing that I can upgrade it in a few months when I get some more money together. Plus, there are hard-drives coming out of my ears, so there's no need for one of those.

So along with a case and PSU, I'll need a CPU, motherboard and some juicy RAM to go with it. I have a budget of around £200-250, but I can probably stretch to ~£300 if I reckon it's worth it for whatever reason. I'll want to overclock in the future, which might be a consideration, but not from the word go.

Since I haven't built myself a PC since the dawn of time, I haven't really got a clue what's out there at the moment. Reading some of the articles on the main website, it seems that the Athlon X2 BE-2350 could be the right choice for the CPU. I tried looking for a motherboard, but I haven't bought one for about 10 years and there are so many more options out there these days that I'm quite overwhelmed.

I'm so out of touch that I was reading and making notes on the 'Building a game rig' sticky at the top of this forum and I got to page 4 before I realised that it was all four years out of date (To the credit of the thread's author I learned a great deal despite that, and a lot of it is still pertinent).

Any advice or suggestions would be much appreciated. If the resultant chimera could handle Crysis and CoD4, I would be delighted.

[tintax]

Which version of the Asus Extreme 6600GT do you have, AGP or PCI-E?

[tintax]

Assuming that it is the PCI-E version, I'd be tempted to go with:

• Antec Solo Quiet Mini Tower ATX Case (LN16903) £55
• 500w Seasonic S12II-500 PSU (LN19089) £54
• Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro (LN13080) £15
• Gigabyte GA P31-DS3L (LN19750) £47
• 2GB (2x1GB) Corsair TwinX DDR2 800MHz CAS 4-4-4-12 (LN14277) £44
• Intel Core 2 Duo E4500 2.2GHz (LN19277) £77

Total of £292. I've included the scan codes in brackets for reference.

A couple of caveats:

• Noise is my first consideration when I build a new machine, followed by reliability. Performance is (almost) an afterthought. I'd rather have a slower but quiet PC than a much quicker one which doesn't sound good in a silent room for the same money.
• It may be worth holding on to your cash until the 45nm Penryn CPUs appear (March I think): faster, more overclockable, and hopefully quieter and at the same price points.

I certainly would recommend an Intel CPU over an AMD one at the moment. It was a different story four years ago but not now.

[Blitzen]

Thats OK.
Scale down the CPU a bit though.
The E2180 can be had for under £40 and is excellent. Gives you £30 odd saving and you wont see a difference from the one mentioned above.

There are far better value cases around than the Antec for £55 aswell. Asaka have a nice range and Scan do some decent 'own make cases' for around half that price.

This is what i would go for with a £300 budget:
From Scan:
LN15199 - AKASA Zen case - White Silent cool Midi-ATX Computing case w/2 silent 12cm fan w/o PSU £29.30
400W Enermax Liberty Modular Series - ELT400AWT £46.98
Abit IP35-E, iP35 Express, S 775, PCI-E (x16), DDR2 667/800, SATA II, ATX £61.09

From Microdirect:
Intel CPU Pentium DualCore E2180 2x2.0GHz 800MHz 1Mb LGA775 Retail (3yr Manufacturer's Warranty) (CPUIP4775E2180) £45.99
OCZ 2GB Kit (2x1024) Platinum Series DDR2 PC6400 800MHz Dual Channel Memory Rev. 2 With Platinum Heatspreader (MEMOCZPLK2048R2) £30.60

TOTAL = £213.96

This leaves you £87 for a graphics card:
Try this from Scan: 256MB Power ColorHD 3850 PCI-E 2.0 (x16), 1656 MHz, GDDR3, GPU 668 MHz, 320 Streams, 2 x DVI-I £105.15

Total Build Cost: £319.11

I know its £20 over budget but with that system you will play most games at decent frames rates. To my mind this is better value, without compromising on performance and you have a graphics card that is pretty decent in with the package for sub £320.

[tintax]

The E2180 can be had for under £40 and is excellent. Gives you £30 odd saving and you wont see a difference from the one mentioned above.

Quite right. The extra performance isn't worth the extra £30.

LN15199 - AKASA Zen case - White Silent cool Midi-ATX Computing case w/2 silent 12cm fan w/o PSU £29.30
400W Enermax Liberty Modular Series - ELT400AWT £46.98

I don't have a Zen case so I can only go from reviews but I'd argue that whilst it is an excellent budget case, the Solo is worth the extra and represents better value for money. You only have to rap your knuckles against one of the side panels to appreciate the build quality. The Solo is the kind of case you keep to build your next system in (and the one after that).

The 430W Seasonic S12 is only £1.12 more than the 400W Enermax. I've always found Seasonic PSUs to be quiet and reliable: they are well regarded by the folks at silentpcreview (their list of recommended PSUs here)

[ElCapitan]

He said he didn't need a graphics card blitzen. But the system blitzen recommended seems good and the money saved by not buying a graphics card could be put toward the CPU

[Dick Champion]

Thank you all for taking the time to reply. I am grateful for the assistance.

Reading your advice and various reviews around the internet, I'm pretty much set on the Intel E2180 and the Abit IP35E motherboard. Ram-wise, I'm astounded at how little it costs; the 2GB OCZ one looks fine. For the PSU, that 430W Seasonic S12 seems the best value and should keep everything running fine.

So that's £200 so far.

[*]Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro (LN13080) £15

Is this strictly necessary given that I don't plan to overclock immediately. I'm assuming that I can replace the stock cooler with something a bit better when I need to. Having said that, I may buy this anyway.

Which version of the Asus Extreme 6600GT do you have, AGP or PCI-E?

PCI-E, luckily. I had the foresight to make sure my current machine had the PCI-Express slot when I bought it a few years back. I think I'm definitely going to hold back on upgrading this until Feb-March time, unless I can cobble together some more cash in the meantime. I'll certainly bear that Power ColorHD one in mind - looks pretty sexy.

Since I have already accounted for the graphics card, I can afford to splash out on the case. I've been meaning to get myself a decent quality case for quite some time, and this seems like just the opportunity. I'm looking for something that I'll hang onto for the next two or three builds.

I like the look of the Lian-li PC-A12 for around £80, although it's a little pricey.

The Antec Sonata III is looking to be my favourite so far. At £72.72 including the PSU, I could improve on some of the other components, or even grab the graphics card almost immediately. Could there be any problems with doing this?

Any other suggestions for cases for around £50-100?

[tintax]

Is this strictly necessary given that I don't plan to overclock immediately. I'm assuming that I can replace the stock cooler with something a bit better when I need to. Having said that, I may buy this anyway.

It isn't strictly necessary but it offers much lower temperatures and less noise. It's particularly good if the motherboard has a 4-pin PWM header for the fan and can configure the speed from the BIOS. For example, on my main box the fan barely seems to be moving (relatively speaking) and automatically ramps up with the temperature but rarely needs to.

Plus, spend £16 now and you avoid having to take out the mboard later, remove the stock cooler, clean the CPU, reapply thermal paste ... although it might just be me that hates doing that particular job.

PureOverclock.com have a review.

I like the look of the Lian-li PC-A12 for around £80, although it's a little pricey.

I used to be a big fan of Lian-Li. I bought quite a few of the venerable PC-60 'back in the day' but found that after a couple of years that vibration started to be a real problem. Easily solved by sticking a heavy book on top but it kind of took away from the pretty look. Plus aluminium cases just don't trap noise.

That said, the build quality is good and they tend to look impressive. Usually very easy to work in too: I loved the removable mboard tray on the PC-60.

The Antec Sonata III is looking to be my favourite so far. At £72.72 including the PSU, I could improve on some of the other components, or even grab the graphics card almost immediately. Could there be any problems with doing this?

I think it's a very good case. The bundled 500W EarthWatts PSU isn't bad either (I've built systems for other people with them). I wouldn't pick it over a Seasonic S12 for myself because I'd notice the extra noise but if you're one of the lucky 99% of normal people that are happy running a modern fan cooled graphics card: I doubt you would. In fact, I'd bet you'd be impressed with it.

I've noticed that the Antec P150 (the Solo with a bundled 430W EarthWatts PSU) can sometimes be bought for about the same price. Might be another option.

[godsdog]

Done a few budget builds with the Akasa Zen and it's a quality case for the money. Found nothing to touch it for 30 quid. Roomy, quiet, looks good (personal preference as always) solid and well built. Perfect budget box.

70 quid mark though, look at the SilverStone Gloria SST-TJ04. Scan has the non 'Gloria' (no difference apart from the name) but it's a poor picture on the site, and doesn't do the case justice.

Intel stock cooler over a period of time is hit and miss at the best of times. Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro for 15 quid is a safe no brainer in a build.

Seasonic all the way for me too. Except I wouldn't put the 430W Seasonic S12 in the Akasa Zen, use a Corsair HX (seasonic) or VX (CWT) range or something else. Akasa Zen is a roomy case, Seasonic harness length isn't the most generous and is a pain to work with (doable though). Would fit nicely in the Silverstone TJ04 though.