Can I get a thumbs up or down on this rig?

[KristianGregory]

Hi all,

I've been doing some hard research on gaming PCs and trying to get something with a lot of "bang for my buck" but wanting to do it sensibly purely to avoid wasting money, as the budget is relaxed.

So here's what I've come up, and was hoping if someone could just take a quick look and see if I'm making a terrible mistake before I go ahead and build this thing. Prices are estimates inclusive of shipping and VAT.

Thanks in advance for any responses,
Kris

CPU: intel core 2 duo E8500 £173
gpu: nvidia geforce 9800 gx2 £346
mobo: Asus P5E3 deluxe £117.99
RAM: Corsair TWIN3X2048-1333C9 Memory DDR3 2GB (2 x 1024MB) 1333MHz £77
psu: enermax liberty 500w £75.80
case: antec 900 black steel ATX tower £75

Total: £864

[kmac]

what sort of cooling you going for?

The enermax liberty will be a bit loud fan wise.
Suggest you go for the Enermax Modu82+ 525W instead
Its more efficient, generating les heat and has a quieter fan
Its also modular in terms of connectors

For CPU cooler suggest the Ninja Scythe or Thermalright Ultra 120 extreme

[teodor_ch]

take E8400 better
and mobo with ddr2 (dfi P35 LT)
so buy ddr2! (2x2GB any 800Mhz)
prefer corsair psus or any other brand other than enermax (don't work with dfi for example)

much better "bang for my buck" now

[staffsMike]

Thanks in advance for any responses,
Kris

CPU: intel core 2 duo E8500 £173 - Thumbs down, Q6600 is much better value at £140.
gpu: nvidia geforce 9800 gx2 £346 - depends how often you plan on upgrading it, good card though, Splitting the budget into two £175's you could get an 8800GTS now and then the latest and great in a couple of years for £175 then
mobo: Asus P5E3 deluxe £117.99 - Seems alright, I'd be tempted by the Abit iX38 instead though
RAM: Corsair TWIN3X2048-1333C9 Memory DDR3 2GB (2 x 1024MB) 1333MHz £77 - Thats OK, bit pricey. A £60 or less quite will do the job well.
psu: enermax liberty 500w £75.80 - personally i'd get the corsair 520W HX.
case: antec 900 black steel ATX tower £75 - Thats OK

Total: £864

I think you need a decent HSF to go with it to overclock it nicely, something from thermalright or scythe. If you don't want the Q6600 go for one of the cheap dual cores, they all overclock the same really. Q6600 will clock easily to 3.2+GHz though and they are great chips for system flexability as well as games.

EDIT: oops didnt see that was DDR3.. avoid avoid.. get a decent set of PC6400 DDR2 and the Abit X38 guad GT or just an abit IP-35 dark raider would be great and save a lot of money while making a better all round PC.

[Muska]

looks good all but the psu, which is perfectly good, but not the most efficient according to this review Enermax Liberty EL500AWT & EL620AWT power supplies | silentpcreview.com maybe you should go for the tried and tested corsair hx series, i would personally reccomend, but it,s up to you not really sure about ddr3, but since your budget is relaxed good luck

[Rosaline]

To be honest, DDR3's latency is just too high when compared to the cost and the equivalent performance of DDR2. That Corsair price is very tempting, though, I can see the appeal! However similar deals can be had on good DDR2.

Expect people to also question the decision not to go quad core. The majority of games have yet to take advantage of the available extra cores, and dual core alone does allow for a faster speed processor, improving existing games. However speculation is that games will get increasingly more multi-threaded and benefit more from quad core. At the moment I think this is still personal choice, though.

You might want a slightly more powerful PSU, perhaps 650W, just to make sure everything's covered and to allow for future upgrades.

What are you planning to do with respect to CPU cooling?

And remember to factor in an operating system licence, which most people will need to pay for (sadly ).

[TAKTAK]

yeh i'd be tempted to ditch the ethermax PSU for a corsair HX520w or HX620w (your choice, the HX620w will give you more upgradability), great PSU, and very worth the money.
handles, lots of ampage on rails, and has all the standard build in protections.
apart from that the only thing i would change is the ddr3, you might as well go for some decent ddr2.
alot of people swear by the dark raider mobos, i can't really coment cos ive never used it but it has good reviews, and is a winner pricewise.IIRC
might be an idea to go cheap on CPU and upgrade to Quaddies in future. or go quaddie now and wait for the software to catch up

edit:i'd reccomend a TRU120E for cooling with 2 fans in a push pull alignment, and if you want silence it might be an idea to use noctua p12's, or you could just use sharkoons, your personal preference really

[Thorsson]

There was a recent test on Tom's Hardware regarding the difference RAM made, and there were two conclusions:

1. In the majority of cases the difference between fastest and slowest was 2-3% and max (WinRAR IIRC) was ~7%.

2. Decent DDR2 performed faster than DDR3 in just about every test.

I'd go for 2x2Gb of the GSkill 1066 at the moment. Not much more than the 800, and gives you some options, as well as being that bit faster.

[KristianGregory]

thanks very much all, its really appreciated.

You've probably noticed I've left a few essentials out such as hard disks and cooling because a) some parts i can move over from old pc (hard disks, dvd rom etc) and b) I wanted to focus on those bits and pieces for which compatibility was a big issue (cooling and sound cards can come later).

How much should I be looking at spending on cooling for a rig like this (for high quality cooling at a reasonable price)?

are thermalrite and scythe definitely the ones to go for?

Thanks again,
Kris

[staffsMike]

Well the antec 900 is pretty damn good case for cooling. A decent HSF and you are set for air cooling.

Thermalight and Scythe are amongst the very best.

I personally only use scythe ninja's now. It's an awesome cooler you can even use passive but it comes with a near silent 120mm fan. Thats £30.

Thermalright make a few good ones. The 120 extreme is pretty much the best you can get and the ultima 90 is pretty awesome too. You need to buy a fan though.

[TAKTAK]

TBH your probably better off going with the scythe ninja anyway as mike says. As the TRU120E's are out of stock practically everywhere at the minute (have been for months) only OCUK have stock, and quite frankly OCUK are pants... oh, and some of the TRU120E's have a manufacturing problem where the base in concaved and or very rough. so just for the ease of use the Ninja is your best bet and IIRC it's also cheaper

[jeffel]

I would go for this config

Antec P182 gunmetal (very silent case-No fancy case lights)
£83 @ebuyer

Asus p5k-E wifi P35 or Asus P5N-D Nvidia 750i

£85@kikatek £93 @AWT(Asus P5N-D Nvidia 750i SLI DDR2 ATX Motherboard - Socket LGA775 - AWD-IT.CO.UK)

Corsair HX Series 520W Modular PSU - ATX12V v2.2 APFC
£64@ebuyer

500gb sataII 32mb Cache
£55@scan

Core 2 Quad-Core Q6600 2.40 GHz OEM
£110 @ebay

2gb Patriot ddr2 1200mhz
£80 @ebay US

1gb BFG 9800gx2
£350@scan

Tuniq tower 120
£35@komplett

Samsung AD-7191S-0B 20x DVD±R, 8x DVD±DL, DVD+RW x8/-RW x6, x12 DVD-RAM SATA Lightscribe Black
£18@ebuyer

Total under - £890

If u search a bit more u could get components even cheaper.I hope u make the right choice.

[Thorsson]

Don't get Patriot RAM. It's cheap but quality control leaves a lot to be desired. You could get lucky...

And buying from too many (6 jeffel!!!) different sources just means you pay a lot for delivery.

[DataMatrix]

Be careful with the case! The 9800 is a BIG card.

[jeffel]

And buying from too many (6 jeffel!!!) different sources just means you pay a lot for delivery.

Hi all the prices i have posted are inc. delivery.

[KristianGregory]

I'm a bit torn on the processor I must admit. I know quads generally better for media-centres as games can't take advantage of the multi-core setup (yet). Thus I've read around and duo's are considered superior.

This would suggest an E8500 would be superior for my purposes than a Q6600. Although people seem to think otherwise. So you see the theory contradicts with the general concensus.

Does anyone have an explanation for this contradiction?

Rgds,
Kris