First Build !

[wzix]

Hi

I'm going to be building my new pc over the next few weeks, its going to be used for gaming but also must be reliable etc for general family use. Including the cost of a new 22" monitor the budget is around £750ish although lower the better.

Q9300 - Although the Duo's might be better now, Im looking to make the pc reasonably future proof with a quad. £165

HD4850 - I was thinking 8800GT, but after the recent reviews etc, the 4850 seems to be the way to go ! £130

OCZ 4GB - Ocz seems a decent make?, 4GB also futureproof etc. £65

Hard Drive - Samsung seems good, not wanting to waste money here on excess space. £35

PSU - Again not sure which one, I guess around 650W? £50

Antec 900 looks good? £65

Mobo - Here im not sure? Im not that bothered about SLi as it doesnt seem to be really worth it? £90

22inch Monitor £150

Thats £750ish plus abit for a little dvd drive and few extras. Can't see the need with extra cooling as I dont know how to overclock!

Any advice or anything would greatly appreciated thanks !

[Webby]

Save yourself a bit of cash and look at the following,

CPU: Q6600 £125
Motherboard: Abit IP35 Dark Raider £65
Memory: 4GB PC2-6400 £55
Hard Drive: WD AAKS or Samsung
PSU: Dont skimp here 500W will be ample
1. Emermax Liberty Modular 500W £65
2. Corsair HX520W Modular £65
3. Corsair VX550W £55
4. Seasonic S12II-500 £52
Modular is useful for cable management but not a necessity.
GPU: 4850 £130
CPU Cooling: Scythe Mine £24
Case and Monitor I leave to you

Hope that helps and overclocking is very easy plenty of guides online and people here will be only to happy to help you if you ask

[wzix]

Don't suppose you've got a link to that motherboard?, I'm struggling to find it

Thanks for the advice , Im going to start price hunting and buying tomorrow.

[staffsMike]

is it just me or has it disappeared from scan :S

try something like this
http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebProductId=818514

[Eddd]

I believe the dark raider has been discontinued (correct me if I'm wrong)?
This is a suitable replacement. I'd definitely stick with a P35 board - Abit and Gigabyte are good mobo manufacturers.

Antec 900 is an excellent choice if it's your taste. Have a look at the Antec 300 or coolermaster CM-690 (as I'm sure mike will recommend ) for something cheaper

600w is overkill. The Corsair HX520 would be more than enough.

Q6600 is much better for the money than the Q9300. It can easily be overclocked to 3.0GHz without changing any voltages.

Ati 4850 is a good choice.

I'd always go with Western Digital over Samsungs for the hdds. But tbh, both are pretty similar nowadays.

4GB is the right choice (just remember to get a 64bit operating system ). I'd get Corsair RAM. And for the price, I'd get PC-8500, it's not much more than PC-6400 now.

Are you factoring an operating system in your budget? Windows Vista? XP? Ubuntu?

[staffsMike]

I wouldn't want that if I was overclocking, looks a bit too cheap for my liking

[wzix]

great help guys thanks

A few alterations then

Q6600
Asus P5Q PRO, iP45


Im thinking Vista 64bit?, to get the full use of the system etc.

I'll stick with the antec 900 for now as i love the looks, until i go over budget when i will be forced to go down a bit.

[staffsMike]

looks good to me

If you can afford it, I'd go for the corsair 520W HX. I have one and a VX as per Webby's recommendation, and while both are good the HX is a great until to have

[wzix]

Ok so far,

Motherboard - Asus P5Q PRO, iP45 £84 from scan
GPU - Sapphire HD4850 £130 from ebuyer
CPU- Q6600 £125 from anywhere it seems
Memory - 4GB (2x2GB) Corsair TwinX XMS2 £54 from scan
Case - Antec 900 about £65 is the best i can find so far,
PSU - Corsair 550vx £55

If anybody can see any improvements , would love to hear them before i start buying thanks for the help


Still need

Hard Drive for around £35 mark
And to decide which 22inch monitor

[MSIC]

Hard drive size is a little tricky as it's tough to know how much you are going to fill with your family - Anything under 320GB though is false economy for a few quid saved.
I would say that storing photos and music doesnt take up that much space, and compared to video that is true, however many digital cameras create 3 to 4 MB files nowadays and it doesnt take too many to make 1 Gig worth, especially when you start using inbuilt video modes etc.
Video editing however is the thing that really eats space - is this something you do?
The other issue to remember is that adding another internal hard drive is quite easy (the Antec case is certainly expecting to eat lots of hard drives), and even external drives are pretty cheap and easy these days.

As for the Antec 900 case, it is certainly a quality case, but does the size bother you? Be aware that it is a large case.

And for monitors, i am a huge fan of Dell but they are not the cheapest.
Some rules of thumb for monitors:
Inputs - DVI is a must, VGA (aka D-Sub) is irrelevant unless you want to connect old machines to it, Displayport is the new kid on the block and unproven, and HDMI may be worth it only if you know it is (for an Xbox, PS3 etc).
Refresh rates - once upon a time (ie 2003) this used to be important, but now it isn't as they are all fine.
Brightness - measured in cd/m², brighter the better in many ways, although it tends to use more power.
Contrast - 'something to 1' - the higher the better again, although manufacturers frankly lie their asses off on this, using all sorts of clever tricks to claim to be true.
Resolution - this in many ways is the most important, but the one that probably is irrelevant to you. The higher max. res a monitor can go, the better (sharper) the picture quality, however all 22 inch monitors are 1680 x 1050 resolution, so there is no need to look at this.
I would add though that your 4850 card is easily good enough for this resolution (ie powerful enough to run all games at full detail), and even in fact for most at the higher 1920 x 1200 resolution found on 24" monitors.
This viewsonic 22" is good value at £152.
The £196 Acer 24"er's have been around for a while (reviews here), although given how much cheaper that is than most 24" monitors i suspect that you get what you pay for.

[Will404]

Motherboard - Asus P5Q PRO, iP45 £84 from scan
GPU - Sapphire HD4850 £130 from ebuyer
CPU- Q6600 £125 from anywhere it seems
Memory - 4GB (2x2GB) Corsair TwinX XMS2 £54 from scan
Case - Antec 900 about £65 is the best i can find so far,
PSU - Corsair 550vx £55

If anybody can see any improvements , would love to hear them before i start buying thanks for the help


Still need

Hard Drive for around £35 mark
And to decide which 22inch monitor

Looks good, I am going to get a similar PC soon. For the moniter, I have an ASUS MW221U, for about a year now, and am very impressed with it

For the hard disk the best for £35 would be something like 320 GB Western Digital WD3200AAJS Caviar SE

[wzix]

22" Asus VW222S Black Widescreen LCD, 1680x1050, 2000:1, 300cd/m², 2ms, Speakers, VESA £165

This seems to be the right area at £165.

Which good cases are about that are abit cheaper than the antec?

[staffsMike]

the coolermaster CM-690 was avaliable around £45 on scan today only but the price has been hiked up to around £60 Antec solo, but thats more for quiet than cooling, not that it's bad for cooling just nothing special like the 900 or cm-690.

Antec 300 is a bit of a budget case but similar in priciple to the 900. Thats around £35.

[Webby]

Snip
Resolution - this in many ways is the most important, but the one that probably is irrelevant to you. The higher max. res a monitor can go, the better (sharper) the picture quality, however all 22 inch monitors are 1680 x 1050 resolution, so there is no need to look at this.
I would add though that your 4850 card is easily good enough for this resolution (ie powerful enough to run all games at full detail), and even in fact for most at the higher 1920 x 1200 resolution found on 24" monitors.
This viewsonic 22" is good value at £152.
The £196 Acer 24"er's have been around for a while (reviews here), although given how much cheaper that is than most 24" monitors i suspect that you get what you pay for.

Wrong look here for a 1920x1200 22" monitor

http://www.slashgear.com/lenovo-22-i...rst-177437.php

A bit pricey around £300 but it exists oh and the panel is S-PVA and made by samsung.

[Will404]

22" Asus VW222S Black Widescreen LCD, 1680x1050, 2000:1, 300cd/m², 2ms, Speakers, VESA £165

This seems to be the right area at £165.

Which good cases are about that are abit cheaper than the antec?

This seems to be the monitor which has replaced mine on scan, but it has NO DVI imput according to there website. Odd considering that I got mine 1 year ago and it does have DVI???

[wzix]

Ok so maybe the Asus LCD 22" VW222U version which does have DVI, also i see it has HDCP capable etc, so does the 4850 , however the motherboard has a big red cross there? Im not to sure what it is, but its about keeping high quality? Would the motherboard not be capable hold the others back?

Thanks