Help with new rig - opinions needed

Hi,

I'm looking to put together a new PC. The main aim is that it is upgradeable for the next couple of years or so. It will mainly be used for general web browsing, Photoshop work, and some gaming. i already have a monitor, so I don't need to factor that in and my budget is in the region of £550 (including OS).

I must admit, I haven't done a great deal of research at this point and I am somewhat out of touch with the latest kit around at the moment, but I have had a stab at what looks to be a reasonable setup:

Mobo: Asus P5N-E SLI NF650i SLi - £55
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E6850 - £109
Mem: 4GB (2x2GB) Corsair TwinX XMS2 (PC2 6400) - £54
HDD: 250 GB Western Digital WD2500AAKS Caviar - £35
GPU: 512MB Leadtek 9600GT - £92
Case: SilverStone TJ04B - £75
Optical Drive: Samsung SH-S203D/BEBN - $15
OS: Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate SP1* 64Bit 1Pk - £110

Total = £545 (approx)

Any recommendations would be appreciated, particularly on the mobo, mem and GPU. Lastly, I have a 400W Enermax PSU in my current setup. Would this be enough to drive the system above or equivalent?

Thanks in advance for any tips or advice.

Yeah the basic direction of that setup is spot on, just a few updated components:

CPU: E8400 - £110 (same speed, less heat = less noise = more overclocking!)
E7200 - £80 (just overclock it to the speed of the higher priced models)

Mobo: Go for an intel chipset because nVidia cards really don't Sli very well so there's no need spending more money on an Sli chipset, try P35 or P45 based boards from Asus, Gigabyte or Abit.

GPU: the 9600GT is a fantastic card but if you go for the P35 or P45 chipset you could consider an HD4850 since they scale incredibly well in CrossFire. nVidia cards are set to drop in price too so keep an eye out for that.

All of the other components are pretty much the best in their price range; well done!

Don't think thats a great choice on the GPU front. The current prices of the 8800gt and HD4850 :-

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/142228
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/146428

Would definately get the 4850 but if yo are buying an SLI mobo then i'm guessing you are an nVidia fan?

Other things are - 500gb HDD would only cost £10 more, and you could save a bit on the case. A coolermaster dominator would save you £13 covering the cost of the GFX card and its a very nice case.

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/131551

The memory is a good choice for Vista but if you do have a bit of leeway in the budget then DDR2-1066 kits aren't that much more expensive at the moment.

As for the CPU I'm still a massive q6600 (G0) fan. Overclocks so well and the performance for the price is hard to beat.

I would go for one of the P45 mobo's like the Asus P5Q PRO - I ordered it yesterday for my new rig:).

Also I would (and did) go for a HD4850 GPU, and for your budget get the E7200.

Possibly a cheeper case - I went for an Antec 900, but really its just a matter of taste.

Finally I would at least go for a 320GB hard disk, I got a WD one yesterday for £34 on scans today only, so they are really not that much more:D

Looks good, i'd also favour an intel chipset (probably a P35 based one) over the nvidia, but for reasons of stability rather than multi-card nonsense (sorry Zhaoman, not rubbishing your advice as such, i just think multi-graphics card setups are the biggest win of marketting vs substance since Mr Prada announced his new affordable £5k handbags).

Also don't get en E6*** CPU, get a 7 or 8 (not that the number itself is better, but lower power use as described).

The hard drive is fine, if somewhat small. I'd get a 320GB - 400GB as a minimum, but you could always add a second easily enough if needed in the future.

As for the PSU, Enermax is a good make so should be fine. How old is it? Some might argue to not use one over 5 years old, but i would.

Vista Ultimate - really not needed, unless you know specifically that you need it.
Much, much better off with the Home or Business editions (and lets not get into whether Vista itself is worth getting!).

I have the 500GB WD AAKS drive and it is so quiet. Definitely can't beat storage space (although I am a storage space addict).

GPU: having seen the 4850 in action in my friends PC...wow. Price per performance is incredible. So much better than the 8600GT I had (well still have).

If you read about the Abit 650i motherboard (FP-IN9) in the Abit section of the forum here, you'll see it has issues with overclocking Quad cores. If you are looking to overclock, there are better chipsets/motherboards out there.

Why get 1066 kit? Would you ever be running 533Mhzz fsb on your CPU (if we run at 1:1 FSB:DRAM ratio)?

haha, MSIC ur right dual graphics have been completely useless, and I did suggest an intel chipset for stability reasons also; but as an afterthought I added that CrossFire could also be used on that board, seeing as the HD4850s scaling is incredible. (Check out some of the benchmarks for 2 HD4850s: matches a GTX280!)

I'd go along the lines of

Coolermaster CM-690 ~£60
http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebProductId=787775 ~£80 or P5Q PRO

4FB DDR2 ~ £55
E7200 ~ £80 + scythe mine ~£23
640GB AAKS ~ £55
Samsung Optical ~£15
Saphire HD4850 ~£125

I wouldn't really bother with ultimate unless you ahve particular need for it, Home Premium is normally enough.

Your 400W PSU is probably enough, but you might want to get a new one if that one is past it's best. Something like the corsair 450W/500W VX if you want to keep costs down.

Probably along the lines of what has been said but I'm too tried to read it :p

Well I've also been looking into seting up my own PC.

I've recently also made a post, and I finished my build;

This is my setup, costs approx. 650 euro from where I'm getting it from, though I'm getting a discount, so it would cost a little more for you.

1. Motherboard - Asus P5Q Pro

2. Processor - Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 "Wolfdale"

3. Graphic Card - Asus GeForce ENGTX260

4. Memory - Corsair 2GB XMS2-6400 DDR2 TWIN2X (4 4 4 12)

5. Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 500GB 32MB Cache SATA2

6. PC Case & PSU - Antec Sonata III Quiet Super 500W



If you see my setup, I'm spending a lot more on a graphic card, which in your case won't be that needed. (I think)
Though, you should check out the Antec Sonata III, it seems to be a very nice looking case imo, but it also includes an very effective 500W PSU. This case + the PSU is £82.12.

If you're not planning to get another 9600GT, it's really no use to go for an nForce chipset, you should only get that if your planning to run 2 cards in SLI, else go for an Intel chipset. (like mine given above, seems to be a very nice motherboard for that price)

Now I want to add, this is the setup I'm going to buy if everything goes fine, I haven't got it yet so I'm not really talking "out of experience", but I have done pretty much research on this, I've read a lot of reviews about anything I could find and aswell asked a lot of questions ;P

PS: One different question though, I know the Asus P5Q Pro isn't really "made" for overlocking, but would it still be a possibility to overclock with this motherboard?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by NovaSphere

PS: One different question though, I know the Asus P5Q Pro isn't really "made" for overlocking, but would it still be a possibility to overclock with this motherboard?

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Well with it's 1600MHz FSB it would have to hit at least that, so even with a 1333MHz chip you get some free overclocking.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by staffsMike

Well with it's 1600MHz FSB it would have to hit at least that, so even with a 1333MHz chip you get some free overclocking.

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That's pretty nice, I'm not buying this stuff to overclock, I haven't overclocked anything in my life, but I might want to give it a shot in the future ^^

(anyhow, lets not drag to far from the topic, this is not my topic afterall =p)

Hi,

Well first off, thanks for all the replies so far, it's all been very useful. One thing that seems pretty obvious is that I plumped for the wrong chipset / GPU combination, so I have swtiched that to Intel / HD4850. The Asus P5Q PRO appears to be a popular recommendation, so I have stuck that in there. I've upped the HDD as well, even though I will be using my current one in conjunction with whatever I buy (but you can never have enough space right?). I've gone for some faster memory by reducing the case cost and going for Vista Home premium instead. So here is how it stands at the moment:

Asus P5Q PRO - £84.00
Intel Core 2 Duo, E7200, Wolfdale Core - £83.06
4GB (2x2GB) Corsair TwinX DDR2 PC2-8500 (1066) - £80.90
512MB Gigabyte HD 4850 - £117.44 (Sapphire one isnt at stock at Scan at the moment)
500 GB Western Digital WD5000AAKS - £47.81
Samsung Optical Drive - £15.97
Coolermaster CM-690 V2 Dominator - £63.44 (NovaSphere - I have the orginal Sonata and fancy a change :))
Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium SP1* 64Bit - £62.62

Total = £550

How does that all look?
On the subject of my PSU - it's an Enermax Liberty Modular 400W and is probably about 12 months old. It hasn't really been driving a powerful system so would you agree that it will be OK for the above system? I would rather not have to shell out for a new one as its super quiet and i wouldn't want to compromise anything else in the system by reducing costs elsewhere.

Yeah 400W is enough for that especially since it's fairly new to :)

I have a 400W Liberty powering a similar system, very good PSU, Blitzen will vouch for them ASAP.

When did the Dominator case become £60+, seemed to be always around the £45 mark.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by UseItNow

When did the Dominator case become £60+, seemed to be always around the £45 mark.

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Annoying isn't it, something to do with the materials coming from china which is a problem due to the probems they have been having.

Happened about a week ago..when all the stock came back in.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by staffsMike

Annoying isn't it, something to do with the materials coming from china which is a problem due to the probems they have been having.

Happened about a week ago..when all the stock came back in.

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Sounds more like greed to me but that's me, what do I know?

OK, well it sounds like my PSU will be up to the job which is a relief.

I'm hoping the rest of the system looks OK. I have a question about the graphics card. Are the different branded HD4850's basically the same thing? I was going to go with the Gigabyte or HIS as the Sapphire is out of stock at the moment. Also, I've read that these run pretty hot - should I consider a 3rd party cooler? if so, any recommendations?

I'm not into ATI to much, I'm more of an Nvidia fan, though ATI is doing pretty well with the price-performance ratio, hope they going to push Nvidia to the limit.
So I can't give you any info about this cards in particular but;
The different brands are mostlikely close to each others, every brand sells the same card, with mostly some brand "custom" extra's, some simply sell the Nvidia or ATI base model, known as the retail one.
Others give out different version, where they are already Overclocked for you, or with different cooling added to it, or some package sale where they include some game.
But usually it's all the same thing, can't tell you much about what brands are the best though, I usually prefer Asus... EVGA is also a good one, rest I don't know that much ^^

PS: If you are going for an Asus motherboard, the P5Q series in particular, it would be best to get an Asus card aswell, those motherboards support some special features, those usualy only work with Asus cards. (If I remember well it was this EPU for example that helps saving power)
Like this one; http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebProductId=836588

With regard to the different vendors, they are very much the same card just different support and bundles etc.. so it doesn't really make a difference to the card itself.

I didn't really consider the warranty period on the GPU actually. There isn't much in the way of info on Scan's site regarding that or the bundles either. I'll have a root around the web when I get home from work.

NovaSphere - I would most likely be inclined to go for Asus as well, I have had a couple of Asus products and always been pleased with them. Unfortunately, Scan don't have any in stock at the moment and I want to buy everything from the same place (Scan are coming up as the cheapest for the whole system).

Anybody have any views on the cooling of the HD4850 (maybe covered elsewhere on the forum) or any other suggestions on the overall system before I place my order?

The 4850 runs at 70C idle and over 80C under load which is extremely hot: the default fan speed is only set to 15% by Amd which is quite strange. There will be driver updates to allow you to change the fan settings, but for the moment there is a workaround available; I'll try to find the thread for you. There is no need for an aftermarket cooler because with the fan spinning at 30% users noticed a drops in temps of around 20C.

There is a good article on 4850 cooling today on
www.silentpcreview.com
It also discusses the likelihood of either a BIOS or driver update to improve things... but then again you can never guarantee what will happen in the future.
(Basically i'd get an Arctic Cooling S1 rev 2, which is what I am getting for my 3870!).

I think i will get the Arctic Cooling S1 rev 2 as well. There is a tweak mentioned here to alter the default fan speed:

forums[dot]hexus[dot]net/hexus-hardware/141825-overclocking-ati-hd4850.html
(I cant post urls yet)

Judging by the silentpcreview article the fan can get pretty loud, so the passive cooler sounds like the way to go.

Does anybody have any idea when Scan (or anybody) will have Corsair 4GB DDR2 XMS2 Dominator PC2-8500C5 TwinX in stock. Its obviously popular as it seems sold out pretty much everywhere - annoying as its holding me up ordering my system.

My Accelero S1 Rev 2 arrived this morning, and it's by far the largest cooling device i've ever owned (or seen), in the PC sense. It's as wide as my hand span (when my hand is at rest, not stretched out) and quite a bit longer.
I'll be ripping my machine open when i get home tonight.
Nice one Scan BTW (have left feedback on 'Trust').

Lykah, be aware of the optional cooling fan modules. With hindsight, for an extra small amount of cash i should have bought them, and then have the option of using or not. As it is, i'll probably add them to my next Scan order just in case.
Will post a mini review of my AC S1 at some point soon.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by MSIC

My Accelero S1 Rev 2 arrived this morning, and it's by far the largest cooling device i've ever owned (or seen), in the PC sense. It's as wide as my hand span (when my hand is at rest, not stretched out) and quite a bit longer.
I'll be ripping my machine open when i get home tonight.
Nice one Scan BTW (have left feedback on 'Trust').

Lykah, be aware of the optional cooling fan modules. With hindsight, for an extra small amount of cash i should have bought them, and then have the option of using or not. As it is, i'll probably add them to my next Scan order just in case.
Will post a mini review of my AC S1 at some point soon.

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Why not do what SPCR do and strap a 120mm to it?

I only have a Sharkoon golf ball one free at the moment, mind you I also have a spare Zalman twisty thing to vary voltage/ speed. So that might be an option...
I'll see how creative i can get, but i get nervous if it involves any soldering or weird wiring

Oh the expense never stops :) i'll add the turbo kit to my order, thanks for the heads up MSIC.

Just need that RAM to come in stock now, I found it in stock elsewhere, but its more expensive and I would have to pay another delivery charge as well, they say patience is a virtue, but I just know I'll end up spending a bit extra to have it by the weekend!