Need a few tips to build a new system

[Crevan]

Right, so here's what I came up with so far:

Cpu Intel Q6600 (£115) or E8500 (£125)
Gpu Nvidia 9800GTX+ (£130)
Ram OCZ DDR2-800 ReaperX 4GB (£70)
Mobo Asus P5Q pro (£84)
Heatsink Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro (£13)
Psu Hiper 630W (£54)
Hdd Samsung Spinpoint F1 500GB (£43)
Dvd Optiarc (Sony/NEC) AD-7201S-0B (£17)
Case Hiper Osiris (£80)
Monitor Samsung SM223BW (£163)
Kb Logitech G11 (£38)
mouse
Speakers

A few notes:
Cpu - With the recent intel price cuts suggesting that e8500 should be cheaper, I would go for that one. But at the moment it's not the case, so I'll stick with q6600

9800GTX+ should perform quite well, and I prefer Nvidia that little bit more

Case - I really like the look of Hiper Osiris, and it seems to get good reviews.

Keyboard - someone recommended Logitech G11 as a great gaming kb; but since I also do a lot of text typing/editing, I need something that feels comfortable. Any suggestions?

Mouse and speakers - have no idea at the moment, but I need something comfortable for gaming, and I like my music at good quality

At the moment it's around £806, without the mouse, speakers, OS (I can get an XP Pro for free on MS academic licence, but only 32 bit) and delivery (some of those items are from ebuyer, which offers free delivery). I'm looking at up to £900ish budget, maybe a grand if I can get 0% finance options

So how does that look?

[staffsMike]

Change the PSU, hiper suck!

Corsair 520W HX is more than enough power, probably actually give you more power than the hiper anyway.

Freezer 7 is noisey and annoying a Xigmatec tower or scythe mine isn't much more money and is better overall.

Get standard heatspreader RAM, corsair XMS2 is £53 on ebuyer.

640GB HDD?

[Zhaoman]

Yeah dudis, same as what staffsMike suggested, get a 520W Corsair PSU or a 550W Be Quiet (they're 87% efficient )

It should still be between Q6600 and E8400, the E8500 is a waste of money even after the price cuts.

Its looking good

[Crevan]

So what's exactly wrong with Hipers? Haven't heard anything bad of them yet. Also, I'm just curious - if some time in the future I decide to go with dual-gpu setup, would the 520 watt Corsair be able to handle it? And with what gpus?

Couldn't find Xigmatec in the e-shops I know, but found Scythe Mine Rev-B for 28 quid. Is that the one you're suggesting?

Ram - there's OCZ Platinum (with standard heatsinks ) for £58 at 5-4-4-18 timings. Would the timings make much of a difference?

Hdd - are you suggesting 640GB for the sake of more storage, or better performance?

[Zhaoman]

Corsair is a more reputable brand for making stuff that won't explode () when something goes wrong. (especially important when it comes to PSUs)

Yes that is the cooler, Xigmatec should be £22 on Scan, very cheap.

Timings do make a difference somewhat, the Corsair suggested by staffsMike is very good.

640Gb have 320Gb platters, much faster than the the 500Gb which has 250Gb platters.

[Crevan]

Ok, found the Xigmatec - was looking at the wrong section there

About the timings - Corsair has 5-5-5-18, OCZ has 5-4-4-18. Would that justify extra £5 for OCZ?

[Zhaoman]

Performance per pound then no, it makes very little difference, but for overclocking the tighter timings should mean that the RAM is more overclockable. Its really up to you.

[Crevan]

Ok, thanks.
Earlier you've mentioned that the choice should be between q6600 and e8400 cpus. How overclockable the e8400 is? Might save me £12 if I go with it.

[Zhaoman]

E8400 goes to 4Ghz as easily as a Q6600 goes to 3.6Ghz (it takes a little bit of work and a little bit of luck but should be achievable). For comparison, the E8500 goes to 4.1Ghz. [Air cooling]

If I didn't own Supreme Commander I'd go for the dual core since it runs cooler and uses far less power. Quad core would be more future-proof no doubt.

[staffsMike]

If I were going for a dual core I would for the E7200. Overclocks to 3.5GHz I would think, it will be much easier to overclock on PC6400 than the E8400 and lighter on the motherboard to.

For gaming there is little need for more than 2.4Ghz anyway.

Also if the corsair couldn't handle the dual GPU setup I doubt the hiper would. You could get the Corsair 650W TX, still seasonic built, same price as the corsair but non-modualr cables.

[Zhaoman]

yeah good point, forgot about the E7200: for price/performance its between the E7200 and Q6600 really

[SiM]

E7200 should easily get to 3.8ghz actually... I got to 3.6ghz and I didn't put much voltage through it...

[Crevan]

Here's the revised list, then:

cpu q6600 £117.37
gpu 9800gtx+ £136.95
ram OCZ platinum 4GB £58.00
mobo asus p5q pro £84.00
heatsink xigmatec £22.27
psu corsair 520w £64.38
hdd wd 640 £54.38
dvd sony nec optiarc £16.79
case hiper osiris £79.99
monitor Samsung SM223BW £163.33
kb g11 £36.65
mouse sharkoon rush £15.46
total £849.57

Plus an OS and delivery.

Still note sure about the mouse and kb - they seem good quality and quite popular, but are they worth the money?

[wicker_man]

I recently built a PC for a friend which was configured with a WD Raptor 74GB for the main system drive (for speed), and two 750GB Samsung Spinpoints in RAID 1 (for data to be mirrored).

You might want to consider going for something similar or maybe add drives once you save up?

Just make sure you have some kind of backup system in place though!

[joz12345]

you should switch the mouse to a wolfking trooper, similar price and spec (its laser, despite what scan says) ive read good professional reviews of the sharkoon, but half the customer reviews seem to complain.
you dont really need a gaming keyboard, a regular one will do. I havent found a use for macro keys yet, except for RPGs that i dont play, but i can assign keys on my £5 logitech media keyboard.

[joz12345]

raid 1 is pointless for non business applications, if anything, back up important files on a schedule to a 120gb hdd, i doubt you will have over 120 gb of work on it at a time (you mentionsed a lot of text?) and you can just reinstall an os and games. If your a music lover, then your music will probably be on an ipod somewhere, anyway.