Looking to build a new system

[Sacred]

Hi all,


I currently have two computers:

1x MBP17" - Keeping this for work/uni related use

And my old system:

Coolermaster - Wavemaster case
AMD FX53 processor
2048mb Corsair TwinX Pro
ASUS A8V Deluxe MOBO
nVidia Point Of View 7800GS 256MB AGP (Originally came with an ATI X800 Platinum Edition but swapped it out after lots of failures playing F.E.A.R)
2x 36gb Western Digital Raptor SATA HDD - 10k RPM - RAID 0
Windows XP SP2
(Cost me £2000 back in the day!)

I've had my old system for some years now (around 4) and its developed a problem accessing the internet meaning only a few webpages will load and others will not, tried everything with it and as far as I'm concerned its ready for the PC heaven in my loft with the other five or six computers up their.


So I want to get a new system thats able to play newer games and online games with ease.


My budget is approx £1800-£2000 finance is preferable as I don't have alot of capital available.


I would like a new monitor as the 19" one I have is quite dated and I don't fancy setting my 26" Samsung TV up as one. As for size probably no more than 22"


I'm unsure as to if I should take the plunge and try and build a computer myself, I mean I've changed ram and graphics cards in the past so how hard can it be building a whole system (this would also get me more for my money) or should I just go the safe route of getting a pre build system that should be fully tested, working and go as soon as it comes out of the box.


As you lot can probably guess I'm not overly clued up on the whole gaming PC side of things, and after my previous purchase 4 years ago I was left with a very sour taste in my mouth (I got an AGP MOBO and the PCI-E ones were released within a few weeks of my new computer arriving, this made future upgrades of graphics cards limited. I don't want to fall into getting a MOBO system that has outdate technology and can't be easily updated)


I've been out in the cold so to speak for quite some time since I got my MBP17" a few years back so don't know much about the current PC market!


Sorry if I ramble on a bit, I would blame senility but I'm only 22!

Looking forward to some advice and hopefully securing myself a new gaming behemoth


Regards,
Sacred


*** EDIT ***

Not meaning to be a cheap skate, but if anything from my previous old PC system is salvageable to be sold on somewhere like eBay to raise some capital it might be of better use than just lofting it all!

[Webby]

With your budget you could get an i7 system when its released at the end of the year (if you can wait a couple of months) if not then I'm afraid you will be buying into a dying CPU socket Intel will be changing from S775 to S1336 (i think thats the night number... can't be bothered to check atm) and AMD will change from AM2+ to AM3 at some point as well.

If you plan on running a 22" monitor then the resolution is likely to 1680*1050 at that resolution you have lots of options for graphics cards, if you want higher resolution then you will need to go to a 24" screen or get the Lenovo L220x (the only 1920*1200 22" screen currently available). at which point you will be more limited in graphics card but still have a few options (especially with your budget).

So let us know if you can wait or not and then I'm sure people will give you some more advise on whats good

[Sacred]

Thanks for the reply, how big of a difference are we talking between the current S775 and the new i7?

With the exception of the actual processors changing, what effect will they have on other components?
I assume graphics cards will continue to use PCI-E or are they throwing in a total new change like before from AGP to PCI-E.

Also is processor speed the be all and end all of everything? I mean looking at processor speeds these days at around 3ghz doesn't seem to be a huge increase on the old FX53 processor that I have which I think runs at 2.6ghz? Or am I missing something here?

[AdamAnubis]

Wiat a few months, and get a X58, i7 and Tri-DDR3 RAM. The architecture is entirely new, so it's not just Ghz. As far as i know the sockets are staying PCI-E, so you'll be looking at either a renewed GTX280 or HD4870x2

[xiphrex]

From early reports and benchmarks the new platform appears to be quite a bit better than the current generation. Since your upgrading and you've waited until now to do so, I would wait until the new intel platform is out and see what to do from there. You may not want to upgrade to the latest hardware but you would definitely benefit from the price drops on the current CPU's which is bound to happen in light of newer cpus.

Graphics cards will remain PCI-E.

As for CPU speeds, they are making them more efficient and with more cores, cache and technologies which affects the performance of the CPU. For this reason comparing AMD to intel is not as straight forward as comparing CPU speeds. However, if your comparing CPUs from the same generation then yes the higher the speed the better.

If your looking to play the current new games with ease then definitely wait for the new intels, as the current technology still seems to struggle a bit.

[staffsMike]

CPU power counts for very little in high res gaming once you get above around 2.2GHz on a dual/quad core, after that it rests pretty much entirely on the graphics with the exception of a couple of games here or there Im sure.

With that in mind i7 won't give you a huge advantage in gaming right now. Everything else will benefit of course but then when you're upto 3.0GHz on a dual/quad everything starts to work pretty much as fast as you could need it to, bar things like video encoding.

PCIe isn't really going anywhere. It offers all the bandwidth plus a lot more than is really needed right now, and there will be further versions .. PCIe 3.0 etc.. which will almost certainly be backwards compatable.

In your position, I would just cut your budget in half, build it yourself and build it now.
Prices are set to drop a little in the near future but not a hell of a lot and i7, X58's and DDR3 are going to be (are) expensive.

As for your old PC, it's got some nice parts in it tbh, unfortunatly you won't be able to use the sale forums here until you have 100 posts but ebay should shift all of that tbh.

You could also build a PC that is pretty cheap that will not lose too much money and then if you decide you want i7 just sell the parts you don't need.

With that in mind you would want some parts you could carry over to the new PC. So how about this.

Intel E5200 ~£55
2GB PC6400 RAM ~£30
Asus P5Q PRO ~£80
Those are the parts you would sell should you feel the need

Coolermaster CM-690 ~£60
Corsair 520W HX ~£65
Western Digital 640GB AAKS ~£50
Samsung Optical ~£15 (would you like blu ray)
Nvidia GTX260 ~£165 (overkill for 22" 1680 x 1050, but will last ages)

Comes to around £455, ~£160 of which would be on parts you might want to change. You may also want to add a decent after market cooler for overclocking, an O/S if you need one etc..

Bit of a ramble there, but there is some sort of answer to your questions in there somewhere Tiding yourself over isn't a bad move though. The above system will happily last you a couple of years until intel is settled into the new socket.

[Xaar]

Well, for one, I believe the i7 will most likely only support DDR3.

Thereofre, if you bought a 775 now, and wanted to upgrade again, you would need a new cpu, motherboard and RAM at the least.

Also, the processor speed is not the be all and end all. Newer Gen. CPU's are far better performing clock for clock. It's been realised that pushing the clock speed higher and higher requires more and more power, and results in excessive heat. Instead, newer chips add additional instructions, and reduce the die size, aswell as increasing and streamling cache sizes, incorparing memory controllers on the die, and utilising additional cores.

[Sacred]

Thanks for the replies, guess I'm going to hack my old computer apart and get some of the components on ebay. Any ideas on the values of the components listed above? Or should I just be willing to let it all go for what ever (after covering postage) as anything would be better than nothing?

Concerning the above setup, how well will it perform with a game like Warhammer Online: AoR? As I've heard it can be pretty RAM hungry?

Also assuming I do decide to build the computer myself, how difficult of a process is this?

Not sure how to even start or think about over clocking so probably going to give that a miss, don't want my new components combusting on me!


As for the budget I get my £2000 student loan on Monday and can spare £1000 of it instantly towards a computer. Any more than that and I would have to get finance//credit card.

[staffsMike]

Well 4GB of RAM is £50 so no big deal really, you would still be under £500 and you won't need any more than that, if you need 4GB at all.

Building computers is pretty simple process. Things only plug in one way in specific places etc.. There are tonnes of guides on the net and generally speaking it's a painless process as long as you take your time and all of your components are working when you take them out of the box lol.

£2000 on a PC is a waste. £1000 is pushing it. £800 is pretty much all you would ever really need to spend given current prices. Think about it, £500 now on a PC that will happily game on a 22" for 2 or more years. Then maybe another £500 in 2 years if you want to on components that will eat any £1000 PC you build today alive.

Overclocking is pretty simple when dealing with light overclocks these days too. Genereally just a couple of numbers need changing in the bios and you are away There is a good overclocking guide in the stickies.

[Sacred]

Yeah I can see how 4gb of RAM might seem like a lot, I could always settle for 2gb and buy additional RAM if need be. Not 100% sure on that yet though.

Where would you recommend for purchasing the components to build the system?


Thanks,
Sacred

[staffsMike]

www.scan.co.uk

That is what most of us here use as they give Hexus users free delivery. You will qualify for it when you get to 20 posts to

They also have a care forum here which is bloomin handy and they are genereally recognised as one of the best etailers out there for components. Certainly the best customer service and normally lowest prices too.

[Sacred]

Guess I've got some posting to do then!

I'll have a really quick look through the website, put together a system and post it back here to see what you guys think (and to be told what I'm missing etc!)

[Sacred]

Intel Core 2 Duo E6850, Conroe Core, S775, 3.0 GHz, 1333MHz FSB, 4MB Cache, Retail £129.00
Coolermaster CM-690 V2 Dominator Black Midi Tower Case with Mesh Top Panel w/o PSU £64.99
4GB (2x2GB) Corsair Dominator DDR2 PC2-8500 (1066), 240 Pin, Non-ECC Unbuff, CAS 5, EPP, DHX + Fan £91.40
896MB XFX GTX 260 PCI-E 2.0 (x16), Mem 1998MHz, GPU 576MHz, 192 Cores, 2x DL DVI/HDTV £203.60
150 GB Western Digital VelociRaptor, SATA 300, 10000 rpm, 4.2 ms, NCQ £130.39

Total: £619.38

Anything I'm missing above? Or worse anything I've selected that just doesn't work well together?

However this doesn't include a MOBO or a monitor. Wasn't too sure what to choose for them any ideas?

Looking forward to your replies!


Thanks,
Sacred

[TAKTAK]

you need a PSU aswell

[Sacred]

you need a PSU aswell

Anything you can recommend that would be able to sufficiently power the above while not sounding like I've got a mini cyclone running through the inside of my case?

[TAKTAK]

corsair HX520/HX620
enermax modu82+

would be fine for that build, and are all nice and quiet.

and on the motherboard side of things i would be looking at a DFi board (now that ABit have vacated the market)

also i would get PC2 6400 RAM (8500 isn't an official speed) as it is cheaper and 8500 doesn't really offer that much more, 6400 will give you plenty of an overclock on default...
and i would get a WD 640GB AAKs instead of the velociraptor (it's just too expensive for my taste, when you won't really notice that much difference on the 2x320GB platter WD)
and i would get the EVGA GTX260 (or wait for the new GTX260s [more shaders]) as it is slightly cheaper, or the new ones will give better performance
mebbe have a look at the 45nm wolfdales aswell