Buying and Building a new PC... HELP!!!

[shadowsilver03]

So my current PC is finally running out of steam (3 year old £500 prefab from Curry's), and I need help coming up with the components for a new system.

I'm somewhere between hardcore and casual gamer (ex-hardcore), and I'm studying Games Development, so I need something that can both run games and support a variety of dev environments.

I'm looking at around £600-700 for my budget, including mouse and keyboard (no monitor required).

Look forward to any advice.

[MSIC]

I spec'd this base unit earlier tonight:

Base Unit
Case: Antec Solo £61 (review here).
PSU: Corsair Modular 620W £92
Motherboard: DFI P45 £102. Madshrimps review.
CPU: E8500 £160. Neoseeker Review.
CPU HSF : Xigmatek HDT-S1283 £25. Xbit labs review
RAM: 2 x 2GB of Corsair Twin2X £55.
Optical drive: Sony SATA DVD RW £17
Hard Drive: 1TB Western Dig Black £105. Review at PC Pro
Graphics card: 1GB Asus GTX 280 £316. HardOCP review of a GTX 280
Sound: The ASUS Xonars are well regarded £56. Review at OCC.
The total for this is £830 so far, and will wipe the floor with any game you like (yes, inc Crysis!)

It'd be easy to reduce the cost a little with a smaller hard drive and graphics card.

[staffsMike]

It's a nice system above but I think I would change most of it.

Coolermaster CM-690 ~£60
Corsair 520W HX ~£70
DFI P45 is nice but Abit's IP-35 Dark Raider is good and saves £35 (~£65)
Intel E5200 ~£60, lots of grunt really and lots of overclocking headroom.
Scythe Ninja II ~£27
4GB PC6400 XMS2 ~£40 (last time i checked)
Western Digital 640GB AAKS/Caviar Blue ~£48
DVD Drive ~£15
ATi HD4850 ~ £120

£505 (with the dark raider)

Food for thought.

gfx is fine for non extreme gaming but will handle pretty much anything right now up to and including 1920 x 1200 but perhaps not full detail at that resolution.

[richieuk]

Base Unit (In comparison to MSIC)
Case : Antec 300 - Save £20
PSU: Coolermaster 500w - Save £40
Mobo : Abit's IP-35 Dark Raider - Save £35
CPU: Q6600 - Save £10
CPU HSF : Akasa 90mm HSF - Save £15
RAM: Standard Corsair 5-5-5-18 DDR2 800mHz - Save £15
Optical drive: Sony SATA2 DVD RW - £15
Hard Drive: 640GB WD AAKS - Save £40
Graphics card: I know this guy I'm offering him my 9800 iCHill for £80 - Save over £200
Sound: Onboard is plenty - Save £50

[shadowsilver03]

Wow, that was quick. I'll edit in some replies to the individual suggestions once I've read them all.

MSIC: An interesting build setup, a few things there that I'd thought about, and a few I hadn't considered. The GFX is a little out of my price range, but the rest of it looks good.

staffsMike: A setup certainly within my budget, although the mobo is giving me a bit of trouble to locate. I hadn't considered an ATI card (been a nvidia user all my computing life).

[mat-ster]

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/200...buy-nov-2008/1
Have a read good build guide,
Matt

[staffsMike]

staffsMike: A setup certainly within my budget, although the mobo is giving me a bit of trouble to locate. I hadn't considered an ATI card (been a nvidia user all my computing life).

me too. It's.. GONE!

never mind the DFI P45 is a great board, just thought I'd try and save you a bit of money.

[MSIC]

Ok, so more realistically for your price range now:

Case: Antec Solo £61 (review here).
PSU: Enermax 525W £61
Motherboard: DFI P45 £102. Madshrimps review.
CPU: E8200 £114
CPU HSF : Xigmatek HDT-S1283 £25. Xbit labs review
RAM: 2 x 2GB of Corsair Twin2X £55.
Optical drive: Sony SATA DVD RW £17
Hard Drive: 640GB Samsung F1 £45
Graphics card: Radeon 4850 £115.
Graphics aftermarket HSF: AC-S1 Rev 2 & fans £25.
Sound: The ASUS Xonars are well regarded £56. Review at OCC.

The total for this is £694 inc VAT, inc delivery (which you can remove for free Hexus / Scan member delivery thing).
And it'll still be a brilliant system, and whisper quiet to boot.

[shadowsilver03]

-:removed due to forum restrictions:-
Matt

Thanks, extra reading material is always useful.

Ok, so more realistically for your price range now:

-:quoted out for space:-

The total for this is £694 inc VAT, inc delivery (which you can remove for free Hexus / Scan member delivery thing).
And it'll still be a brilliant system, and whisper quiet to boot.

Nice system. How do I qualify for that free delivery thing?


Keep your advice coming folks, it's much appreciated.

[MSIC]

How do I qualify for that free delivery thing?

Basically, you just need to have a minimum 20 posts, of decent merit (ie not spam or "hello" / "yes").
Info & Rules
Guide to setting it up.

Scan are great, we love 'em.

[creed]

In that budget range i'd say go for an e5200 or e7300 (better OCing than e8200) and add an Artic Cooler Freezer 7 Pro for about £16 to keep it cool and quiet. As for gfx, 4850 will be fine up to 22" but above that or for a bit more futureproofing consider the 4870 1GB or 260 GTX 216.

Also that DFI board might be slightly overkill for what u need so could save a few £ there.

[Pob255]

In that budget range i'd say go for an e5200 or e7300 (better OCing than e8200) and add an Artic Cooler Freezer 7 Pro for about £16 to keep it cool and quiet. As for gfx, 4850 will be fine up to 22" but above that or for a bit more futureproofing consider the 4870 1GB or 260 GTX 216.

Also that DFI board might be slightly overkill for what u need so could save a few £ there.

for a lot cost cpu cooler the Akasa 965x3 is slightly better than the freezer 7 pro and slightly cheaper at around £12 (don't bother with the blue led version it's £5 more and the only difference is the fan has a blue led)

I'd also look at the 9800gt for a low cost nvidia card (sub £90), it's not as good as the 4850 but still has plenty of performance and will run most stuff at 1680x1024 without real problems.
although if you can afford the extra the 4850 is better just be warned that the stock cooler runs hot.
Also consider the 9800gtx+ if you can find it cheap.

case: alternate good £20 case, Akasa Zen

finally don't forget to add in the cost of windows as I doubt that currys pc came with an actual xp disk.

[shadowsilver03]

finally don't forget to add in the cost of windows as I doubt that currys pc came with an actual xp disk.

Strangely, it did (only XP home though). But I'm thinking it may be time to upgrade to vista anyway, unless anyone can think of a good reason to hang onto XP for a little while longer.

[MSIC]

I think many people would caution you away from Vista, however equally it's the only way to get DX10 gaming.
Not that DX10 gaming means means a jot to me, i'm delighted with DX9 (Crysis looks blooming amazing to me on my 3870 in DX9).

[Olmy]

I spec'd this base unit earlier tonight:

Sound: The ASUS Xonars are well regarded £56. Review at OCC.

Well regarded by who? I have the Xonar DX and can tell you its not appropriate for games. It's not even appropriate for movies - it's incapable of passthrough of DTS soundtracks through the SPDIF connector.

If I were buying a PC now I'd go with the E5200 processor, and get an ATI 4850 or 4870. The price of the GT 280 is a bit insane, and considering how everything is more expensive now anyway, I'm slightly more budget minded.

[MSIC]

Well regarded by who?

By OCC. But i dont have one, so that's fair enough.
However i'd have thought that

DTS soundtracks through the SPDIF connector

was largely irrelevant to gaming, even though it's a nice feature.
As for the CPU choice, i agree that the E5200 is a good value CPU, however the OP wanted a £600 - £700 PC, for which i feel an E8200 with its bigger cache is warranted.
Glad that you agree with me about the graphics!