My sub £450 gaming rig plan #1

[StrictlySocial]

Hi,

It would be great to get peoples opinion on the following setup. Having been away from building PCs for years my knowledge on the latest HW is limited to what I have learnt in the last few days. Anyway, ideally below is my first draft. I already have an old Antec tower I am planning to use, plus potentially an old PSU (I don't have it to hand as yet, however I remember it cost about £80 four years ago!) however I suspect the connectors are now obsolete?

Gigabyte GA-EP35-DS3L iP35 £73.20
ebuyer.com/product/148800

Sapphire HD 4850 512MB GDDR3 Dual DVI £125.14
ebuyer.com/product/148468

Kingston 4GB (2x2GB) DDR2 800MHz/PC2-6400 HyperX £34.99
ebuyer.com/product/133709

Arctic Power 500W PSU With PCI-E 2x SATA £28.98
ebuyer.com/product/124922

Maxtor 500GB Hard Drive SATAII 7200rpm *32MB Cache* £40.23
ebuyer.com/product/141471

Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 G0 Stepping (2.4GHz 1066MHz) £148.95
ebuyer.com/product/131950

Total: £451.49

Thanks for your opinions! Btw, Ideally it would be good to run Crysis at a decent leve. My current monitor is 1440x900, however that will be next on the list to go!

[format]

Swap the quadcore out for an e5200, as I'm sure others would recommend
Get a 640 Western Digital or Samsung drive, faster and quieter.

Also I wouldn't recommend that PSU.

[staffsMike]

yep better psu, 525w Enermax proe82+ or 425W modu82+ will do.

No point getting qud core for gaming the E5200 as suggested is the best bang for buck.

[Pob255]

Also an aftermarket cooler esp with a e5200 overclocked (it's easy to get a 0.5ghz on core2duo )

I'd sugest an Akasa AK-965 x3 cooler, cheap and performs well on a core2duo with a small overclock.
Should cost aound £10
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/134773

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

If you do not want to overclock get an E8400 otherwise get an E5200 if you are overclocking.

Ebuyer do an OCZ 500w for under £45 which is quite decent.

Also make sure you have a copy of XP or Vista you can use otherwise you will need to spend another £60 to £80 for an OEM copy.

On such a tight budget I would get a cheaper motherboard such as the Gigabyte GA-EP31-DS3L.
It has got a good review:

http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/575

It also costs under £50:

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/148802

The Akasa AK-965 is a good cooler for the price!

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

You can get the following off Scan with free Supersaver postage:

Gigabyte GA-EP31-DS3L iP31 Socket 775 8 channel audio ATX Motherboard 148802 57 in stock £48.93

Kingston 4GB (2x2GB) DDR2 800MHz/PC2-6400 HyperX Memory Non-ECC CL5 133709 934 in stock £34.99

Akasa AK 965 (Socket 775) Aluminium with Copper Base Processor Cooler 134773 14 in stock £10.64

OCZ Stealth Xtream 500W PSU - 1x PCI-E 6/8pin, 2x SATA 12cm Fan 135159 41 in stock £42.29

Coolermaster Elite 330 Black Mid Tower Case - No PSU 127584 46 in stock £27.00

Western Digital WD6400AAKS 640GB Hard Drive SATAII 7200rpm 16MB Cache - OEM 144339 £49.95

Intel Pentium Dual Core E5200 2.5GHz Socket 775 800FSB 2MB Cache Retail Boxed Processor 148715 58 in stock £64.86

Total: £278.66

Scan have a HD4870 512mb for around £176:

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/512MB...VI-I-HDTV-HDCP

You should be able to get the e5200 upto 3ghz easily or even more!!

So for £455 you are Crysis ready!! All you need is an optical drive,XP or Vista, peripherals and a copy of Crysis.

[matty-hodgson]

what about an IP43 motherboard?
they're pretty cheap and will still allow a very high overclock.

or maybe even an IP45

and personally i'd go for the E5200 cos it's very cheap and there's some very high overclocks with a ~£20-£25 CPU cooler.

quad core's only really useful when you start video encoding or doing a lot of high processing applications.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

The review of the Gigabyte GA-EP31-DS3L says they got upto 375mhz for the FSB with no issues!! With e5200 this is plenty as it has 12.5x multiplier and has a 200mhz quad-pumped FSB!! It is also an all solid capacitor design.

Even if you wanted to get upto 3.3ghz with the e5200 you would need only a 264mhz FSB. The e5200 does not need a very expensive motherboard for overclocking purposes due to its high multiplier!!

To spend any more is not worth it for your budget and it is better invested in faster graphics card such as the HD4870!

[StrictlySocial]

Thanks for all the advice, I have just spend the last two hours looking at your suggestions. The current spec is..

Intel Pentium Dual Core E5200 2.5GHz Socket £64.86
ebuyer.com/product/148715

Samsung HD502IJ SpinPoint F1 500GB Hard Drive SATAII 7200rpm 16MB £41.26
ebuyer.com/product/146252

ASUS HD 4870 512MB GDDR5 Dual DVI HDCP HDTV out PCI-E Graphics Card
ebuyer.com/product/152939

Akasa AK 965 (Socket 775) Aluminium with Copper Base Processor Cooler
ebuyer.com/product/134773

Gigabyte GA-EP31-DS3L iP31 Socket 775 £48.93
ebuyer.com/product/148802

Kingston 4GB (2x2GB) DDR2 800MHz/PC2-6400 HyperX £34.99
ebuyer.com/product/133709

Total: £380.67 (inc VAT and Deliver)

Thinking back, I remember that my old PSU was an Enermax (I think 400-500W) so hopefully I will be able to use that with the use of some molex adapters. Overall, I think this is starting to look pretty good considering it is coming in under £400. Not really done much over-clocking but by the sounds of it, it is something I will be able to look into with the E5200.

Will the rest of the system be a bottleneck for the 4870 GFX? Also, is it worth paying the extra £20 for the 32MB cache Samsung? I don't really care about the space, just whether the performance is greatly improved. As I have a small amount spare, would RAID be a good idea?

p.s. appologies about the links, but I can't post proper ones until I have 5 posts.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I would get a new PSU as the HD4870 does need a decent PSU with stable rails. It will probably consume as much (or even more) power than your cpu!! A 4 year old PSU would have aged components(primarily the capacitors) meaning it may not deliver its full power rating now. People have used insufficient or old PSUs and they have taken out most of the components as a result. Skimping on the PSU is the worst thing to do on a build with a higher end card like the HD4870. Also get the 640gb hard disk as it is a faster and newer design.

[staffsMike]

Might be worth checking this out as well. Mainly due to the fact that the upgrade path is far better.

http://forums.hexus.net/general-disc...ml#post1594370

Also one thing I didn't mention in that post is the cpu and mobo (780G or 780V etc..) makes the perfect HTPC setup for later if you did want to upgrade them all. That said you shouldn't need to as AM3 are supported on most 780G's if not all.

[StrictlySocial]

Thanks CAT have finally taken advice about the PSU. Mike, you have just confused me with that post

Anyway, now have the following. Have replaced the 4870 with a slightly overclocked PALIT version. I had a look around the web for cheaper prices on all of the below, but Ebuyer seem to be cheapest.

Anybody have any opinions on RAID or any potential bottlenecks?

Intel Pentium Dual Core E5200 2.5GHz Socket £64.86
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/148715

Western Digital WD6400AAKS 640GB Hard Drive SATAII 7200rpm 16MB Cache - £49.95
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/146252

PALIT 512MB RADEON HD 4870 SONIC
http://www.ginger6.com/palit-512mb-r...l-p-31514.html (£175 ish)

Akasa AK 965 (Socket 775) Aluminium with Copper Base Processor Cooler
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/134773

Gigabyte GA-EP31-DS3L iP31 Socket 775 £48.93
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/148802

Kingston 4GB (2x2GB) DDR2 800MHz/PC2-6400 HyperX £34.99
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/133709

OCZ Stealth Xtream 500W PSU - 1x PCI-E 6/8pin, 2x SATA 12cm Fan £42.29
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/135159

Total: £426

Thanks for all your help so far, made my life far easier!

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Are http://www.ginger6.com reputable??

[StrictlySocial]

Are http://www.ginger6.com reputable??

I think they are small (one man?) outfit, however there doesn't seem to be any negative reviews. http://forums.hexus.net/shopping-ret...t-ginger6.html

[StrictlySocial]

Thanks for all your help guys. In end I decided to spend a little less. I went for the following...

Item: Western Digital WD2500AAKS Caviar SE 250GB 7200RPM SATAII/300 16MB Cache - OEM - Qty: 1
Item: OCZ Stealth Xtream 500W PSU - 1x PCI-E 6/8pin, 2x SATA 12cm Fan - Qty: 1
Item: PowerColor HD 4850 PCS+ Edition 512MB GDDR3 Dual DVI HDTV Out PCI-E Graphics Card - Qty: 1
Item: Akasa AK 965 (Socket 775) Aluminium with Copper Base Processor Cooler - Qty: 1
Item: Gigabyte GA-EP31-DS3L iP31 Socket 775 8 channel audio ATX Motherboard - Qty: 1
Item: Intel Pentium Dual Core E5200 2.5GHz Socket 775 800FSB 2MB Cache Retail Boxed Processor - Qty: 1
Item: Kingston 4GB (2x2GB) DDR2 800MHz/PC2-6400 HyperX Memory Non-ECC CL5 - Qty: 1

Total cost £370 with next day delivery.