The Time has come(upgrade Time!)

[j.o.s.h.1408]

Hi guys im back from holiday and finaly ready to do a full upgrade comming from a pentium 4

I will use my pc primary for gaming(1680x res atm with the thought of going 1080p end of 2009), programming and ms office. i will also use it for photoshopping and video editing footages from my holidays.

My budget is £1100 and the parts i most definetly want this system to be based on is a i7 cpu along with a full tower case. Ram has to be 3gb or more and i will do some overclocking on air.

cheers in advance

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

You are probably looking at around 600 quid just for the cheapest i7 CPU,the cheapest socket 1366 motherboard and the cheapest 6gb triple channel DDR3 kit. An OEM copy of Vista Home Premium 64 bit will cost around 85 quid. A decent graphics card such as a HD4870 1gb or a 55nm GTX260 will cost around 200 to 220 quid. This will give you around 200 quid to spend on a PSU,a case, a hard drive and an optical drive. You can get a 1000W OCZ PSU off Ebuyer for around 80 quid and a 640gb HDD for around 50 quid. A SATA DVD rewriter will cost around 15 quid. This will leave around 60 quid for a case.

[maxwilson]

Windows Vista home premium x64 £88
Antec 900 £70
Xigmatek heatsink £27
heatsink converter £7
640GB Western Digital Blue £55
dvd-rw £14
6GB corsair ram £165
Gigabyte mobo £190
i7 920 £227
896MB EVGA GTX 260 Superclocked £217
Enermax 525 £59
Total = £1150 est.

That's a little overbudget but a very nice setup in my opinion, You could save money by swapping out the gtx for a 4870 or im sure some shopping around would save you some cash I just made a quick basket on Scan.

[Hawker1986]

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/151925

Money left over with that, got a good mobo in it too and a copy of vista, you even have change for some extra RAM if you want more than 3GB,

Hawker

[j.o.s.h.1408]

Thanks guys. i wont be buying vista. i will use my xp for now and wait for windows 7.

this is the original build i was looking to go for but some of the prices of the components have gone up while others have gone down since late nov.

i do want a 4870 or a 260 instead of the 4850 though and im looking into the Lian Li PCA7010B case too.

[PeterStoba]

You'll need a bolt through kit for the cooler to work on the motherboard

[Webby]

I would go with something like this included the Lian-li case even though it is a touch expensive.



May be cheaper prices if you hunt around and remember to check today only etc. I just went for what was available in stock and at standard prices oh and knock off the £11 delivery

[j.o.s.h.1408]

What are the bugs and issues with the i7's? any particular mobo's and rams with issues?

what are the most popular rams and mobo's people are getting?

[Hawker1986]

If your after a 260, special tech are selling one for £150 which is an amazing price, I would check that out.

Hawker

[j.o.s.h.1408]

the 216 stream versions with the 55mm gpu?

[Hawker1986]

Honestly im not sure, the site doesnt say, its a good price either way though. They are sold out now:

http://www.specialtech.co.uk/spshop/...24&cat=0&page=

Hawker

[j.o.s.h.1408]

does anybody know what the bugs and issues are with the i7's? before it came out, alot of people where saying how almost every new tech/architecture has loads of bugs and issues and it was one of the big reasons why people said their going to wait at least 6months for the bugs and issues to be ironed out

[kalniel]

It's rumoured to have the same sort of TLB bug that Phenom had when it was first released, but even if that's the case you won't see it in practice with your projected use.

[prehensile]

Sorry, you are spending your money in Waaay the wrong way...

I7 it at the peak of the spending curve, has less games support, doest contribute much to gaming, maybe 30 percent more framerate than a 70 pound amd processor, and 10 percent than a 150 pound intel top range X4 one.

the mainboard also swamps the budget, and the chipsets are much less mature.

the 50 extra on the 4870 graphics at this stage is much more for you money, and 1gb of gpu ram is highly recommended, especially for gtaiv.

Crossfire ready coud be a good idea.

WD drive a good idea, generally the most recommended by a whisker, and dual platter ones run much less hot and are more realiable == less platters = safer.

i'd say aim for about 200 pounds for quad core chip and board! i7 would be like 400! the CPU is all hype.

personally i spent 25 pounds on an asus boston oem board for hp and an x2 5400... + 4870. it would be as fast as you one with a 4850 for 200 pounds less!

[j.o.s.h.1408]

i have weighed out the pros and cons of getting a i7 and IMO its a waste to be getting a dead socket archiecture. a core 2 quad is only maybe £200 cheaper in a similar spec but carrys not much upgrade path for me and still would cost me over £800 for one.

if i could build a quad core 2 with a 260gtx and that lian li case for £400/£500 with a quality PSU and mobo then i would consider it over a i7 costing double. trust me i have thought about it long and hard and to me a core 2 is a waste especially from a person coming from a pentium 4 mate.

many games and apps are not using i7 properly yet BUT in the future it will. gta4 from what i have read has already shown that a i7 cpu increases your fps quite noticably compared to a core 2 quad from what people have been saying so why not prepare for the future abit and buy a new architecture that will just florish in the future when more apps and games utilize it?

makes sence that a i7 will last me LONGER then a core 2 and thats the purpose of my next upgrade, do go another 3-4 years before another one.

Now unless their are some MAJOR bugs and issues with the i7 and the new AMD is equaly as good as a i7 or better for cheap, my mind is already set on a i7

[Powderhound]

Actually, there isn't as much upgrade potential as you'd think, since you'll probably still need a new chipset for a future upgrade, and the £200 saving will probably cover the bulk of the cost of any future upgrade.