Would welcome help with new gaming rig choices

[moufflon]

Hello and thanks for the kind welcome

Will you advise on my parts list please? I am no expert by any stretch and could do with some guidance.

I have done no more than search for a few evenings until I found a convincing list of bits and pieces, all of which I have now read up on as much as my brain can take tonight!

Please tear to shreds if you feel so inclined!

CPU - Intel Core i7 920 Nehalem 2.66 GHz £258.39
Motherboard - EVGA 132-BL-E758-A1 LGA 1366 Intel x58 ATX £259.99
GPU - Sapphire 100251SR Radeon HD 4870 X2 2GB £331.20
Case - Cooler Master HAF 932 RC-932-KKN1-GP Blacksteel ATX £106.26
PSU - Power&Cooling S75 QB 750W £106.14
HDD Performance - WD VelociRaptor WD 3000 GLFS 300GB £199
HDD Storage - Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 ST3500410AS 500GB £54.95
RAM - G.Skill 6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-pin DDR3 1600 £164.70

It comes to £1480 approx.

This list is linked to from

escapistmagazine.com

The prices were just sourced off of Google uk.

I would use the DVD RW and DVD Rom off my old Evesham Axis Decimator (2006)

Also wondering about extra cooling apart from stock fans in the case.
I can't help myself overclock a little but nothing obsessive - just putting in the cash to keep the thing usable for another three years.


Thank you for your thoughts and !

[floppybootstomp]

Shop around, you'll probably get better prices on that, try Scan, Aria, e-buyer, the usual suspects.

And if you're spending that amount of money on a system it is a false economy to use a pair of three year old optical drives, new ones will only cost you around £30.00.

[Pob255]

Shop around, you'll probably get better prices on that, try Scan, Aria, e-buyer, the usual suspects.

And if you're spending that amount of money on a system it is a false economy to use a pair of three year old optical drives, new ones will only cost you around £30.00.

I agree here on both points

I'll also add you'll also need to add in the cost of a copy of vista 64bit

I wouldn't bother with the velociraptor too expensive for too little benefit, a pair of good single platter hard drives in a Raid 0 array will be just as good and far cheaper.

I'd also add in an aftermarket cpu cooler (not sure which are best with i7 cpu's)

Although personally I'd spend half that total on a good socket 775 quad core system

[speedking34]

If you've got the money, you should get a nice 64Go SSD drive for your system files. They are pretty expensive, but the price just dropped a bit recently. The performance on those drives are AWESOME.

[Pob255]

If you've got the money, you should get a nice 64Go SSD drive for your system files. They are pretty expensive, but the price just dropped a bit recently. The performance on those drives are AWESOME.

Depends on the Drive, some SSD are slower than hard drives some are faster.
And the cheap ones tend to be slower (although you are correct about the price coming down, even on the fast ones)

[moufflon]

Pob 255 - you said

'Although personally I'd spend half that total on a good socket 775 quad core system'

Why? Is the performance close or perhaps just that the difference is irrelevant when playing games?

Or do you just want to spend your money on other stuff?

Thanks all, you've given me quite alot to think about now.

[moufflon]

I did forget about Vista.

[moufflon]

SSD's have been tempting me in theory for a few years. i wasn't aware that they were actually sizable enough to compete with a HDD. I shall investigate, thanks.

[moufflon]

Pob 255 - I am off to check out performance on socket 775 quad core systems. Thanks for your input.

[strike-down]

2 things,
1) Try not to put additional comments in separate posts, the edit button is there for a reason
2) Currently, I would go for a samsung spinpoint or a WD caviar blue as your storage drive. Havent heard good things about seagates reliability at the moment. (or is it a different barracuda model? correct me if im wrong)

[moufflon]

Strike-down, sorry about the separate posts.

You've all given me enough research to do for a few hours - I haven't seriously looked closely at this sort of stuff for 3 or 4 years - too busy playing games!!

I did just find another post here re: socket 775's and i7's. I will bury myself in that for the rest of the evening.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I would either go with a Core i7 based system or a Phenom II based system personally. If you can afford a Core i7 system then it is going to last much longer for gaming than either a Core2 or Phenom II based system!!

[Pob255]

If you're planning on spending one and a half grand on a pc, spend a good week or more researching it.

But that's coming from someone who spent over 2 weeks researching washing machines before getting a replacement.

[Infinite]

If you're planning on spending one and a half grand on a pc, spend a good week or more researching it.

But that's coming from someone who spent over 2 weeks researching washing machines before getting a replacement.

haha, can you get washing machine review sites?

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Well if your whites are not whites then it can be pretty annoying!!

I tend to also take time to do a lot of research before I make a large expenditure too!! It makes sense in the long run.

[McPhee]

In all honesty if you are planning on spending that much i'd wait a few weeks and see what AMD do next. Socket AM3 likely won't top i7, but it could well give something not far off for a couple of hundred pounds less. Even if you still decide i7 is the platform to buy AM3 will give Intel something to think about and may well result in a price reduction on the i7 platform.