Final Check..

[pugey]

I'm about to go ahead and build my next computer (3-4 weeks time) and I was just wondering whether this PC will cut it as a good gaming machine.

AMD Phenom II X3 720 (will be OC'ed)
^Akasa Nero AK-967^
MSI 790GX-G65
Western Digital Caviar Green 500GB
Corsair TX 750W
NZXT Guardian 921
Corsair XMS3 1066mhz DDR3 TwinX (2x2GB)
ATI Sapphire HD 4890 Vapor-X (will be OC'ed)
Windows Vista Home Basic (apart from I better looking design, and about a £30 price increase, it doesn't differ from Premium) 64-bit

So, how does that sound? I'll be gaming, no video encoding or anything, just gaming and browsing the web etc.
Or is there a more powerful system I can buy for ~£700?
Thanks

[sadbuttrue]

I'd go for a non-green HD for better performance. The Samsung 500gb 7200.12 looks like one of the best performers atm.

[staffsMike]

CPU and Graphics card are lovely.

Case I cannot comment on.

Caviar green hard drives are slower 5400rpm drives, not the best for performance.
Caviar blue/black are what you want and 640GB if you can afford the slight increase.

750W is overkill, 520W HX from corsair would be more than enough. But there are plenty of options from Be Quiet! and Enermax, even OCZ (modxtreme/Z series) which are nice too.

MSI aren't my favourite manafacturer. Perhaps look at a new 785G chipset board from Asus.
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Asus-M4A785D-M-PRO

full ATX
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Asus-...-SATA-RAID-VGA

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I would probably look at getting this motherboard instead TBH:

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/GIGAB...770T-UD3P-MOBO

It has 8+2 phase power too:

http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Products/...ProductID=3096

It has excellent reviews too:

http://www.legitreviews.com/article/985/1/

http://www.guru3d.com/article/gigaby...rboard-review/

http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.ph...=347&Itemid=69

http://www.driverheaven.net/reviews....d=824&pageid=9

Also a decent 500w to 550w modular should be enough for the system such as the following:

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/500W-...PeakPower-550W

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/520W-...-year-warranty

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/525W-...uard-SafeGuard

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/550W-...lar-PSU-87-Eff

I would also look to get a Samsung F1 or Western Digital Caviar Black hard drive. Don't get the Samsung EcoGreen as they are not built for performance.

Also look to get some PC3-12800 DDR3 as this can be run at 1333mhz using lower latencies and AMD processors tend to like lower latencies more. You should be able to get some PC3-12800 RAM for around the £60 mark. Alternatively get some low latency PC3-10600 for around £55:

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/166996

[pugey]

thanks for all your help guys
I'll either go with the caviar black 640gb or 750gb depending on how much money I have to spend after saving up
that asus board looks nice and is really cheap so I'll go for that one
I've used crucial ballistix in the past and I was extremely pleased with them (check out my system), too bad scan doesn't stock them, I'm sure the price would be a bit lower, but I will get them from ebuyer
oh and I wanted a 750W PSU in case I went crossfire with the hd 4890's

AMD Phenom II X3 720
Akasa Nero AK-967
Western Digital Caviar Black 640/750GB
Corsair TX 750W
Coolermaster Storm Scout (changed the case as it is much better than that nzxt one)
Crucial Ballistix DDR3 1066Mhz
Asus M4A785TD-V EVO
ATI Sapphire HD 4890 Vapor-X
Windows Vista Home Basic 65-bit

thanks again for your help!

[Jonessie]

I'd go for a non-green HD for better performance. The Samsung 500gb 7200.12 looks like one of the best performers atm.

I agree... I have had a few and to be honest I do not like them. I am not a great fan of Samsung HDD to be honest, I would go for Seagate for reliability and trust, with first rate after sales from Seagate you cannot go wrong http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/500-G...Cache-8-ms-NCQ

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

thanks for all your help guys
I'll either go with the caviar black 640gb or 750gb depending on how much money I have to spend after saving up
that asus board looks nice and is really cheap so I'll go for that one
I've used crucial ballistix in the past and I was extremely pleased with them (check out my system), too bad scan doesn't stock them, I'm sure the price would be a bit lower, but I will get them from ebuyer
oh and I wanted a 750W PSU in case I went crossfire with the hd 4890's

AMD Phenom II X3 720
Akasa Nero AK-967
Western Digital Caviar Black 640/750GB
Corsair TX 750W
Coolermaster Storm Scout (changed the case as it is much better than that nzxt one)
Crucial Ballistix DDR3 1066Mhz
Asus M4A785TD-V EVO
ATI Sapphire HD 4890 Vapor-X
Windows Vista Home Basic 65-bit

thanks again for your help!

The 770,780G,785G and 790GX are not crossfire capable though. You will need to go with either the 790X to get a pair of PCI-E 2.0 8x slots or the 790FX to get a pair of PCI-E 2.0 16x slots.

This 790X motherboard should do the job:

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/158608

790FX motherboards tend to be closer to around £130 mark unless you go for a DDR2 one as you can get one for under £100:

http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/p...9-TDELUXE.html

[Domestic_Ginger]

You can get windows 7 release client for free to use until march next year. Vista is meant to be the new ME. bnot sure when the download happens

I hate to say this being an AMD fan but it may be worth waiting until the new intel chipset is released. It might be better or if it is the same price; AMD will have to drop theirs. Its what i would do if i could wait four weeks. I am a skeptical person at heart.

Not sure about the akasa cooler (infact I don't know anything about it). Frosty tech rates the Spire thermax II as very good its ~£27 from novatech. Its the one I would get; its meant to be the same as a sunbeamtech corecontact (not available here but very highly thought of). A word of caution with xigmatecs; they all point horizontally using an AM2 mounting bracket.

Thinking about RAID array and would it be worth it with HDD at about £30 these days?

How are the 785G chipsets; there is a lovely looking Asus number around somewhere.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I would not go for Seagate as they and Maxtor(which are the same company) have been plagued by many firmware issues with their drives. I have used Samsung drives for the last 4+ years and they have been excellent and are also very reliable. The same goes for Western Digital as I have one of their drives which is over 6 years old and is still working fine.

Regarding the Core i5 it maybe worth a look but TBH how good initial availability and launch prices will be is another question as it is usual for the retailers to increase the initial prices for early adopters.

[sadbuttrue]

I agree... I have had a few and to be honest I do not like them. I am not a great fan of Samsung HDD to be honest, I would go for Seagate for reliability and trust, with first rate after sales from Seagate you cannot go wrong http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/500-G...Cache-8-ms-NCQ

I actually meant to suggest the Seagate (hence 7200.12). Multitasking is not my forte

[Domestic_Ginger]

Regarding the Core i5 it maybe worth a look but TBH how good initial availability and launch prices will be is another question as it is usual for the retailers to increase the initial prices for early adopters.

Someone was looking for a xeon chip on hexus the other day and apparently they one they looking for is hard to get hold of; maybe they are gearing up production on i5? Anyway point taken; it may take till Xmas for the next status quo. Hopefully AMD will have updated their lineup by then!

[pugey]

You can get windows 7 release client for free to use until march next year. Vista is meant to be the new ME. bnot sure when the download happens

I hate to say this being an AMD fan but it may be worth waiting until the new intel chipset is released. It might be better or if it is the same price; AMD will have to drop theirs. Its what i would do if i could wait four weeks. I am a skeptical person at heart.

Not sure about the akasa cooler (infact I don't know anything about it). Frosty tech rates the Spire thermax II as very good its ~£27 from novatech. Its the one I would get; its meant to be the same as a sunbeamtech corecontact (not available here but very highly thought of). A word of caution with xigmatecs; they all point horizontally using an AM2 mounting bracket.

Thinking about RAID array and would it be worth it with HDD at about £30 these days?

How are the 785G chipsets; there is a lovely looking Asus number around somewhere.

Are you talking about Core i5? Core i5 seem very appealing to me, but I wasn't sure on the prices. Will they be both SLI and Crossfire capable like the X58 and if so will they need a BIOS update?
The Akasa Nero AK-967 is one of Custom PC's favorite coolers, and its really cheap for the performance (£25 on scan).

Thanks again to everyone who helped especially CAT-THE-FIFTH (no offence anyone else)

[nibbler]

get a 32 gb ssd boot drive they're looking cheap and cheerful