i7 build -your assistance please!

[M0nkeyb0Y]

My budget is £700 - I don't need a case and I have a good few hard drives.

I'll primarily be playing Empire: Total War, maybe a bit of video editing.



Saw this deal on a Scan email. What are your thoughts?

Seems ok to me - and if I add a 4890 or some such, and a SSD to boot from; I think it could be a decent system for £650-700.

Please let me know your thoughts.

[Phage]

Heh. Apart from my cooler (which isn't quite as good as the Megahelens) that is exactly my system. See on the left.
I'm waiting for a little price drop on SSD's and 5870s...

[M0nkeyb0Y]

Heh. Apart from my cooler (which isn't quite as good as the Megahelens) that is exactly my system. See on the left.
I'm waiting for a little price drop on SSD's and 5870s...

Think the deal's decent value?

[Phage]

I do. Prices on those items have been quite stable for some months now, and that's what I paid. However, I would be looking at getting NightKhaos to give an opinion on the RAM (although Corsair have a good rep I'm thinking of timing issues), and that mainboard is not one I'm familiar with. I would have chosen either the P6T, the UD5, or the MSI X58 Pro.
I assume you are going to OC the chip ? Hence the Megahelens ? Nightkhaos would be your man there too.

[M0nkeyb0Y]

I assume you are going to OC the chip ? Hence the Megahelens ? Nightkhaos would be your man there too.

Yes: With a little help from Nightkhaos I'll be OCing the chip.

My wife's going to kill me.

[M0nkeyb0Y]

Oh and 4890 at £130; or 5770 at £110?

[jim]

5770, it's not that much further behind and it's a lot cooler and quieter so more headroom. Room to improve with drivers, and DX11, too.

[Phage]

Tough one that. The 4890 has more grunt, but chews a few more watts and is therefore hotter and lacks DX11. But there's no games for that yet anyway...If it was me (I think I play more games than you) I'd put my old GPU back in and order a 5870 in the new year.

Did a bit of research - DFI mainboards are rated highly. In fact I think Clunk may have one.
Are we not allowed to link to reviews now ? When did that change ?

Looks like a good deal. And yes, your wife will kill you. I spent weeks concocting the aruments around why I needed Deep Thought in my study.

[jim]

Are we not allowed to link to reviews now ? When did that change ?

Eh? Did it not let you submit the post or something?

[Phage]

No I posted with a link to *********** who had a review, and it asterisked out the *********** name, breaking the link. As the OCUK forums do.

Is *********** a competitor to Scan ? I wouldn't have thought so. A competitor to Hexus, but not Scan.

[Phage]

As you can see.

[M0nkeyb0Y]

No I posted with a link to *********** who had a review, and it asterisked out the *********** name, breaking the link. As the OCUK forums do.

Is *********** a competitor to Scan ? I wouldn't have thought so. A competitor to Hexus, but not Scan.

blimey - careful what you say?!

I know Clunk's site, I have a mooch round there if you're not allowed to link

overclockers
ebuyer
novatech

(just testing!)

[Phage]

Weird I know. Still Google is your friend.

[M0nkeyb0Y]

Tough one that. The 4890 has more grunt, but chews a few more watts and is therefore hotter and lacks DX11. But there's no games for that yet anyway...If it was me (I think I play more games than you) I'd put my old GPU back in and order a 5870 in the new year.

2x7800 GTX in SLi may actually see a fair bit of improvement from upgrading teh CPU

[Phage]

True. Tough choice. A SLI set-up says gamer to me, so I'd stretch the budget on the GPU as far as I could.
My golden rule of builds has always to buy the biggest/baddest GPU you can afford, as it dates the fastest of any component. In your case can you go 5850 at around £200 ?

[M0nkeyb0Y]

True. Tough choice. A SLI set-up says gamer to me, so I'd stretch the budget on the GPU as far as I could.
My golden rule of builds has always to buy the biggest/baddest GPU you can afford, as it dates the fastest of any component. In your case can you go 5850 at around £200 ?

Guess I'm a gamer, but I tend to play one game for ages, rather than race through a load. Haven't bought a game on release day since HL2

It'd sort of blow my budget a bit - but what the hey, I like your logic! It's certainly what I did before 7800gtx was a lot of wonga back then and I added another a couple of years after.

From looking about I'd have to wait 'til after xmas for a 5850 as availability is zero, so may just end putting the 78s back in