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Spec my new build (~£800)
Right guys, I thought I'd see what you guys have to say about this because you are usually pretty good on here :)
I am in need of a new build, mainly because my current pc appears to be very unstable and I'm afraid that if I don't upgrade now the hard drive will stop working sometime soon and I won't have backed anything up. Also I hope to order before the 1st of Jan, when the VAT goes back up.
Here are the terms of the build;
- Has to have at least 3TB of storage due to the amount of games I find myself downloading from Steam.
- Has to include a copy of Windows 7 as I don't have a spare operating system disk.
- Preferably DDR3 (Mobo and RAM (preferably 6GB of RAM))
- Must be easily upgradeable
- Will be used for gaming and general uni work
- Must have a modular power supply
- Must be built around the Antec 900 II as the case, because I really like it and it's got good reviews.
- Must have an Intel CPU
- Must cost around £800, not including a monitor as I don't need one.
Cheers guys :)
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Re: Spec my new build (~£800)
You planning on keeping that GPU?
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Re: Spec my new build (~£800)
Yeah, I plan on keeping my current PC as one and shipping it upstairs to my sister's room.
When the HD finally gives up the ghost then I will split it all for parts and sell most of them, but as of now this is going to be a completely new build.
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Re: Spec my new build (~£800)
You say 6GB RAM, which suggests you want a 1366 i7 CPU, which would mean a i7 920, 1366 mobo, and 6GB DDR3 RAM, which would be around £215+£135+£125==~£475 +£80(windows7) ==~£555 +£90(antec902) ==~£645
leaves only £155 for PSU, Optical drives, Hard drives. Would be rather tight!!
Therefore I would reccomend going for either i5, or 1156 i7. These only have 2 pairs of RAM slots each, so you would have to get 2*2GB+2*1GB for 6GB ram - or just start on 4GB then go to 2*4GB kits when they are cheep:
What I would have
Case: Antec 902 ~£90
CPU: intel i5 750 ~£150
RAM: 4GB (2*2GB) Corsair 1600MHz (cheaper than 1333stuff!!) ~ £85
OS: W7 OEM 64bit ~£75
MOBO: Asus-P7P55D ~£100 (Any P55 mobo will do just I like Asus, but I would not have AsRock)
PSU: 500W seasonic ~£70 (anything will do from Seasonic, Enermax, Corsair, BeQuiet, Antex, but not cheepy crappy stuff)
HDD: couple of 1.5TB sammy's ~ £75each
Optical: any ~£15
total ~£735
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Re: Spec my new build (~£800)
What about GPU then?
I think you need to go amd to manage this build to be honest, unless you keep your old gpu and replace it with something cheap like a 4770 for your sister.
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Re: Spec my new build (~£800)
btw windows 7 ultimate is £60 at software for students or you can get a copy of windows 7 pro from the ultimate steal for £30 (+9 for cd) which is an upgrade cd but apparently you can do a normal install anyways. Got an old copy of xp or anything?
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Re: Spec my new build (~£800)
I have got a copy of old XP as it happens, while I am a student so that is a good idea.
Errrrm, I need to hard drives to run at 7200rpm really, at least.
I might take out my graphics card and change the one in my current computer for something cheaper then because it would save a lot of cash.
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Re: Spec my new build (~£800)
Quote:
Originally Posted by
no_numb
btw windows 7 ultimate is £60 at software for students or you can get a copy of windows 7 pro from the ultimate steal for £30 (+9 for cd) which is an upgrade cd but apparently you can do a normal install anyways. Got an old copy of xp or anything?
Surprisingly my mate managed it with just the disc :)
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Re: Spec my new build (~£800)
Oh and if you're buying from the ultimate steal (microsoft themselves) then the offer expires on the 30th dec
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Re: Spec my new build (~£800)
Wow didn't know that it's a good job I got it on order before I built my pc!
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Re: Spec my new build (~£800)
Quote:
Originally Posted by
nibbler
Wow didn't know that it's a good job I got it on order before I built my pc!
Just re-checked and apparently its jan 5th 2010
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Re: Spec my new build (~£800)
Quote:
Originally Posted by
no_numb
Just re-checked and apparently its jan 5th 2010
Awesome, that'd save me a bit.
Just need to keep looking around and see if I can get parts cheaper elsewhere, and trying to find some hard drives.
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Re: Spec my new build (~£800)
With windows 7 at £30 the build above comes to about £690 at this price point (ie up to £800) is it not worth looking into a SSD?
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Re: Spec my new build (~£800)
I don't think so. I'm not willing to pay 500% more for an SSD to have slightly faster boot times. I'll wait until they become dirt cheap and factor them into my next build.
Not forgetting I'm going to have to buy another GPU, and the hard drives need to be switched with more expensive 7,200rpm ones.
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Re: Spec my new build (~£800)
Those are quite harsh constraints, I'd go for a Phenom X4 Build myself if you need the extra cash elsewhere, you should probably get 3 x 1TB Samsung F3's if you want 3TB of fast storage.
With an AMD quad core setup costing around £600 you could go for one of the new ATI cards, 5XXX series. Or wait for the new FERMI stuff from NVidia.
Any particular reason you've specified intel? If you're after compatibility then it's the ATI side of AMD that always has compatibility problems, and you have a 4890 :/
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Re: Spec my new build (~£800)
Quote:
Originally Posted by
woody_294
Those are quite harsh constraints, I'd go for a Phenom X4 Build myself if you need the extra cash elsewhere, you should probably get 3 x 1TB Samsung F3's if you want 3TB of fast storage.
With an AMD quad core setup costing around £600 you could go for one of the new ATI cards, 5XXX series. Or wait for the new FERMI stuff from NVidia.
Any particular reason you've specified intel? If you're after compatibility then it's the ATI side of AMD that always has compatibility problems, and you have a 4890 :/
I specified Intel as I literally know nothing about AMD. I have never owned an AMD cpu and don't know which models I should be looking at.
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Re: Spec my new build (~£800)
Ah right cool, well seeing as you're moving from a mighty Q6600 I'd go for a Phenom II 955 X4 Black Edition.
3GHz and fairly overclockable, don't worry about the 8Mb of cache being low, it's used differently than on intel chips.
Then there's the 965, same chip, just 3.4GHz, oh, and I'd recommend a good 790FX board if you want to clock it.
They perform on a par with Intel equivalents for less money, unless you're looking at media editing, where Intel has the edge.
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Re: Spec my new build (~£800)
Quote:
Originally Posted by
woody_294
Ah right cool, well seeing as you're moving from a mighty Q6600 I'd go for a Phenom II 955 X4 Black Edition.
3GHz and fairly overclockable, don't worry about the 8Mb of cache being low, it's used differently than on intel chips.
Then there's the 965, same chip, just 3.4GHz, oh, and I'd recommend a good 790FX board if you want to clock it.
They perform on a par with Intel equivalents for less money, unless you're looking at media editing, where Intel has the edge.
Ok, thanks.
How about this for the cpu;
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/AMD-P...he-125W-Retail
and this for the mobo;
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Gigab...-SATA-RAID-ATX
Looks fairly reasonable.
Also, I'm upgrading from an E6600 so I expect to notice more difference...
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Re: Spec my new build (~£800)
Yep that'd do it :) The 955 will clock and I've read some very good reviews on that gigabyte board, although the MSI one is slightly faster and a little better at clocking, not a lot of people have given MSI their trust back after some terrible boards in the past. BUT Gigabyte have an excellent track record.
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Re: Spec my new build (~£800)
Quote:
Originally Posted by
666moe666
Errrrm, I need to hard drives to run at 7200rpm really, at least.
The cheapest (reputable) 1TB options are:
Seagate Barracuda ~ £65 == £195
Samsung Spinpoint F3 ~ £67 == £201
WD Caviar Black ~ £71 == £213
The cheapest (reputable) 1.5TB option is:
Seagate Barracuda ~£89 == £178
So supprisingly going two "fast" 1.5TB drives is cheaper.
*Remember to check today only as well if buying from scan:
http://www.scan.co.uk/TodayOnly/Index.aspx
**Remember also your free shipping :)
EDIT: Today only have the 1.5TB 7200RPM Seagate for £85 == £170. Every little helps ;)
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Re: Spec my new build (~£800)
Out of interest do you need Crossfire or SLI?? If you don't then you can decrease the cost of the build even more!!
You could always go with a 790X motherboard:
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/GIGABYTE-GA-MA790X-UD3P
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Asus-...SATA-3Gb-s-ATX
These still do Crossfire but PCI-E 8X and not 16X like the 790FX.
You may want to consider the C3 stepping X4 965 too:
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/186428
Unlike current 955BE processors the 125W 965 is a C3 stepping which means it can run 4 DIMMs of DDR3 at 1333MHZ.
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Re: Spec my new build (~£800)
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Will404
Cheers bud, I'm thinking about buying the two Seagates @ 1.5TB now because I'm going to need them and it'll beat the VAT hike. I'd rather get two of those, than three 1TB drives, as they are cheaper and there will be less messing about if there is only two of them.
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Re: Spec my new build (~£800)
Quote:
Originally Posted by
CAT-THE-FIFTH
I'm not going to need Crossfire or SLI I don't think.
EDIT: Those board look pretty good for the cash. I mean, they are a lot cheaper considering they are almost the same.
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Re: Spec my new build (~£800)
There is a very nice Gigabyte 770 based motherboard which would do the trick for under £70 but it lacks any sort of heatsinks on the VRMs meaning that they would get very hot if you wanted to overclock the CPU.
This is a possible alternate build I would look at getting:
AMD Phenom II X4 965 125W C3 stepping ~ £134
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/186428
Asus M4A79XTD EVO ~ £79
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Asus-...SATA-3Gb-s-ATX
4GB DDR3 ~ £80
http://www.scan.co.uk/TodayOnly/Index.aspx
2xSamsung F2 1.5TB ~ £145
http://www.scan.co.uk/TodayOnly/Index.aspx
Samsung F3 500GB ~ £34
http://www.scan.co.uk/TodayOnly/Index.aspx
Antec 900 ~£78
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/72Ant...op-Fan-w-o-PSU
650W Antec Signature Modular ~ £76
http://www.scan.co.uk/TodayOnly/Index.aspx
SATA DVD rewriter ~ £15
http://www.scan.co.uk/TodayOnly/Index.aspx
The total comes to under £650 using free postage from Scan.
If you get a cheap copy of Windows 7 you could probably be able to get another HD4890 card and put it in Crossfire.
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Re: Spec my new build (~£800)
I've already ordered the two Seagate Barracuda 1.5TB as they were only £178 together and run at 7,200rpm.
Really want the second Antec 900 so won't budge on that but I'm pretty much getting everything else you say, cheers bud, you always come up with the goods.
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Re: Spec my new build (~£800)
Quote:
Originally Posted by
666moe666
I've already ordered the two Seagate Barracuda 1.5TB as they were only £178 together and run at 7,200rpm.
Really want the second Antec 900 so won't budge on that but I'm pretty much getting everything else you say, cheers bud, you always come up with the goods.
I just thought of one more thing though!! Have you considered upgrading your current CPU as you could plonk in a Q9550 in your motherboard:
http://www.asus.com/product.aspx?P_I...mAc&templete=2
It is available for under £160:
http://www.scan.co.uk/TodayOnly/Index.aspx
If you do go for the AMD build only go for the 125W version of the 965 and not the 140W version.
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Re: Spec my new build (~£800)
Quote:
Originally Posted by
CAT-THE-FIFTH
I think i'd have to flash the bios to get that and it's just more hassle. Under £160 is pretty good, but considering this pc is basically going to be in my sisters room, and pretty much only used by her, it doesn't need to have anything decent.
Yeah cheers, I bought the exact one you linked :)
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Re: Spec my new build (~£800)
Make sure you go for the Asus motherboard as the Gigabyte one is a DDR2 one. The Phenom II X4 965 can use both DDR2 and DDR3 so you could always re-use the RAM from your current build if you wanted to save money.
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Re: Spec my new build (~£800)
Quote:
Originally Posted by
CAT-THE-FIFTH
Make sure you go for the Asus motherboard as the Gigabyte one is a DDR2 one. The Phenom II X4 965 can use both DDR2 and DDR3 so you could always re-use the RAM from your current build if you wanted to save money.
Yeah I did :)
Cool, need new RAM anyway because my current build would still need RAM which I'd then have to re-buy anyway.
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Re: Spec my new build (~£800)
Are you buying 4GB or 8GB??
I assume you are going to reuse your HD4890??
Edit!!
The RAM I linked to is the 4GB (2x2GB) Corsair XMS3 DDR3, PC3-12800 (1600), 240 Pin, Non-ECC Unbuffered, CAS 9-9-9-24, XMP set.
I would run the RAM at 1333MHZ using low latencies:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...ddr3,2319.html
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Re: Spec my new build (~£800)
Quote:
Originally Posted by
CAT-THE-FIFTH
Are you buying 4GB or 8GB??
I assume you are going to reuse your HD4890??
4Gb at the moment. When I have more cash I may upgrade. Luckily RAM is retaining value really well at the moment.
Yeah, I'm reusing it, and just buying a semi decent card to put into the pc I am taking it from :)
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Re: Spec my new build (~£800)
Quote:
Originally Posted by
666moe666
Yeah, I'm reusing it, and just buying a semi decent card to put into the pc I am taking it from :)
Scan have an XFX 9600GT for around £52:
http://www.scan.co.uk/TodayOnly/Index.aspx
