Enthuisiast/Gaming Rig on a £700 Budget!

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Sounds good...would you be able to show me where you got the info? These new boards don't seem to be on the Asus UK website at the mo

The Asus international website has the motherboards listed. Only some of the 870 have the split 8+2 phase VRM found in the more expensive motherboards. Also if you check the ATX power connectors on the motherboards the second one is a 4 pin connector as opposed to the 8 pin connector type found in the 890GX motherboards. This means less power can be provided to the motherboard and this won't help with overclocking.

The other alternative is to look at the 880G based motherboards. These are basically a 890GX "lite" without the symmetrical Crossfire capability.

An example is the following motherboard:

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

Here are some more pictures:

http://vr-zone.com/articles/asus-m4a...iled/8771.html

The Asus M4A88TD-V EVO/USB3 does have the 8 pin power connector.

BTW,Aria can be at times much cheaper for processors and graphics cards than Scan and of course do check the Scan Today Only and Shop Offers pages too!

Edit!!

It seems Aria maybe cheaper than Scan for many of the parts in the build so they are worth a look even with the added cost of postage.

[scaryjim]

... if I buy this PC with a view to it being an interim PC, I don't think its very practical to keep the case because then I would have to buy another case anyway in order to be able to sell it on...

You'll generally find that it's easier to sell old PCs on component-wise rather than as a complete PC. The most common scenario is that people sell their old CPU, mobo and RAM as a bundle, keeping their old hard drives (even if it's only used for bulk storage), optical drives, cases etc. And that's without considering the problems associated with selling second hand computers - it's much harder to post a complete base unit than a motherboard and a CPU! I'd strongly second the recommendation that you get a PSU and Case that will last you through several builds - the just regard each future build as an upgrade to that, selling on the older hardware as you go...

[Domestic_Ginger]

You generally make the biggest loss on cases and PSUs due to weight/postage. I give it a third on case/PSU investment. Second hand there are some real deals on cases if you look hard enough.

You'll need some more fans with the beta evo. The case is okay I got one and it is okay. I am however one of these people who is never happy so was thinking I should have got something else. The antec 300 is the other contender and it comes with more fans.

Have a think about getting a 955. If you are Ocing you might as well as it is only another plus one on the multiplier. The big advantage AMD has over intel is the cheaper motherboards and ram. Tallyup your build against an i5 750 if it comes to the same unfortunately the i5 is the better option.

[scottismo]

With that in mind, replacing the PSU and Case with the ones from my original i7 spec puts £150 on the total purchase price:

850W Corsair CMPSU-850HXUK
Silverstone Fortress FT01B-W Tower Case Black Aluminum with Window

I would consider the PSU to be ample leg room for a more powerful future single or dual GPU to be used in a new rig. They're rated at 100,000 hours so I'd hope it would last a few builds in terms of physical longevity. Correct me if you feel I'm wrong here.

As for the case, during my original research I found that it struck the right combination of features, size and style. I'm open to suggestions though as it's quite a lot of money here and I'd like to get it right if I do choose to build for the future via the harvesting method...

[jim]

That's a heck of a lot of room to expand, with an 850W PSU.

Specifically, it would make ample space for dual nVidia 480s in SLI with an i7 @ 4GHz - depends how you see yourself building PCs in the future, but you *may* not need a PSU that powerful, in which case you could save a few extra bob. The link above also shows that dual 5870s with a 4GHz i7 only reach 465W, so even an HX620 would be over the top for that setup.

The case is a good one, used a heck of a lot by Scan for their custom builds IIRC. Obviously the window comes down to choice - personally I'm not keen on them - but the case itself is a good 'un.

[scottismo]

Well I'd rather be safe than sorry if I'm building for the future!

Check out my cost analysis below - proof that I'm probably over-thinking things LOL!



Depending on how you look at it, you could say that selling at 40% original worth keeps the build within my original sub-£700 budget.

Many thanks for continuing to read all my posts btw

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

A few of the parts are on offer today:

http://www.scan.co.uk/TodayOnly/Index.aspx

[scottismo]

A few of the parts are on offer today:

http://www.scan.co.uk/TodayOnly/Index.aspx

Hehe, you are attempting to convince me, no?

Just doing some final research here. I've just come across a stumbling block with regards to the case. The USB ports on the front of the case won't support USB3 even when all the motherboards have native support. To be fair, am I really going to have more than two USB3 devices in the near future? Maybe not, but when you're spending £150 on a case that you're meant to be taking with you to the next build, that kinda irritates me a bit. I would also like to kill Asus because they are very misleading on their website when they state "True USB 3.0 Support". Any thoughts on this? Should I look at a cheaper case with a view to buying a USB3 capable one in the future or should I not worry so much...

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Hehe, you are attempting to convince me, no?

Just doing some final research here. I've just come across a stumbling block with regards to the case. The USB ports on the front of the case won't support USB3 even when all the motherboards have native support. To be fair, am I really going to have more than two USB3 devices in the near future? Maybe not, but when you're spending £150 on a case that you're meant to be taking with you to the next build, that kinda irritates me a bit. I would also like to kill Asus because they are very misleading on their website when they state "True USB 3.0 Support". Any thoughts on this? Should I look at a cheaper case with a view to buying a USB3 capable one in the future or should I not worry so much...

I don't know about the case TBH! Whether you go for a cheap or expensive one is down to personal preference IMHO.

However, you could always use the rear ports!

OTH,you could always save some money by going for the version of the Asus motherboard which does not use USB 3.0 and get a card at a later date when required.

Personally I think that SATA 3.0 support will be more useful when faster hard disks come out over the next few years.

[scottismo]

I'm sold on the 890GX motherboard so all is good there.

Earlier on in the thread it was suggested that Aria might be a good place to look for components. I'd not heard of them prior to that post so would be interested to know if they are a reliable supplier in comparison to Scan, Ebuyer, Microdirect, Dabs etc...

I've found on Aria that I can get an enhanced 5850 - the Asus DirectCU TOP - for £234.99. This card can supposedly offer better cooling and is more likely to overclock to ~900MHz-1GHz core.

To offset the cost of delivery as best as possible from Aria, I can purchase a few other bits with it that are also coming out slightly cheaper:

GPU
CPU
PSU
HDD

£539.22 inc £6.95 Delivery - Aria
£534.57 inc £0 Delivery - Scan

But I don't want to go shopping with a name I am not familiar with just so that I can get a slightly superior GPU. However, if you guys reckon they're ok then my mind will be at ease. I could of course just buy the GPU with them and nothing else - that would be fine but slightly more expensive.

[scaryjim]

Aria are pretty good. I think they had a reputation for questionable customer service a couple of years ago, but that seems to have improved. Their main store / warehouse is just a few minutes walk from my house though, so I'm slightly biased as I can collect stuff on the way home from work!

[Callum1001]

Food for thought here as I've skipped through the thread..

• AMD Phenom II X6 1055T 2.80GHz Processor @ £159.79
• Asus Crosshair IV Formula AMD 890FX @ £169.19
• G.Skill RipJaw 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 (1333MHz RAM Speed, CAS 7-7-7-21 Timings) @ £99.86
• Samsung HD502HJ F3 500GB @ £37.59
• VTX ATI Radeon HD 5770 1024MB @ £115.14
• Antec Three Hundred @ £41
• Corsair TX Series 650W ATX2.2 SLI/Crossfire Compliant @ £78.71

Total Cost inc Del: £713.57

So.. Here you have a nice mb.. SATA3/USB3. Good processor for what you want to do - and can overclock high on air alone (will go nicely with that mobo).

Graphics card is powerful, and if you get another for xfire then you really will be laughing in the face of a single 5850.

PSU should be fine for that and somewhat "future" proof. If you dont mind paying abit more on the PSU so you can reuse it then sobeit.

I chose the Antec Three Hundred case because I see your contemplating this for the future and your usb3 front ports. For the sake of £40 and waiting the time it takes for you to progress further, why not get this case as a disposable one? People do rate it highly.

If it was my £700, I'd probably go for the the one I posted. Then in the coming few months another 5770 (if i found 1 just wasn't cutting it) and definately the Intel X25-M Gen2 (80gb currently £164.49 @ Aria).

OR

• AMD Phenom II X4 Quad Core 955 Black Edition 125W @ £117.49
• Asus M4A89GTD Pro/USB3 AMD 890GX @ £113.96
• Intel X25-V Value 40GB 2.5" SATA-II @ £84.75
• G.Skill RipJaw 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 (1333MHz RAM Speed, CAS 7-7-7-21 Timings) @ £99.86
• Samsung HD502HJ F3 500GB @ £37.59
• VTX ATI Radeon HD 5770 1024MB @ £115.14
• Antec Three Hundred @ £41
• Corsair TX Series 650W ATX2.2 SLI/Crossfire Compliant @ £78.71

Total Cost inc Del: £700.95

The above has the lesser mobo/processor to gain the SSD. Again with the upgradability of another 5770 and of course another x25-V in raid0 for max performance.

Only thing I've missed off is an optical drive. Depends on what exactly your doing with it but I hear the Sony ones do something with copyright or something? Perhaps worth looking at a different brand if you need to buy one.

One other thing I'd like to note; Before buying see if Aria will do you a bundle price, they've been known to do some decent deals if buying a full setup like that.

Thats me done! I'm sure I'll be corrected somewhere for a mistake

[scottismo]

A friend of mine has been planning to build an identical system to my own at the same time so we can play games together with similar performance.

We were close to purchasing yesterday and today but at the last minute he's slowly but surely elected to go for a more expensive build as he has decided he doesn't want to sell in 18-24 months time but would rather add another GPU and possibly a 6-Core Gulftown.

Below is his proposed spec:

Intel Corei7 920 D0 Bloomfield 45nm, 2.66 GHz, QPI 4.8GT/s, 8MB Cache, 20x Ratio, 130W Retail
£166.79
6GB (3x2GB) Corsair Dominator, DDR3 PC3-12800 (1600), CAS 8-8-8-24, DHX, XMP, 1.65V
£186.97
Asus P6X58D Premium, X58, SATA 6Gbps, RAID, USB3, GbE Lan, 3 way SLi/Xfire, DDR3, 8Ch Audio
£241.07
40GB Intel X25-V, MLC-Flash, 2.5", 1x SATA 3Gb/s, Read 170MB/s, Write 35MB/s, Retail
£86.93
500GB Samsung HD502HJ Spinpoint F3, SATA 3Gb/s, 7200rpm, 16MB Cache, 8.9 ms, NCQ, OEM
£38.72
1GB XFX HD 5870, PCI-E 2.1, 4800MHz GDDR5, GPU 850MHz, 1600Cores, DP/ DVI/ HDMI
£305.49
Sony AD-7240S-0B 24x DVD±R, 12xDVD±DL, DVD+RW x8/-RWx6 ,12xRAM SATA, Black, OEM
£15.97
Silverstone Fortress FT01B, Black, Mid Tower, Full Aluminum. w/o PSU
£134.76
750W Corsair CMPSU-750HXUK, SLi, ATX, EPS12V, Modular, UK Version - 7 Year Warranty
£108.09
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit, Single, - OEM
£76.46
Steel Series 4HD Gaming Surface MAT
£16.43

Carriage: £10.88
Scansure: £39.61
£1430.07

From all my research, I feel that with a little bit of overclocking on the CPU and GPU, I should have nearly the same performance (SSD aside) for significantly less - again with a view to selling - but I'd still like to be able to keep up with his build.

My current spec hasn't changed much since the last set of recommendations:

AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition, S AM3, 3.4GHz, 8MB Cache, 125W, Retail
Asus ATI Radeon EAH5850 DirectCU 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card
Crucial memory 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800 Ballistix 1600 MHz RAM 8-8-8-24 Unbuffered NON-ECC 1.65V 256 Meg x 64
Asus M4A89GTD PRO/USB3, AMD 890GX, S AM3, PCI-E 2.0 (x16), DDR3 2000(OC), SATA 6Gb/s, SATA RAID, ATX
850W Corsair 850HX PSU, ATX, EPS12V, Modular, UK Version
500GB Samsung HD502HJ Spinpoint F3, SATA 3Gb/s, 7200rpm, 16MB Cache, 8.9 ms, NCQ, OEM
Sony AD-7240S-0B 24x DVD±R, 12xDVD±DL, DVD+RW x8/-RWx6 ,12xRAM SATA, Black, OEM
SST-FT01B - Silverstone Fortress FT01B, Black, Mid Tower, Full Aluminum. w/o PSU

Currently coming in at £923.22 - a full £506.85 cheaper than my friend's build, though admittedly he is including a 40GB Intel SSD and he needs to purchase the OS and the peripherals. I'm hoping to buy a new 3rd Gen SSD at the end of this year so I'm not bothering to spend money on "old tech"

I have thought through this far too much, and my friend going back to an i7 build has made me question the principles of this budget build - if it is believed I will get ~85-90% performance of that build for around 45% less cost then that's good enough for me!

I'm sure this is getting tedious now so I do apologise guys, but I need someone to activate my purse strings

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Currently coming in at £923.22 - a full £506.85 cheaper than my friend's build, though admittedly he is including a 40GB Intel SSD and he needs to purchase the OS and the peripherals. I'm hoping to buy a new 3rd Gen SSD at the end of this year so I'm not bothering to spend money on "old tech"

I have thought through this far too much, and my friend going back to an i7 build has made me question the principles of this budget build - if it is believed I will get ~85-90% performance of that build for around 45% less cost then that's good enough for me!

I'm sure this is getting tedious now so I do apologise guys, but I need someone to activate my purse strings

Remember that AMD Bulldozer is also on socket AM3 supposedly! This means you maybe able to upgrade to the first iteration of AMD Bulldozer too!

This article is also worth a look at:

http://www.legionhardware.com/articl...hd_5970,1.html

It looks at the gaming performance with a Phenom II X4 and a Core i7 at different frequencies using an HD5970.

Many reviews also don't increase the speed of the HT when overclocking as this will improve performance even further in many cases.

You could also go for a 750W PSU such as this Antec:

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/750W-...-80plus-Bronze

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/750W-...-80plus-Bronze

The Antec PSU has got excellent reviews:

http://www.jonnyguru.com/modules.php...Story&reid=140

http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/766

[Callum1001]

A friend of mine has been planning to build an identical system to my own at the same time so we can play games together with similar performance.

We were close to purchasing yesterday and today but at the last minute he's slowly but surely elected to go for a more expensive build as he has decided he doesn't want to sell in 18-24 months time but would rather add another GPU and possibly a 6-Core Gulftown.

Below is his proposed spec:



From all my research, I feel that with a little bit of overclocking on the CPU and GPU, I should have nearly the same performance (SSD aside) for significantly less - again with a view to selling - but I'd still like to be able to keep up with his build.

My current spec hasn't changed much since the last set of recommendations:



Currently coming in at £923.22 - a full £506.85 cheaper than my friend's build, though admittedly he is including a 40GB Intel SSD and he needs to purchase the OS and the peripherals. I'm hoping to buy a new 3rd Gen SSD at the end of this year so I'm not bothering to spend money on "old tech"

I have thought through this far too much, and my friend going back to an i7 build has made me question the principles of this budget build - if it is believed I will get ~85-90% performance of that build for around 45% less cost then that's good enough for me!

I'm sure this is getting tedious now so I do apologise guys, but I need someone to activate my purse strings

If your going to sell it, why buy a 965? It costs more and its exactly the same as the 955. Especially if your going to over clock it. You wont see any realworld performance atall for your extra £30 odd. And anyone who claims that the 965 has a higher over clock I think thats just a lucky batch.

And again I'll point the CrossHair IV to you as a good backbone for when the bulldozers come out. It'll be alot more OC friendly aswell. No onboard graphics is a bonus for you, and it looks mean.

Just my thoughts

[scottismo]

Remember that AMD Bulldozer is also on socket AM3 supposedly! This means you maybe able to upgrade to the first iteration of AMD Bulldozer too!

This article is also worth a look at:

http://www.legionhardware.com/articl...hd_5970,1.html

Thanks for that, its a really good article that makes me feel a bit better about going the AM3 route. I'll check out the PSU later tonight after work

If your going to sell it, why buy a 965? It costs more and its exactly the same as the 955. Especially if your going to over clock it. You wont see any realworld performance atall for your extra £30 odd. And anyone who claims that the 965 has a higher over clock I think thats just a lucky batch.

And again I'll point the CrossHair IV to you as a good backbone for when the bulldozers come out. It'll be alot more OC friendly aswell. No onboard graphics is a bonus for you, and it looks mean.

Please don't think I ignored your advice, far from it! The only reason I had picked the 965 was because it was about £4 difference on Scan. It is indeed cheaper on Aria though. I had read that the newer 125w version of the 965 was more likely to reach 4GHz but I've yet to see a similar claim on the 955. So I'm still in two minds about that...

The CrossHair IV motherboard is very tempting for me, particularly because of the x16/x16 Crossfire. It does annoy me that they charge more for something which DOESN'T have onboard graphics though! The reference to AM3r2 for Bulldozer worries me a bit too. The trouble is, every little incremental price increase brings me closer to my original i7 build and there's still a little voice in the back of my mind that would like very much to have that build - not for the sake of e-peen but because my computer is 7 years old and I don't want to buy something that feels old when its fresh out of the box! That's why I was thinking of buying this one just for the interim and then buying a new one in the future. Of course I don't have a crystal ball and I might find that the current spec, plus an SSD later this year, plus the possibility of Bulldozer may mean I don't bother to sell in the end. It all depends on how things play out. Thinking of all these "what if" scenarios is the main reason I've not clicked the BUY button yet!!