New £500 build

[thomson]

I don't think I can quite fit a 1055t in. How about an AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition Socket AM3 3.2 GHz 8MB L3 Cache Retail Boxed Processor instead? It will most likely do better in games and its £30 cheaper, putting within the budget.

Although if I'm getting a black edition processor I'd best learn how to overclock...

New spec

Be Quiet 530W Pure Power PSU - 120mm Fan Dual 12V Rails 5x SATA 2x PCI-E £48.99
Gigabyte GA-870A-UD3 870 Socket AM3 8 Channel Audio ATX Motherboard £83.64
Corsair 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 1333MHz Memory Kit Unbuffered CL9 £75.03
LiteOn IHAS124-19 24x DVD±RW DL & RAM SATA - OEM Black £14.80
Samsung SpinPoint F3 500GB Hard Drive SATAII 7200rpm 16MB Cache - OEM £34.98
AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition Socket AM3 3.2 GHz 8MB L3 Cache Retail Boxed Processor £127.63
Coolermaster HAF922 Windowed Version bundled with FREE Coolermaster TX3 CPU Cooler £84.99
GTX 260 - £84

Comes out at about £550. £20 over the top end of his budget, but he'll live . I'll just give him the extra 20 or something.

I should google that free cooler...

[Cheapy]

The 955 comes with a resonable heatpipe cooler to mount. A big step up from the heatsink you get with other AMD processors.

[Ulti]

The build looks fine for me, although I'm not sure if the Coolermaster TX3 cooler or the AMD cooler will perform better as the black edition stock coolers aren't bad. It's also very simple to overclock the black edition processors as you only increase the multiplier, however, it's a quad core already at 3.2ghz so it's pretty fast enough at stock anyway so you might not even need to bother with overclocking really.

[thomson]

I probably won't need to, but if its intended to be overclocked it seems a shame not to . That is what the black editions are for right?

Is that motherboard the one I want to be using? No better ones for cheaper anywhere or anything like that? Preferably without resorting to ebay .

[Ulti]

Well that's true and it is really easy to overclock as I said so that pretty much anyone can overclock.

You might want to go for the AMD Phenom 945 as it'll run cooler with 95W TDP as opposed to the 125W of the Black Edition ones but IIRC the stock cooler will be crappy but you get a free CoolerMaster cooler anyway with your case so it might be a good choice as you save some money and only lose a tiny bit of fps in games. However it would mean if you were ever to overclock in the future it would be slightly harder.

Tbh though, I don't see what all the fuss is with the new chipset motherboards, sure if you're gonna get a 1055T and a SSD then you'd want it but if it's for a "budget" build then I'd rather go for something less new. SATA 3 6Gb/s is useless unless you have some crazy SSD and USB 3 isn't really fully supported at the moment and cards to add USB 3 are really cheap anyway.

I think a 770 chipset will do the job perfectly too and you save a lot of money and probably don't lose much, if any, performance.
The MSI C45-770 at ~£52 was a good budget board that offered everything. I also see the ASUS M4A77 at £55 but can't see any reviews but it looks like a good board too so it depends on which brand you like more, they're both good brands though.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Remember that some of the Samsung F3 hard drives have compatbility issues with the SB850 southbridge. However,Samsung has released a firmware update for affected examples.

[thomson]

Managed to get someone to buy my own computer... so I'm going to do myself one of these too, but with a cheaper case .

Would the Gelid Tranquillo be a good cooler for me? Reviews seem to say its a decent enough cooler, and more or less silent. And it's cheap .

Personally I like the red motherboard scheme better. Is a colour scheme enough to decide which board you want? I assume the 3 fan headers on the MSI board are 1 CPU fan and 2 system fans?

So the GA-870A-UD3 is going to be a pain to get to work with the F3... Think I will just get one of those older chipset ones. It really would help my budget . It's not going to noticeably affect my performance is it?

Would a SSD work with a 3Gb/s sata port? A SSD might possibly be a good Christmas present for me... My brother's definitely never going to get one in his though.

I'd definately give overclocking a go on the 955 in my computer. Brother won't be wanting his overclocked though, so the 945 might be a good choice there.

Oh, and would I be right in thinking fans add barely anything to the amount of power the system uses? So there is no reason whatsoever not to fill all the fan spaces in a case with cheap £2 fans?

[thomson]

.

The 955 has went up on ebuyer. Best get it fast before it goes up on scan too .

Any objections to the MSI 770-C45 before I go get it?

Debating between a Gelid Tranquillo and a Titan Fenrir for my cooler. Brother can have the free one with his case . From what I've read, the Tranquillo is really quiet with goodish cooling, but the Fenrir is much better but really loud... And really big...

Or even the Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro...

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

The MSI motherboard will not be a good choice for overclocking a 125W TDP processor with as the VRMs are known to get quite hot.

If you were running the Phenom II X4 955BE at stock speeds it would be fine though.

I would go for the following motherboard instead:

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/206151

However,like I said before you may need to re-flash the firmware on the Samsung F3 if it is one of the affected drives.

[thomson]

Just when I thought I was getting my price down .

Are there not any cheapish non- sb850 boards that would work?

If I'm getting a board thats going to make my HD not work, you'll have to teach me how to flash it beforehand...

[Domestic_Ginger]

Oh, and would I be right in thinking fans add barely anything to the amount of power the system uses? So there is no reason whatsoever not to fill all the fan spaces in a case with cheap £2 fans?

Plan it carefully and get some half decent ones with high cfm. Its usually a balance between cfm and noise but the better ones do better in both worlds.

The Denebs tend to start getting really hot and inefficient above about 3.6ghz. The increase in clock speed starts to get really disproportionate to the amount of energy consumed. Have a look at the CM212 as well for the cooler; frostytech have a good roundup if you want comparisons.

What case have you got in mind?

[thomson]

Probably the Antec 300. Although possibly the 900, I haven't decided yet .

I think I'll just use some other hard drive so I don't have to worry about it not working with my motherboard.

[thomson]

Right, I think I'll get all this stuff ordered tomorrow.

Unless anyone has a better suggestion of a motherboard before then, I'll get the Asus mobo CAT-THE-FIFTH linked to above. For the cooler the Titan Fenir? It will fit inside an antec 300 right?

And for the HDD I'll get something that isn't that Samsung F3, so the motherboard doesn't break it . Any second best alternatives?

[geezerone]

I would steer clear of Samsung as I don't rate their reliability - only just had one die without warning and after speaking to a data recovery company in England a year or so ago they said the same and recommended Seagate. Still have a 40GB Seagate drive working after many years (touch wood).

Go for the Seagate 1TB 7200.12 drive for a few pounds more.

Could take a duke at Gigabyte mobo

[thomson]

There isn't really going to be much difference between that board and the Asus one is there?

Just realise, it's the one I had on my list before . Going in circles now lol.

Final check before I order everything. A Titan Fenrir is definately going to fit the antec 300 ok isn't it? And the Be Quiet 530W PSU is definately powerful enough for a GTX 260 and Phenom II X4 955?

EDIT: No replies, so I ordered everything . Arriving no later than next wednesday, I'll let you know how it goes . I was stingy and used ebuyer's free 5 day deliver. It's a shame scan doesn't have one too, cost me a whole £7 there .

[tao65]

yes, you are right, HAF922 is quite expensive