Help with a self build/upgrade please

[quintal]

Hey all.

Short version: I was hoping to ask you lot for some advice on building a system (need a CPU+MoBo+Mem; and was hoping to spend about 200, but keep stretching that ...

Long version : I am a "born again newbie" - used to know my 486/33 from my DX 50 and got by even when building things involved reaching for a soldering iron. Then things got complicated after the P4's so I got bored and kept getting hand-me-downs and buying "off the shelf" for the last few years. Well, things move on a bit... (who'da thought you'd ever need more than 640k of memory, eh? so I have lost touch.

Anyways, I am looking to build a system to replace my now geriatric Dell dimension E520 ( early C2D / 2GbRam) I am upgrading mainly to keep up with the games, but I am not quite "must see my reflection in virtual water for only extra 300 quid"- type. I do like my 3Ds and the latest thing I bought is Fallout3 New Vegas. So, I am hoping to keep the XFX 9600GT for now (and the PSU that I uprated when I got the 9600GT /520W I think.), HDDs, optical, monitor +peripherals.

I have started thinking that I'll get a "small /cheap step up" (or a baragain tip-off from of the forums I keep an eye on) and get away with way less than 200 for a MoBo+CPU (and RAM as I need DDR3 now) ... that got a bit...umm...stretched so I am now determined not to break 300. Good to see that some things did not change at all

So : currently, I am looking at :
Intel i5 760 Lynnfield Quad @ £138.59
Asus P7P55D LE, Intel P55 Express @ £82.90
4GB (2x2GB) Corsair XMS3 DDR3 @ £57.72

then I worked out my Dell520 uses a BTX (?!) F-F, so I need a case too... So I am looking at about 30-odd for that (maybe a Coolermaster Elite 335, but I am well open to suggestions)

So, any advice? Apart from "stick to your day job, old man!" ..
Thanks!

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

What make is your PSU??

If you want to save some money I would get the following parts:

Phenom II X4 955BE ~ £108

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/190673

4GB 1600MHZ DDR3 ~ £64

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/173122

OR

4GB 1333MHZ DDR3 ~ £59

http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/p...M2A1333C9.html

MSI 870-C45 ~ £55

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/241003

OR

Gigabyte GA-870A-UD3 ~ £77

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/218937


You can get free postage at both Novatech and Ebuyer. There is also cashback on Novatech purchases from TopCashBack and Quidco IIRC.

[quintal]

Hi there.

Thanks very much for looking in and for your suggestions.
The PSU make is T(h?)rust, I think. Not sure , I bought it on an of-fchance that it would fit into the Dell when I got the GPU (and it did). Didn't spend too much @ the time. Also I didn't realise that also made a difference !

Funnily enough the Phenom 955 is roughly how I started. Escalated it to 965 ("only a tenner off") then to 1055t (Novatech/CCL bundles were about the same price as the 965/970), and then aaaah.. 1055T isn't a BE / in case I ever want to overclock (as if) - I couldn't. Not interested much in overclocking, but I hate the "I couldn't if I wanted to" )

Then I saw the i5-760 @ scan and I liked the price (139 seems very good). Reviews also seem decent. Ok, I'd need to pay 5-6 for the postage @ scan but still a good price.
That corsair DDR3 is also meant to be 1600 @£58 (or am I missing something?) Is corsair no good these days?

What do you think of that Asus mobo? I have very vague understanding of SLI / crossfire. Would it really be worth getting another 9600GT or just straight upgrade to a more capable GPU down the line. Or should I look for something cheaper with single PCIe . Or go for USB3 /new SATA ?) I am getting a bit price conscious now...

Great pointer about Quidco! Never thought of that one. I'll go check out.

Novatech has a bundle "MBB-I5764G" (can't post URLs - newbie ) for i5-760 /Mobo/ 4GB; but I wasn't sure what the mobo was. And the mem was 1333 and it is 299 (my scan basket comes to 280 +del). The case just puts it just over my "no passaran!" 300 mark.

Any tips on the case?

Thanks for your help again. (and sorry to be a pain with all the Qs.)

[quintal]

Oops sorry, the Corsair Memory is the same. Seems a wee bit cheaper on Scan, though. If I am buying the rest from there and p+p becomes irrelevant.

(Great, I ask for advice then trash your suggestion - I didn't mean it like that )

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

To do Crossfire or SLI you would need a motherboard which has a pair of PCI-E 8X or 16X slots. Most P55 motherboards like the Asus only have a single PCI-E 2.0 16X slot and a single PCI-E 2.0 4X meaning they can do only do asymmetrical Crossfire which means a loss in performance. However,Crossfire is only for ATI or AMD cards and SLI for Nvidia cards.

The Phenom II X4 955BE is still a capable processor for gaming and is easy to overclock due to the unlocked multiplier. Both the Phenom II X6 1055T and Core i5 760 can also be overclocked. The Black Edition moniker only refers to an unlocked multiplier which makes overclocking easier but using the multiplier is not the only way to overclock a CPU though. However,overclocking is not guaranteed with any CPU and if you want to try and get a decent overclock with most processors an aftermarket heatsink would be a good investment IMHO.

The Gigabyte motherboard I listed has both USB 3.0 and SATA 3.0 too. Unfortunately,the P55 motherboards are still extremely overpriced for the feature set they offer over the comparable AMD motherboards.

Also,if you have a Trust PSU it would be better to get a decent PSU from a well known company. Cheap PSUs are known to cause problems as the rated power is no where near what they can deliver with any degree of stability.

I would probably stick to your 9600GT as getting an SLI capable P55 motherboard is not cheap.

Once you have some more posts you can get free postage from Scan:

http://forums.hexus.net/scan-care-he...-delivery.html

[Pob255]

Most P55 motherboard are x16 + x4 (non sli/crossfire, ie a graphics card and a non-graphics card) or x8 + x8 sli/crossfire
Some of the very lowest cost boards are x16+x4 like the Asus LX model
Most of the H55 board are x16+x4 (of the few that actually have two full length slots)

You need to up the money to £90ish (eg ASUS P7P55D) to get the standard x8+x8 but even then it'll be crossfire not sli
For crossfire or sli you need to go to £110ish (eg MSI P55-GD65)

I do agree with CAT on the AMD route although you could easily get away with an AthlonII x3 450 http://www.ebuyer.com/product/238326
The Dell dimension E520 uses an e4300 or e6300 which means you're only at 1.8 or 1.86ghz and being a dell you'll probably not beable to overclock it.
Which means an AthlonII x3 450 is going to be a good step up, heck even an AMD Athlon II X2 255 http://www.ebuyer.com/product/191954 would be good.

The Trust PSU's are not great but not total garbage ether, again I'd lean towards the AthlonII for the lower power demands so as to put less demand on it.

I like the i5 as a base system for gameing but you'd really need to spend more on an i5 to make it worth it, the budget sector is AMD ground.

[peterb]

Hi quintal - welcome to HEXUS Never too late to enter the PC building game (or return to it) and you are getting advice from two of the most experienced builders/modders here (there are lots more). Enjoy!

[Domestic_Ginger]

How big is your monitor?
If £300 is your limit I would be tempeted to say get:-

AthlonII x3 ~£60 (you can always get a thubal as your last upgrade option!)
Am3 Mobo ~£60
Ram 4gb ddr3 ~£60

And then slip in a £120 GPU such as a 460gtx 768 of push the boat out for 6850 if they are about for £133 still.

An i3 or G6950 may be an option if you plan to OC your system. It 'should' only cost a little more.

Of course this isn't helped by your PSU if it isn't great. The more powerful GPU will also require a case with half decent airflow too; especially the gtx460 as it consumes a fair old whack of power and many of the custom coolers don't look like they vent out of the case (quite a few 6850s too).

I'm not so keen on the idea of 9600s in SLI as a single slot solution would be much better with a cheaper mobo.

[quintal]

To do Crossfire or SLI you would need a motherboard which has a pair of PCI-E 8X or 16X slots. Most P55 motherboards like the Asus only have a single PCI-E 2.0 16X slot and a single PCI-E 2.0 4X meaning they can do only do asymmetrical Crossfire which means a loss in performance. However,Crossfire is only for ATI or AMD cards and SLI for Nvidia cards.

The Phenom II X4 955BE is still a capable processor for gaming and is easy to overclock due to the unlocked multiplier. Both the Phenom II X6 1055T and Core i5 760 can also be overclocked. The Black Edition moniker only refers to an unlocked multiplier which makes overclocking easier but using the multiplier is not the only way to overclock a CPU though. However,overclocking is not guaranteed with any CPU and if you want to try and get a decent overclock with most processors an aftermarket heatsink would be a good investment IMHO.

The Gigabyte motherboard I listed has both USB 3.0 and SATA 3.0 too. Unfortunately,the P55 motherboards are still extremely overpriced for the feature set they offer over the comparable AMD motherboards.

Also,if you have a Trust PSU it would be better to get a decent PSU from a well known company. Cheap PSUs are known to cause problems as the rated power is no where near what they can deliver with any degree of stability.

I would probably stick to your 9600GT as getting an SLI capable P55 motherboard is not cheap.

Once you have some more posts you can get free postage from Scan:

CAT,

Thanks very much for the useful pointer about the free delivery. I heard once that Scan was doing a deal with AVforums members, but I didn’t know about Hexus forum. Seems like it will take me a while to build up my 20 posts so I may as well budget the delivery in this time. Shame, I could have thought of some other silly upgrade.

Also thank you for the information about SLI/crossfire. I thought that I may retain the 9600gt and buy another equally antiquated one to get some performance on the cheap. Also, I thought it would be good for future-proofing. I was way off base with that idea. So I will scrap it and look of a straight out single-GPU setup.

[quintal]

Most P55 motherboard are x16 + x4 (non sli/crossfire, ie a graphics card and a non-graphics card) or x8 + x8 sli/crossfire
Some of the very lowest cost boards are x16+x4 like the Asus LX model
Most of the H55 board are x16+x4 (of the few that actually have two full length slots)

You need to up the money to £90ish (eg ASUS P7P55D) to get the standard x8+x8 but even then it'll be crossfire not sli
For crossfire or sli you need to go to £110ish (eg MSI P55-GD65)

I do agree with CAT on the AMD route although you could easily get away with an AthlonII x3 450 The Dell dimension E520 uses an e4300 or e6300 which means you're only at 1.8 or 1.86ghz and being a dell you'll probably not beable to overclock it.
Which means an AthlonII x3 450 is going to be a good step up, heck even an AMD Athlon II X2 255
The Trust PSU's are not great but not total garbage ether, again I'd lean towards the AthlonII for the lower power demands so as to put less demand on it.

I like the i5 as a base system for gameing but you'd really need to spend more on an i5 to make it worth it, the budget sector is AMD ground.

Hi Pob,

Thank you for the help and your input. From your and CAT’s post, I am deriving that the SLI was a bad idea so I am dropping it right now. So I am now considering a simpler setup that does not involve two PCIe cards.

While I am considering all the AMD suggestions (and searching the net for the prices/benchmarks), I did catch onto your sentence: “I like the i5 as a base system for gameing…”
So, I5-760 + 4gb corsair = ~ 200 mark. So I just need a MoBo + case for a 100 to get me started? Maybe if I drop my SLI/crossfire nonsense and go for a cheap mobo? (PSU will do for now, as I am all-out of energy to do research on that too) Unless anyone knows of a nice case with PSU deal?

BTW, I am no Intel-fanboi by any means, but after years of being involved in corporate hardware purchasing I seem to have developed a “when in doubt – go Intel” attitude. Granted, “horses for courses” and these being very diverse markets…

I am more hoping to prolong the lifespan of the setup by splashing out a bit more on the “core” components and replace PSU, GPU, disks, etc. later.

[quintal]

Hi quintal - welcome to HEXUS Never too late to enter the PC building game (or return to it) and you are getting advice from two of the most experienced builders/modders here (there are lots more). Enjoy!

Thanks peterb. I think I already like it here.
I have already learned much.

[quintal]

How big is your monitor?
If £300 is your limit I would be tempeted to say get:-

AthlonII x3 ~£60 (you can always get a thubal as your last upgrade option!)
Am3 Mobo ~£60
Ram 4gb ddr3 ~£60

And then slip in a £120 GPU such as a 460gtx 768 of push the boat out for 6850 if they are about for £133 still.

An i3 or G6950 may be an option if you plan to OC your system. It 'should' only cost a little more.

Of course this isn't helped by your PSU if it isn't great. The more powerful GPU will also require a case with half decent airflow too; especially the gtx460 as it consumes a fair old whack of power and many of the custom coolers don't look like they vent out of the case (quite a few 6850s too).

I'm not so keen on the idea of 9600s in SLI as a single slot solution would be much better with a cheaper mobo.

Thanks for the suggestions DG.

Fair point on the PSU. As i said above, I have dropped the SLI/crossfire nonsense idea (I didn't know what I was on about)

It is an interesting idea to put the money aside for the GPU. I will consider it while Iam trawling the web for the best prices on AMD kit. (And till secretly looking at that i5 )

BTW, there seems to be a really cheap AM2+ phenom x4 940? (about 60-odd on CCL) Is AM2+ board(s) not a good idea?

Oh, and the monitor is an old Samsung 20" 205? something...

[scaryjim]

Hi quintal, welcome to hexus

AM2+ motherboards are still good, but are end-of-line: all AMDs new processors are socket AM3. However, it gets a bit tricky here because the new AM3 processors will fit, and usually work, in an AM2+ motherboard. So you could go AM2+ now and still upgrade your processor later - as long as the motherboard manufacturer keeps supporting that motherboard. So if you decide to go AM2+ (and it could provide very good value if you do), check the manufacturer's website for any motherboard you choose to make sure they've supported the later processors: that way you'll have an upgrade path for the future

In terms of bang for buck (ignoring cheap AM2+ processors ), the Phenom II 955 is really where it's at at the minute: just over £100 gets you the same performance as the very best Core 2 Quad processors (although still some way behind Core i7!). With decent AM3 motherboards available from ~ £60 (since you're not bothered about crossfire!), you can get your CPU and motherboard for around the same price as a Core i5 CPU on its own! However, if you go down that route you'll have spent over £200 by the time you add memory, so you'll not be able to afford a graphics card that's a significant upgrade over your 9600GT - going the Athlon II route you might be able to squeeze in an nvidia GTS450 or radeon 5750, which I think would be a good idea if you want to play games at your monitor's native (1680x1050) resolution (although you always have the option of playing on a lower resolution, of course ).

As far as cases go, I don't think you can go wrong with one of the Casecom KM series from ebuyer: they're very well built for the price and have a lot of features usually associated with much more expensive cases (like tool free drive bays, bottom-mounted PSU, lots of fan mounts etc.). The only real question is going to be whether you trust (pun intended ) your existing PSU or decide to go for something with a slightly better pedigree behind it

[Domestic_Ginger]

AM2+ is DDR2. The 940 is still very good tbh and at £60 is well worth it imo. It does not have a DDR3controller so will be incompatible with an AM3 (DDR3) mobo. Its not as daft as it seems as you can probably reuse your existing ram if its DDR2. (basically what ScaryJ said) The AM2+ boards will be able to support all of the CPUs the AM3 setup does if the bios is still supported. I should have copied and pasted SJ! My GB mobo will support all the AM3 CPUs.

On the otherhand DDR2 is as steep as DDR3 atm so maybe the newer tech would be better. there is not a huge performance difference iirc.

I chose a DDR2 rig last year because it was really cheap compared to DDR3.

Only 35W difference between a 5750 and the 460/6950 at peak!

[Pob255]

However he has DDR2 already so he could use that in a AM2+ motherboard and not need to buy new memory
Although the question is how much and what speed his current memory is?


As to the i5 vs PhenomII it does come down to the motherboards, most of the sub £100 p55 motherboards are not very good while many of the cheaper amd AM2+ or AM3 boards are decent.
Also with a low end PhenomII or AthlonII you still have a later upgrade path to one of the higher current PhenomII even if the newer cpu's will no longer work in that board.
with the intel i5 760 you're pretty much at to top end of what it can use, so later upgrade would mean replaceing the motherboard as well as cpu

Another factor to remember with games is that they are mainly GPU bound not cpu bound.

For a total base gameing system currently I'd look at (prices rough)
AthlonII x3 £60
Am3 Mobo 870 chipset £70 or 770 chipset £45 (the older chipset lacks USB3 and SATA6gb but to me these are still too new and not generally needed)
Ram 4gb ddr3 1333mhz or 1600mhz (lower cas the better) £60-75 (actually I don't like the corsair stuff atm, it's all cas9, I favor G.Skill Ripjaw http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/p...l7d-4gbrm.html bit expensive but some of the best 1600mhz memory around or Crucial Ballistix http://www.ebuyer.com/product/179278 )
GPU gtx460 768mb £120 or gtx460 1gb £150 or ati 6850 £150 or something good 2nd hand or cheap for around £100 or less
Decent 120mm fan based after market cooler £20-25 (for low noise, which I demand these days)
Decent sata 500gb hard drive £35 (don't bother with sata6 hard drives as they haven't got near sata3 bandwidth yet and the added cost has been silly)
sata dvdrw £15
PSU decent 450-500w £40-50
Case . . . whatever floats your boat

Cases are tough because they are so personal, for decent cheap cases have a look at:
NZXT Evo Beta £35
Coolermaster Elite 330 or 331 (not 335) £30
Silverstone Precision PS02 £37 (probably the best of the Precision series to my mind esp for the cost)
Antec 300 £45 (still decent just a bit pricey now)
The Casecom KM series are good for a sub £30 case (after having had one for a while now I think they are just a tad too narrow the extra money on the Evo Beta is worth it to me if you plan to put in more than a couple of hard drives in there, I currently have 4 hard drives in mine and getting the side panel back on is a real struggle because of the wires)

[quintal]

Hey guys!

Group answer this time, so it is not looking like I am shamelessly bumping up my post count for the free delivery.

Thanks again to all for all the input. I have learned a lot today.

I am getting to be one of them annoying people that asks for advice and ends up banging on about what they first thought anyway. Sorry about that. I do value all the input. I am really arguing against myself here. Hey, I have to live with myself 24/7, y'all have it easy!

AM2+ - tempting. Very. For a wee bit more than a ton, I could have a new cpu+Mobo,and use my DDR2. If I could have used my old case+PSU that would have been a no-brainer. Since I have to change those too, I may as well sell/give away the old Dell without canibalising the parts to make it non-operational.

BTW, anyone know a rough value for a stock Dell E520 ? I am sure I'll find someone to give it to if it is not worth selling. It does everything reasonably fast (except gaming when i take the 9600 out), surely one of my mates must want it


Phenom 955/965 - when it gets to about 25-30% within i5-760 price, I am leaning towards the i5. Probably because I feel that it may be a longer-lasting upgrade. (besides, I couldn't really not go for a 965/970 for the extra 20-30, I'd kick myself in a few years time )


So, taking the Case / psu / and 4gb of memory aside as it is the same in both cases it boils down to:

Phenom 955 @ ~110 + AM3 MoBo ~70 = ~160 all in

OTOH, Dabs seems to be doing an i5 bundle with what looks a decent mobo @ 239 (and there is a voucher for 10 off floating about) + Quidco at 3% = ~220-ish all-in. Free delivery too. [They are doing a value (?) add-on with a Foxconn case and 350W PSU. for extra 20-odd. 350 is probably too low for the spec with the 9600 anyways.]

So, about 60 between them ... Won't really cover a GPU upgrade. (and the wife may claw the budget sufficit back


Anyways... just rambling on ... I am not really expecting an answer. I am happy with the ones that you already gave me.
I just wanted to say thanks to all.

I'll go agonise a little more...