New rig advice!

[AledJ]

Had a look on Scan to see if they had added the new sandy bridge processor to the pre-built systems. I configured the '3XS Vengeance P67 OC - Sandy Bridge - New January 2011' system to what is listed below. It comes to £1,473.56

I was hoping it would be around £200 cheaper, but don't want to change much. Not sure of any other companies who have a good reputation, where what I have listed would be cheaper. So if anyone can recommend any + comment on the selection I have made, it would really help alot !!! By budget is £1,500 at a push.

Case -Antec 1200 Twelve Hundred Full Tower Case, Black with side window (£118.27)

Motherboard- Gigabyte GA-P67A-UD4, Intel P67 Express, USB3 & SATA6Gbps, SLI Support (£122.67)

CPU-Intel Core i7 2600K "Unlocked" 3.4Ghz Quad Core, 8Mb Cache, Hyperthreading (£215.26)

CPU Coolers- Corsair Cooling H70 Hydro Performance - Not suitable for Silverstone TJ07 (£62.70)

Overclocking - CPU - 2nd Generation Intel® Core™ Sandy Bridge CPU professionally overclocked by our 3XS engineers to 4.5Ghz (£0.00)

Memory -8GB (2x4GB) Corsair Vengeance DDR3 DDR3 1600Mhz, CAS 9-9-9-24 (£89.12) add £15.00

ATI Graphics- 2GB XFX HD 6970, 880MHz GPU, 1536 SP's, 5500MHz GDDR5 (£239.22)

Power Supply Unit-600W Corsair 3XS Systems PSU (Single Graphics Card) (£45.50)

System Drives- 1TB Samsung Spinpoint F3, 7200rpm, 32MB Cache (£33.98)

DVD- Pioneer DVR-S19LBK DVD Writer (£14.35) add £14.35

Sound Card- Asus Xonar DX/XD 7.1 - PCI-E (£47.98)

Operating system- Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit - OEM (£67.07)

Software -Microsoft Office Home and Student 2010 - OEM (£64.14)

£1,473.56 inc VAT
£1,227.97 ex VAT
Base Price: £130.00
Your PC: £1,227.97
VAT: £245.59

[planet436]

What do you want to do with your computer?

[AledJ]

What do you want to do with your computer?

Doh!! Should have mentioned that in the first post. Its main use will be games!! It will be used for general net use, and also word etc etc No graphics modding or anything like that.

[Predator]

This is what I just ordered:

1 1GB ASUS HD6850 DC/2DIS/1GD5 123.68 148.42
1 4GB TW3X4G1333C9A XMS3 CLASSIC 35.12 42.14
1 1TB SAMSUNG HD103SJ SATA F3 33.98 40.78
1 AMD PHENOM2 X6 1055T AM3 125w 120.55 144.66
1 650W ANTEC TRUEPOWER NEW PSU 55.97 67.16
1 **Carriage Offer** 0.00 0.00
1 Ipod Skins x3 for 20/40G 0.00 0.00
1 E Carriage 0.00 0.00
1 Auto. generated by E Orders 0.00 0.00
Sub Total £369.30
VAT £73.86
Total £443.16

Not the best but pretty good..

What rez do you play at?

Do you really need 8GB ram?

[Pob255]

The case could probably be changed for save a bit.

For what you're putting in it the 1200 is massive, dropping down to the HAF 912 or Lian-Li PC-60FNB would save you about £50-60

Personally speaking I'm not a big fan of the Pioneer DVDrw, it's a good drive but a bit noisy, however there's no other basic options apart from none and putting in one yourself (LG or samsung are quieter IMO) no real cost difference.

You could drop down to the i5 7500k all you'll lose is the hyperthreading and save £77

Not sure about that PSU lack on information and the low cost has me wondering. it maybe the CX600w 28amp on the 12v that's the same as the 430w version.
But given the other options it's a bit lax to go from £45 to £108 being the next step up
you could ask about the antec true power new 650w as a halfway step http://www.scan.co.uk/products/650w-...-12v-120mm-fan

[Tattysnuc]

8gb for games? I've got 6, and upgraded to 12 on my Windows 7 home "media server"

It folds 24/7 (2 GPU clients on my GTX 295, and a 980x cpu client folding on 12 threads)
It streams via windows media player
It hosts files by network shares/homegroups
It hosts a sql+ database

I NEVER exceeded 6 Gb of memory usage, so 8Gb is way too much.

I know it's cheap at the moment, but you'll not use it. I didn't and now I'm building another PC to fold on...

[Tattysnuc]

Why not overclock it yourself?

HERE's an article on how on that board.

I assume you qualify for the free postage on Scan, so to cut costs i'd:

1. Reduce ram to 4Gb
2. Pick a smaller cheaper case as suggested by POB255
3. Buy a slightly heavier duty PSU. Nothing wrong with the one you've picked, I've just not seen any reviews on it and for overclocking you'll never look back once you have a decent PSU. Buy once, (re)use many.

Also, most games are GPU bound not CPU bound, so paying for all that overclock and the rather expensive Corsair H70 over an air cooler doesn't make too much sense if the budget really is the upper constraint. Even if you only manage to get 4.2Ghz out of the processor, you'll see diminishing returns for the outlay.

Other reputable builders: www.overclockers.co.uk also come highly recommended. Would I buy from them? Only if I didn't know how to. Scan are about as good as they get...

[Predator]

Why not overclock it yourself?

HERE's an article on how on that board.

I assume you qualify for the free postage on Scan, so to cut costs i'd:

1. Reduce ram to 4Gb
2. Pick a smaller cheaper case as suggested by POB255
3. Buy a slightly heavier duty PSU. Nothing wrong with the one you've picked, I've just not seen any reviews on it and for overclocking you'll never look back once you have a decent PSU. Buy once, (re)use many.

Also, most games are GPU bound not CPU bound, so paying for all that overclock and the rather expensive Corsair H70 over an air cooler doesn't make too much sense if the budget really is the upper constraint. Even if you only manage to get 4.2Ghz out of the processor, you'll see diminishing returns for the outlay.

Other reputable builders: www.overclockers.co.uk also come highly recommended. Would I buy from them? Only if I didn't know how to. Scan are about as good as they get...

I agree with this

[Pob255]

Why not overclock it yourself?

Because it's a free service on the scan 3XS systems (well any over the most basic options)

[AledJ]

After thinking about the price and looking at the budget, i'm going to go with what I have above. Not had any major upgrade for 6 years, so this will last me a while with a few bits changed over the next few years. The only thing i'm undecided on is the case! Do I really need the antec 1200 ?? As from what I have read the antec 902 is the same, just a smaller version of the 1200. I know the the 1200 has dust filters, but not read if the 902 also has them.

[planet436]

Review of the 902, yes it does have dust filters on the intakes.

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/cas...o-902-review/3. In a choice between that case and the Lian li at a similar price the Lian-li would be my preferred option.

In a system costing this would it would be criminal not to put an SSD in there. I would add a crucial or OCZ in there, downgrade the 2600k to a 2500k and 6970->6950. Hyperthreading does very little for gaming and unless you are playing at super high resolutions the 6970 would be wasted over a 6950.

The SSD benefits virtually everything you do on the computer.

[AledJ]

Review of the 902, yes it does have dust filters on the intakes.

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/cas...o-902-review/3. In a choice between that case and the Lian li at a similar price the Lian-li would be my preferred option.

In a system costing this would it would be criminal not to put an SSD in there. I would add a crucial or OCZ in there, downgrade the 2600k to a 2500k and 6970->6950. Hyperthreading does very little for gaming and unless you are playing at super high resolutions the 6970 would be wasted over a 6950.

The SSD benefits virtually everything you do on the computer.

I was thinking of picking the 2500k over the 2600k but on cost grounds, rather than the hyperthreading point you make. A friend said i would only see a 10% difference ( think he was on about frame rate) between the 6970 and 6950. As for the SSD there too expensive for me at the moment! Can't really go much higher than 1,522 for the system in the first post. A 256GB SSD won't go far with me!

[planet436]

You don't need a 256GB ssd, 64GB will be fine as a boot drive. Just install Windows on it along with your most commonly used programs, and have an F3 to put data/games on. Mechanical drives are the biggest bottleneck in your computer and an SSD will make an enormous difference.

The only real difference between the 2500k and 2600k is the hyperthreading and a larger L3 cache. The 2600k will be worth it for people who can make use of the HT but for gaming there is very little difference for the extra £80.

Similarly with the 6970 over the 6950. Unless you are playing at resolutions at 1920x1200, above or eyefinity, both these cards are massive overkill. You may get 10% fps benefit in a few games but you honestly will not be able to tell the difference. Dropping down to a 2500k, 6950 AND adding a 64GB SSD will be cheaper than your current build and a more balanced one.

[Phage]

There's a good chance the 6950 will unlock to a 6970 anyway.

[AledJ]

You don't need a 256GB ssd, 64GB will be fine as a boot drive. Just install Windows on it along with your most commonly used programs, and have an F3 to put data/games on. Mechanical drives are the biggest bottleneck in your computer and an SSD will make an enormous difference.

The only real difference between the 2500k and 2600k is the hyperthreading and a larger L3 cache. The 2600k will be worth it for people who can make use of the HT but for gaming there is very little difference for the extra £80.

Similarly with the 6970 over the 6950. Unless you are playing at resolutions at 1920x1200, above or eyefinity, both these cards are massive overkill. You may get 10% fps benefit in a few games but you honestly will not be able to tell the difference. Dropping down to a 2500k, 6950 AND adding a 64GB SSD will be cheaper than your current build and a more balanced one.

There's a good chance the 6950 will unlock to a 6970 anyway.

Thanks for the advice guys, very helpful

[AledJ]

If I had a ssd as the boot drive would I need to email Scan so that its done, or will they do that anyway??