Hexus monthly buyers guide

[Zadock]

Here is an idea, not sure how practical it is... You could ask people who follow your build to the letter to post up bench marks then we could have a hexus £500 gaming build sticky with photos and performance stats and all that jazz?

[Phage]

My stepson build is close to that. I'll keep you posted when the last lot of 2nd-hand stuff turns up.

[Cheapy]

Mayby contact an admin or Hexus themsleves asking to sticky the thread? The parts for the build are all there it justs need a new thread and sticking.

Here is an idea, not sure how practical it is... You could ask people who follow your build to the letter to post up bench marks then we could have a hexus £500 gaming build sticky with photos and performance stats and all that jazz?

Over time we could also see how much more bang for buck you get for the same price. Which would be interesting to see how it changes.

[Bagnaj97]

Whilst it's retailer specific (which you might be trying to avoid) it's hard to beat this case+psu combo on ebuyer at the moment: http://www.ebuyer.com/product/220863
Coolermaster elite 330 case with Coolermaster Xtremepower 500w psu for £50.

Obviously the included psu isn't the best, but it's certainly not too shabby and will shave a few £s off both builds.


You're also missing cpu cooling from those builds, unless you intend people to use the stock cooling initially.

[Phage]

I recently built a very cheap gaming box for my stepson using second hand parts sourced from Hexites.

AMD X4 640 @ stock (new)
Samsung white DVD (new)
4Gb Corsair Ram
1Tb Samsung F3
Mainboard Asus M4A78LT-M
Mini P180
Seasonic 620w
XFX 6850 1Gb at stock
Samsung 2043BW L 1680x1050
Windows 7 64bit
Old G11 keyboard and MS mouse I had lying around with some old speakers I found in a cupboard C.2002.

Total cost was £534 including a full license for Windows.

http://img810.imageshack.us/i/dsc00144xc.jpg/

It all went together very easily, with the exception of the HDD. The holes on the rails don't line up with the holes on the drive. So, it's currently sitting on the small rubber blocks, unsecured. In fact, if anyone could enlighten me on how to fix that in I'd be very grateful. Loving the AMD clip down cooler bracket. Took me less than a minute to install the CPU and cooler.
Liked the mini p180 very much. I'm now considering a similar case for myself. Quiet, cool and just enough room for everything.
Installed CCC 11.2

http://3dmark.com/3dm11/913091

I'm a little surprised by the low score in 3dMark11 of 2701. It looks completely gorgeous and the frame rates are smooth in Dirt2, Crysis (!) and Mass Effect 2. I haven't had the chance to do more testing, as I can't get him off it long enough.

Overall I'm very pleased, and surprised by the high quality he's seeing in his game play. My impression is that it performs better than you would expect from the 3dMark11 score.

EDIT: based on the rankings I'm seeing here.
http://forums.hexus.net/hexus-hardwa...astest-pc.html
I think the culprit is the CPU bottlenecking the card. I'm sure that >3k would be achieved with more CPU grunt.

[UseItNow]

Phage, you've reminded why I hadn't let that monitor go of from your pic!

Its all looking nice!

[Phage]

Phage, you've reminded why I hadn't let that monitor go of from your pic!

Its all looking nice!

Yup. Thanks again. A very tidy machine and a luvverly monitor.
If I have a Monaro, this is the hot hatch.

[djpc]

this project reminds me of a similar thing that a competing website**cough**tomshardware***cough*** do called the system builder marathon, every 3 months they build 3 pc at differerent price points and compare to the previous one. However it is an official sponsored thing, and thus may be beyond what you guys as forum users could do.

[Phage]

Yep - we don't have sponsorship dollars. However, there's some merit in posting the scores of the systems we've built, and the problems we've had so that others can benefit from mistakes / incompatibilities.

[Phage]

Gah - Now they put it on Today Only. That's just irritating.

[bosh]

Just seen scan has the thermaltake dokker case that was linked earlier together with

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/500w-...er-supply-(psu)

for 59 inc. Seems like a good deal but is the psu any good? Am thinking about putting together something similar to the office build.

[watercooled]

Cooler master PSUs don't have a good reputation and, while I can't find any reviews of that exact model, different wattage PSUs in the same range have been reviewed at HardwareSecrets and none have received their seal of approval. I mean it should be better than some unbranded or EZ-Cool crap but I wouldn't recommend or buy one out of choice.

[bosh]

Ahh ok thanks for the response, will go woth either the antec or silverpower then.

[Phage]

Interesting - our suggestions are very close to Anandtech's upgraded budget build.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4164/b...ebruary-2011/5

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Interesting - our suggestions are very close to Anandtech's upgraded budget build.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4164/b...ebruary-2011/5

Phage,is it possible you could post your score in the 3DMark2011 thread??

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Answered wrong thread!