Rig advice

[haveron]

I am going to be building a rig for a friend and need advice for a mid end build with a budget of around £500 for the tower. Currently I have what is below however I need some advice for a power supply and memory, if anyone could hlep and is what I have picked out already ok? Any comments would be appreciated. Thanks

Ok, so this is what I have so far:

CPU: AMD phenom X4 955 £94

GPU : ATI 5870 £145

Case : Antec 300 £47

HDD : Samsung TB HDD £40

DVD : Samsung DVDRW £15

Motherboard:Asus M5A78L LE AMD 760G AM3+ Motherboard £55

Power supply :Corsair Gaming Series GS 700 CMPSU-700G UK 700W Power Supply £ 62

Memory: Corsair Memory 4GB DDR3 1333 Mhz CAS 9 Dual Channel Desktop £32

[planet436]

What is the computer going to be used for? Also, do you have a transferable OS?

[haveron]

It's going to be used for gaming and surfing the web and I have a windows 7 disc.

[Ed Omega]

I am going to be building a rig for a friend and need advice for a mid end build with a budget of around £500 for the tower. Currently I have what is below however I need some advice for a power supply and memory, if anyone could hlep and is what I have picked out already ok? Any comments would be appreciated. Thanks

Ok, so this is what I have so far:

CPU: i3 210 sandybridge 3.1 Ghz £89.94

GPU : ATI 5870 £145

Case : Antec 300 £47

HDD : Samsung TB HDD £40

DVD : Samsung DVDRW £15

Motherboard : Asus P8H67-M LX Rev3 £70

Total: £407

Mushkin blackline 4gb 1600mhz for £35 and its 1.5v (preferable for p67/h67)

http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Compo...roductId=44758


OCZ 600w stealthstream - 80% plus at a decent price with good build quality

http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Compo...roductId=40944

Antec 620w 80%

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/620w-...-fan-atx12v-23

That will give you some future profing, depends how much you want to build in for power, if you are thinking he may want to go up to i7 and dual graphics later on, maybe look at a 750w, but 600w will be fine for i7 and single graphics cards.

The 500w would also be sufficient, but I always assume people are going to put bigger graphics cards in

[planet436]

Okay, selection looks pretty decent and is a well rounded system. You shouldn't need a very powerful GPU or lots of ram, so selection from Today's only deal could include



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Any PSU from Seasonic, Corsair, Antex, Xfx or Enermax should be of good enough quality. With ram, just be careful its rated at 1.5V for sandy bridge. Case is up to you, I'm partial to NZXT and think they do very good cases at that price level but the 300 is a well regarded case.

[haveron]

Thanks omega. I will go with that power supply, but I would prefer to get all of the items from scan and they don't sell that memory, are there any other types that you would recommend that scan sell? Also, would you recommend AMD's quads over intel's dual cores or vice versa? Thanks

[Joeroe_92]

i always stick to the rule of: spend as much on your graphics card as you do on your cpu!

[haveron]

Ok, I have changed the CPU, mobo and added memory, could anyone comment on the parts and have any possible suggestions for changes? Thanks

[Homeking]

Buy the processor on Amazon and save £7:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/AMD-Phenom-3...dp/B002TQYUAE/

Buy a slightly cheaper case and save £10:

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/nzxt-...r-case-w-o-psu

Add this to the £27 you are already under budget and get the Gigabyte GA-990XA-UD3 AM3+ motherboard from EBuyer at just under £92:

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/270603

I make that £1 over budget with an excellent AM3+ 990X motherboard that will give a future upgrade path to Bulldozer as well as SATA3 and USB3.

[oddjob]

i currently have an nzxt beta evo case and would definitely recommend it as the psu sits in the bottom , cables can easily be routed behind the mobo panel and side case and it has room for 6 fans so cooling is good - just my opinion anyway

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

AMD Llano is being released this month and this means that the Phenom II X4 and Core i3 may get cheaper.

Also,I would not be paying £70 for an H67 motherboard with two RAM slots and no overclocking ability.

I have come up with two builds.





The first build uses a 990X AM3+ motherboard which will work with Bulldozer,can do 8X/8X Crossfire,has cooled VRMs and USB3.0 and six SATA3.0 ports. The Phenom II X4 955BE has better multi-threaded performance than a Core i3 2100 in most cases and can be overclocked. However,the Core i3 2100 has better single threaded performance. The P67 motherboard in the second build can be use to overclock Core i5 and Core i7 processors but not the Core i3 as it has a fully locked multiplier. It has USB3.0 and two SATA3.0 ports too.

Edit!!

For the Intel build I would get the following Z68 motherboard instead:

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/gigab...3gb-s-raid-atx

However,unlike other Z68 motherboards it lacks any monitor outputs.

[haveron]

Thanks for all of the replies, I have had a look through the motherboards suggested and they all are good motherboards, but they are more expensive than those that I considered and the only benefit really was future proofing and as my friend probably won't upgrade for a while I don't think that the extra cost is worth it. Could anyone recommend some motherboards in the £50 area with one PCI-E 2.0, more than 2 DIM slots, an AM3 socket, at least 2 SATA and will be able to fit a sound card? Thanks

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Thanks for all of the replies, I have had a look through the motherboards suggested and they all are good motherboards, but they are more expensive than those that I considered and the only benefit really was future proofing and as my friend probably won't upgrade for a while I don't think that the extra cost is worth it. Could anyone recommend some motherboards in the £50 area with one PCI-E 2.0, more than 2 DIM slots, an AM3 socket, at least 2 SATA and will be able to fit a sound card? Thanks

This motherboard has USB3.0 and SATA3.0:

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/gigab...-sata-raid-atx

It is also an AM3+ mothebroard meaning it should work with the first generation of Bulldozer too.

This AM3+ motherboard would also do the job but the 870 based one is worth the extra £10 IMHO:

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/asus-...-sata-raid-atx

[Ed Omega]

Thanks omega. I will go with that power supply, but I would prefer to get all of the items from scan and they don't sell that memory, are there any other types that you would recommend that scan sell? Also, would you recommend AMD's quads over intel's dual cores or vice versa? Thanks

Ooh that really is a tough one. Clock for clock the i3/5/7 processors absolutely murder the AMD's. If you are using apps that are mostly single core (and you know this to be the case) then Intel dual core is defo the way forward. If you are using apps that are multicore capable and will make use of four cores, then at the budget end the AMD quads will give you a performance advantage over a dual core intel IN THOSE APPs. However, generaly day to day O/S use will probably be fairly similar. TBH I would not buy AMD at the moment, go with the i3 as the whole subsystem on the new intel boards is so much better than the AMD system (Intel basically copied AMDS and made it a lot better ) and if you go with a socket 1155 i3, you can bang an i5 or i7 in when you feel a bit wealthier and get mega performance.

[haveron]

Thanks for all of the help, I will be going with the Asus M5A78L LE AMD 760G AM3+ Motherboard . Also I have been looking at the 6850 and was wondering how that performs in relation to the 5870? Thanks

[kalniel]

Also I have been looking at the 6850 and was wondering how that performs in relation to the 5870? Thanks

Much slower.