Any Advice Welcome and Much appreciated on my new setup

[mattsandersuk]

Hello i am new to this forum, howdy.



just a few quick questions, of which i hope you will be able to answer from past experience.



bascially i am about to order a new setup and need some advice, i am not new to the world of computer building but have never been too clued up about the theory behind most of it.



i have a budget of around £400-500 the less the better (closer to the £400 mark) im looking for a system that should be able to play all the latest games reasonably well but for that money i realise its not going to be mind blowing graphics, aswell as audio editing (a good sound card will be purchased at a later date, not included in the budget)



i am interested in the intel core2duo e6400, but dont have a clue which motherboard to get, my first choice so far is the ASUS P5V-VM DH, as it has a few extras such as built in wireless lan and that remote thingie.

it seems to be fairly compatible and futureproof, but it seems it doesnt allow for much overclocking which i was hoping to be able to do, in your opinions will it make much of a difference ive heard the e6400 can be overclocked to around 3ghz fairly easily without too much strain and still using the stock fan.

and also what graphics card is recomended for the gamer on a budget.

components that come into the budget are

CPU (e6400)
MOTHERBOARD
GRAPHICS CARD
HDD
RAM
CASE

and am from the UK so hope to purchase from a UK site or one that delivers to UK addresses quickly and cheaply.

thanks in advance, and sorry if ive posted this in the wrong place.



cheers



matt

[Clunk]

Delivery is free from Scan.co.uk if you take advantage of the hexus carriage offer - nip over to the scan forums a bit firther up the page for more details on that.

£400-£500, you are going to struggle to get something that overclocks well i think. Ram is expensive at the moment and so are motherboards.

The 6400 is fine, or you could save some more money by going for an E6300, and as you are going to overclock it anyway, theres no point in spending the extra just to get to the same speed

motherboard - Asus P5B Deluxe wifi. doesnt have the remote, but it is as good as boards get for the moment, but not the cheapest.

I would say 2gb of ram for games, and if you are overclocking, youll need some pc2-6400 or higher - not cheap.

[CrazyMonkey]

Not gonna be easy and i would say that anything will be £500 or over. Still i gave it a shot please post if you know any issues with any components i cant see any.

Perhaps:
Gigabyte GA-945PL-S3 £60 (Custom Pc say its a reasonable overclocker)
GeIL 1GB (2x512MB) PC5300 667MHz Value DDR2 Dual Channel Kit £70
Core2duo E6300 £120 (OEM)
120 Gb Western Digital WD1200JS Caviar SE £40
Coolermaster Cavalier 3 Black Tower Case w/o PSU £50
256MB Gainward 7900GS Bliss Golden Sample £120 (good card friends got one)
Oh and if you get OEM E6300 i would get a Scythe Ninja Plus Heatsink for extremely high end cooling £30 or a Arctic Cooler Freeze Pro 7 i think which is around £15

Subtotal £490 INC VAT (with the Scythe Ninja)
Not sure about postage.
I dont know if you need a PSU if you do i recommend for this a OCZ Modstream 520W should power it easly and allow overclocking.

You can always go for a lower end graphics card and get a more expensive Mobo for higher overclocking.

http://forums.hexus.net/announcement.php?f=5&a=9 check that for hexus trust and give it a read. Hope it all helps and free feel to contribute.
Edit the ram should be able to hit 677mhz+ when overclocked but if you want higher then GeIL 1GB (2x512MB) PC6400C4 800MHz £90 will give you a good overclock and the ram can get to 1000mhz at C5 easly.

[mattsandersuk]

cheers, thats really helpful.

i didnt actually realise it would cost that much to get an overclockable setup.

how "worth it" do you think overclocking it would be rather than saving the money, am i really gonna notice the difference in performance.

[Russ]

depends how good the cpu, you get is for oc'ing. i have 146 that does 2.9ghz on air cooling, so for the £100 a paid for it, it was well worth it. as for gfx cards and oc'ing, really can be hit and miss, my 9800pro AIW is crap for it, barely gets above stock without artifacts. im in limbo atm wether to upgrade or not, i obviously need to, still on AGP, but with quadcore on the horizon, ill just hang on me thinks.

[mattsandersuk]

thanks for your inputs, if i said i wasnt going to overclock it what motherboard and graphics card would your recomend?

my setup at the moment goes

athlon xp 1800 on a crappy pc chips motherboard that i bought out of desparation not so long ago becuase the motherboard i had was the cause of my pc not being able to boot up, and 256mb of DDR ram.

so im sure any modern setup will be a thousand times faster than what i have

[Ben_]

those onboard wireless cards are in my (limited) experience, completely crap. PCI card seems a much better option and they're only 15 odd quid

[mattsandersuk]

i have been looking at the setup you created "Crazy Monkey" and it is pretty much what i wanted except i dont think i need such a good graphics card, im not that much of a gamer, i mean i would like to play the recent games at an alright fps but i realise for my budget i im never gonna get the best so i dont mind going for a cheaper card lower down the line.

in your opinion what do you recon would suit me best a radeon or nvidia?


512MB Connect3D RX1650Pro PCI-Ex16 12Pipes 800MHz DDR2 600MHz GPU D-Sub/DVI/S-Video Retailn for £80, (i would post a link but im not allowed till i post a couple more posts)


i found that one and didnt think its a bad price but i know barely n e thing about recent graphics cards. is this a good enough card or could i get a much better one.

and thanks ben, im rethinking about that asus DH motherboard those frills could easily be added on for pretty cheap and yeh ive heard that onboard wireless isnt great.

[Ben_]

wireless in general is awful if you ask me. i cant even play online games with mine so im getting a new broadband line direct to my room insted. only 180 odd quid for the year and who wants to be behind a router anyway better a direct connection i can do what i want with

i would go for the card crazy monk suggested. its decent and tbh for the new games u need something like that even for low fps

[mattsandersuk]

i wouldnt be using the wireless for internet it would just be connecting to my laptop or other wireless devices for internet it would be wired.

i would like to get that graphics card but its a little over budget i dont mind spending that much on the graphics card but i would need to get a cheaper motherboard. does you know of any cheap quality motherboards that would be fully compatible with the core 2 duo e6400.

[Ben_]

do you have a dvd-rom and a psu ?

[jamena]

my 2c...
save on the cpu, spend it on the gpu

maybe just go for the e6300 retail and use the provided hsf, still leaves room for reasonable overclocking according to most reviews, get a better hsf later if you really need to. At the budget end the e6300 is still faster than you really need for light gaming e6400 is a step up if you feel any leftover cash is worth the little guaranteed extra, otherwise stick to the 6300, it's still good enough for most gpus available... £125

7600gt is probably a good bet for a budget gpu, though that 1650pro is probably similar? 7950gt or cheap x1900 cards are probably more future-proof worth it if you want high res and all the eye candy. I hear nvidia are better if you want a slightly quieter/cooler card. £80-£130

imo, (for now) be frugal withe the DDR2, as with a bit of luck it'll get cheaper again by sometime early next year. Leave room to upgrade this would be my suggestion.

[mattsandersuk]

do you have a dvd-rom and a psu ?

yes i dont mind salvaging old parts from my current pc, like my dvdrw drive and the case but i dont think the psu will be up to powering the new pc i cant remember what wattage it is though. i also have a 160gb HDD but thats PATA and not the new SATA so dunno whether that would come into question when choosing the motherboard.

and anyway i would ideally like to keep my current pc so it can still run but the dvd drive and HDD can come out cus i have other HDD's and DVD drives in there.



Jamena: i looked at the e6300 and thought that i would be better off going for the e6400 as it doesnt cost much more and its a step up, and apparantly u can overclock it a bit more with just the stock cooler, but i think im not going to be able to overclock much on my budget.

[mattsandersuk]

I have created a setup minus the PSU and GPU and am just wondering whether anybody see's any problems with it and whether any body knows if it will be any good.

CASE: £32

AKASA Zen case - White Silent cool Midi-ATX Computing case w/2 silent 12cm fan & front I/O ports

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...oductID=446041



MOTHERBOARD: £88

ASUS P5B-VM iG965

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...oductID=462645



Processor: £154

Intel Core 2 Duo E6400

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...oductID=430632



RAM: £74

1Gb Corsair Value Select, DDR2 PC5300 (667), 240 Pin, Non-ECC Unbuffered, CAS 5-5-5-15

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...oductID=232553


HDD: £52

250 Gb Western Digital WD2500KS Caviar SE16, SATA300, 7200 rpm, 16MB Cache, 8.9 ms

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...oductID=256891


all of this comes to £400


like i said before im looking to spend less than £500 ideally, i havent included in the list a GPU or a PSU, does anybody know what the minimum wattage the PSU can be for the setup aswell as what graphics card is recomended, it doesnt matter if it goes over the budget a little but obviously not too much. ive looked at the nividea 7900 that was mentioned before and although it looks nice its a tad expensive i wouldnt mind spending so much on the GPU if i could save a bit of money elsewhere e.g. does the motherboard need to be as good as that one, would a cheaper one do?

thanks again, and if you think of any better alternatives please say, so far you have all been really helpful cheers.

[mattsandersuk]

http://www.gladiatorcomputers.com/Pr...nk=BestSellers

just seen that link on another thread, it seems a great deal for the money,

comparing it to the setup i just posted what would be the better option do you think.

[BlindMelon7]

I'd go for the samsung hd as it is £2 cheaper and is suposed to be much quieter. If your overclocking you would be best getting better ram such as XMS2. Finaly I think you should buy the e6300 and get a better motherboard to overclock it with

Edit: Didn't see your last post. The Gladiator has a better graphics card but the ram is probably terrible as is the motherboard. However, if you cant be bothered to build it the gladiator might be your best bet. Just remember that you wont get a very good overclock out of it