New PC system advice (for me)

[GarethG]

Hi guys im current in the decision making stage of buying a new pc, the price range i have is a maximum of £800 and no higher.

I have so far come up with this which i believe is a good system for £800.

The system will mainly be used for gaming and should be able to play the latest games and future games for about at least 1 year ahead. It will also be used for college work and study (yeah right )........no seriously.

Well i think thats all you need to know, if you could help me on this decision making (i.e. find something better within the price range) i would be very greatful.

Cheers.

P.S. I already have 1GB of corsair ram which is still in its packaging =]

[billythewiz]

Hi Gareth,

it might be worth reposting this in the hardstuff rather than the turnkey section.

Looks like a good set of components. You obviously have some hardcore gaming planned

You might want to opt for a better value cpu though. The 3700 is about £90 cheaper and "almost" as good.

That £90 could be used for a second HDD, so you could run the pair in a striped raid array.
Or it could go towards some better cooling if overclocking takes your fancy.
Or a more fancy case and some lights, if modding is your thing.
It would buy a game or too.
It may also be enough to push the 7800GT up to a GTX if you think that's worth it.

Finally, one thing to beware. The scan page has a warning about that Mobo.

*Please note due to the special onboard chip set Heat Pipe cooler this motherboard is not compatiable with Cases that use the motherboard upside down such as the Silverstone "TEMJIN" J06-B and Enermax CS-718

I'd check with scan that your case and Mobo choices are compatible before clicking the buy button.

Good luck with your new system.

[dave87]

Instead of going for a cheaper processor billy mentioned seriously consider getting an opty 146 - once overclocked they hit (even the bad ones) around 2.3Ghz or higher (depending on cpu).

The money saved could get you the gtx and an extra gig of ram?

Dave

[GarethG]

two good responces there guys cheers, will have a think about them.

I have no experience with a RAID setup at all, are they easy to setup? Or is the 2nd HDD just act as a plug n play kind of thing?

I also dont have much experience with overclocking so i usually get a friend to do it. But he is no longer in the same city as me now so time to start learning huh =[

The extra RAM im not too sure about, iv had people saying that nowadays its all about 2Gig of ram in a pc. Altho i have 1Gig of fairly good XMS Corsair ram it may push the costs slightly over budget.

Not realy a big fan of modding cases and such, i prefare simple but stylish cases. The one i chose seems to fit that.

The Scan warning you mentioned i saw on the page, but i think thats only applied to desktop flat cases? dont think i have come across a tower case which holds the mobo upside down (but in any case ill take your advice and contact them).

Upgrading the GFX is a big thing i could consider, graphics is probably the most important component when it comes to gaming.

The reason i chose this CPU is because i think it will make the systems usage life time longer i.e. it will play alot more future games than one with a lesser CPU.

Games i wont take into account for the total budget they can be added on when i want to but them =] right now i think i have enough games to keep me satisfied hehe.

Once again guys cheers for the replies

[Tobeman]

If you want a CPU to last longer, you'd get a dual core No noticable difference currently over having two cores, infact probably a performance hit due to their slower stock clock speeds, but hopefully a noticable one when multi-threaded games (read: UT2007!) arrive

[RavenNight]

The warning is about upright Cases where the motherboard is inverted, there are some that do that.

The 4000/3700 thing I'd really go for the 3700 they OC oh so easily to 4000 speed and are otherwise identical.

RAID is really easy to setup, especially with the Asus mobo you mentioned, just use the Cd to create a RAID floppy disk and when you install windows use that and hey presto! The speed difference is noticeable.

[billythewiz]

The reason i chose this CPU is because i think it will make the systems usage life time longer

TBH I think the whole futureproof/upgradability issue is all a bit of an ideological myth.

I built a system ~4 years ago with a view to it having a long life and being upgradable.

The reality is that for at least 2 years everything on it is pretty much obsolete. The (Skt A) Mobo wont take athlons over 1.3MHz, the £300 AGP GeForce 2 Ultra is now probably worth £10 and the memory and HDD are both smaaaaall and slooooow by today's standard.

This time round my plan is to buy a cheap(ish) CPU (Opteron 144) and replace it in a couple of years when the FX59s and X2 5200s are £150
Same plan with the Gfx. I'm getting an a 7800GT now and plan to add a second in SLi once the price has dropped to £100 and there are games to use all that power.