After going through a couple of laptops, I've reached the conclusion that they fill up with dust and overheat in my warm attic too easily, so I need to build a big strong tower case box. I'm a little rusty on current tech - the last time I built a machine was with a DFI nForce Ultra B board (how come motherboards aren't UV-reactive like they used to be?!). Anyhoo, there's a few prerequisites to my required spec:
Budget: £1500. Obviously I'd like to spend less, but that's the most I'm comfortable spending for a decent machine.
Must have two separate hard drives - one for OS/programs, and a much larger (preferably 2TB or more) one for music/documents/dev/important stuff I don't want to lose.
Dual displays - I'm pretty firm on 2x BenQ G2420HDBL 24" Widescreen LED Monitors, as they're cheap and get rave reviews everywhere I go.
The machine will be used for general everyday usage, audio recording, and a little (sim racing) gaming.
It's gonna be left on 24/7 a lot of the time, so I need it not to make too much noise.
Air cooling only, no water cooling setups.
Keyboard, mouse, OS, soundcard, and the all-important steering wheel and pedals will be provided by me separate from this machine's budget.
I propose the following spec - I've added comments to each item so you can see why I've chosen them:
BenQ G2420HDBL 24" Widescreen LED Monitor | £164.99
BenQ G2420HDBL 24" Widescreen LED Monitor | £164.99
Coolermaster ATCS 840 Classic Case – Black | £149.98 >>> From what I gather, this case is the bees-knees. Full tower, and very quiet. Although it's expensive, I consider it an 'investment' for the future
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Cooler Master Silent Pro Modular 700W Power Supply | £89.99 >>> It's the same brand, so it should go nicely in the ATCS 840, right? 700W should be enough(?), but the case supports dual PSU's, so I can buy another to pump things up a bit if really needed.
Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM | £84.99
Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM | £84.99 >>> I don't care about it being on offer, but this is one of the few SATA III 6Gb/s drives – provided I use a motherboard that supports that. The speed advantage seems worth paying for? Although one of these drives will be used for the OS/programs and the other for storage, I intend to relegate both these drives to the role of 'storage' and purchase a SSD drive once they're a bit more sensible to use as a faster OS/programs drive in the future.
Sony Optiarc AD-7241S 24x DVD±RW SATA Lightscribe Optical Drive (Black) - OEM | £18.99 >>> Any old DVD+/-RW SATA drive will do – this one seems nice and hopefully matches the case.
That's £778.01 so far, leaving us £721.99. Now it gets a little harder:
AMD Phenom II X4 Quad Core 965 Black Edition 3.40GHz (Socket AM3) - Retail | £154.99 >>> I've chosen the AMD route for no reason other than there's a certain comfort in being able to throw a company's top-of-the-range CPU into my shopping trolly. Although they're due to release a six-core CPU soon, apparently these 'cores' don't make much difference anyway?
Asus M4A89GTD PRO/USB3 AMD 890GX (Socket AM3) PCI-Express DDR3 Motherboard | £119.99 >>> Although the Asus Crosshair III board looks nice (bright packaging), it doesn't support 6Gbp/s SATA so it's out the window. I intend to overclock, but not to go crazy. I just want a nice, popular, reliable board, and do not intend to upgrade the CPU. Is this one suitable?
G.Skill Ripjaw 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C7 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (F3-12800CL7D-4GBRH) | £111.35 >>> Not really sure which RAM to go for – I guess this (at 1600Mhz with C7 timing) is quite fast?
Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 5870 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card | £323.99 >>> You all know far more than me about video cards, but this one seems popular. To save a few quid for a decent after-market CPU fan, might have to drop down to something in the 5850 or GTX 275 range?
After-market heatsink + fan – no idea. Can anyone suggest a great one to go with everything above?
The above four items cost £721.50. Not bad, eh? All together the above spec comes to £1499.51. I assume this is quite a tasty bit of machine that will attract the chicks? I'd be eternally grateful if people could suggest improvements or alert me to any incompatibilities!
Budget: £1500. Obviously I'd like to spend less, but that's the most I'm comfortable spending for a decent machine.
Must have two separate hard drives - one for OS/programs, and a much larger (preferably 2TB or more) one for music/documents/dev/important stuff I don't want to lose.
Dual displays - I'm pretty firm on 2x BenQ G2420HDBL 24" Widescreen LED Monitors, as they're cheap and get rave reviews everywhere I go.
The machine will be used for general everyday usage, audio recording, and a little (sim racing) gaming.
It's gonna be left on 24/7 a lot of the time, so I need it not to make too much noise.
Air cooling only, no water cooling setups.
Keyboard, mouse, OS, soundcard, and the all-important steering wheel and pedals will be provided by me separate from this machine's budget.
I propose the following spec - I've added comments to each item so you can see why I've chosen them:
BenQ G2420HDBL 24" Widescreen LED Monitor | £164.99
BenQ G2420HDBL 24" Widescreen LED Monitor | £164.99
Coolermaster ATCS 840 Classic Case – Black | £149.98 >>> From what I gather, this case is the bees-knees. Full tower, and very quiet. Although it's expensive, I consider it an 'investment' for the future
.Cooler Master Silent Pro Modular 700W Power Supply | £89.99 >>> It's the same brand, so it should go nicely in the ATCS 840, right? 700W should be enough(?), but the case supports dual PSU's, so I can buy another to pump things up a bit if really needed.
Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM | £84.99
Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM | £84.99 >>> I don't care about it being on offer, but this is one of the few SATA III 6Gb/s drives – provided I use a motherboard that supports that. The speed advantage seems worth paying for? Although one of these drives will be used for the OS/programs and the other for storage, I intend to relegate both these drives to the role of 'storage' and purchase a SSD drive once they're a bit more sensible to use as a faster OS/programs drive in the future.
Sony Optiarc AD-7241S 24x DVD±RW SATA Lightscribe Optical Drive (Black) - OEM | £18.99 >>> Any old DVD+/-RW SATA drive will do – this one seems nice and hopefully matches the case.
That's £778.01 so far, leaving us £721.99. Now it gets a little harder:
AMD Phenom II X4 Quad Core 965 Black Edition 3.40GHz (Socket AM3) - Retail | £154.99 >>> I've chosen the AMD route for no reason other than there's a certain comfort in being able to throw a company's top-of-the-range CPU into my shopping trolly. Although they're due to release a six-core CPU soon, apparently these 'cores' don't make much difference anyway?
Asus M4A89GTD PRO/USB3 AMD 890GX (Socket AM3) PCI-Express DDR3 Motherboard | £119.99 >>> Although the Asus Crosshair III board looks nice (bright packaging), it doesn't support 6Gbp/s SATA so it's out the window. I intend to overclock, but not to go crazy. I just want a nice, popular, reliable board, and do not intend to upgrade the CPU. Is this one suitable?
G.Skill Ripjaw 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C7 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (F3-12800CL7D-4GBRH) | £111.35 >>> Not really sure which RAM to go for – I guess this (at 1600Mhz with C7 timing) is quite fast?
Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 5870 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card | £323.99 >>> You all know far more than me about video cards, but this one seems popular. To save a few quid for a decent after-market CPU fan, might have to drop down to something in the 5850 or GTX 275 range?
After-market heatsink + fan – no idea. Can anyone suggest a great one to go with everything above?
The above four items cost £721.50. Not bad, eh? All together the above spec comes to £1499.51. I assume this is quite a tasty bit of machine that will attract the chicks? I'd be eternally grateful if people could suggest improvements or alert me to any incompatibilities!
.