First time build spec, any thoughts or advice?

Bennie-Mac

Bennie-Mac

Bennie-Mac

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First Post :D

After years of being a slave to dell.co.uk i finally decided to stop messing around and build my own rig! Im looking at building a really good AMD Spider system for a budget of about £1200, my specs are below, any tips or advice would be most helpful!

CPU - AMD Phenom Quad Core 9950 Black Edition (already ordered)

Motherboard - Asus M3A32-MVP Deluxe

PSU - Antec Quattro 850W

Case - Antec 1200 (already ordered)

Graphics Card - HIS ATi Radeon 4870x2 2048Mb

Memory - 4GB Corsair Dominator 1066MHz

HDD - Western Digital Veloceraptior 300GB

Optical Drive - Probably a black one to match the case :)

Monitor - Samsung T220 22" (already ordered)

As i said any advice you guys can give would be great!
 
ahh, your not going to like the advice much i'm afriad. Essentailly you should have got an Intel, atm they are faster and overclock like hell compared to the Athlons.
 
Yeah ive heard that can be the case, but im gonna perservere with the AMD setup, mainly cos ive already shelled out for the CPU :P

Although ive read peoples reviews of the Phenom and people are able to get it to 3.4GHz no problem...
 
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Still fast but get more juice in an intel at the moment - plus they o/c better.

10,000rpm HDD needed? noisey and cost more for space - can get 2 1T 7200rpm HDDs and put them in raid0 for the same price? Search speeds wont be quite as fast but shifting big files will be faster.

PSU might be slight overkill as well - 750W should be enough.
 
You can go with the same advice for AMD setups with power supplies. TX650 or TX750 will be enough.

As for other parts, 4850 or 4870, GeIL Black Dragon PC6400 4GB, and a WD6400AAKS (not noticeably slower than the VelociRaptor).
 
4870x2 is probably a bit wasted on that monitor. Do you have the option of cancelling the order and getting a bigger one?
 
Faffer said:
4870x2 is probably a bit wasted on that monitor. Do you have the option of cancelling the order and getting a bigger one?
Click to expand...

Ah right i take it that the 4870X2 is more for higher resolution monitors? Sorry im a bit new to the world of computers, as i said, previous dell slave :)

Im not wanting that big of a monitor though, dont think i could concentrate on the whole screen. If i can get the monitor changed ill go with a 24" one.

Thanks for your advice everyone!
 
Also, has anyone heard anything about the standard heatsink that comes with the Phenom? If its rubbish can you recommend a good alternative.

Ta
 
Dont know about the stock ones tbh but heres some decent aftermarket ones


Good 17 quid one

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showp...R&groupid=701&catid=57&subcat=821&name=Arctic Cooling Freezer 64 Pro PWM CPU Cooler (Socket 754/939/940/AM2)

Pretty good 40 quid one

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showp...A&groupid=701&catid=57&subcat=821&name=Zalman CNPS9700-LED CPU Cooler (Socket 754/939/940/AM2/LGA775)

Better 60quid one (didn't these used to be about 45quid a week or two ago or am i imagining things?)

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showp...SB&groupid=701&catid=57&subcat=821&name=Tuniq Tower 120-LFB CPU Cooler (Socket 478/754/939/940/AM2/LGA775)


edit, yeh it was, found this spec i did about a week ago, 46 then 58 now, huge increase!!!

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?p=12441726#post12441726
 
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Can you not return the Phenom via the Distance Selling Regulation? I know you're mind set on AMD but really the performance difference for the money would be well worth going the Intel route.

Gl either way :)
 
Edward01 said:
Dont know about the stock ones tbh but heres some decent aftermarket ones


Good 17 quid one

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showp...R&groupid=701&catid=57&subcat=821&name=Arctic Cooling Freezer 64 Pro PWM CPU Cooler (Socket 754/939/940/AM2)

Pretty good 40 quid one

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showp...A&groupid=701&catid=57&subcat=821&name=Zalman CNPS9700-LED CPU Cooler (Socket 754/939/940/AM2/LGA775)

Better 60quid one (didn't these used to be about 45quid a week or two ago or am i imagining things?)

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showp...SB&groupid=701&catid=57&subcat=821&name=Tuniq Tower 120-LFB CPU Cooler (Socket 478/754/939/940/AM2/LGA775)


edit, yeh it was, found this spec i did about a week ago, 46 then 58 now, huge increase!!!

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?p=12441726#post12441726
Click to expand...

The LED version of it was £28 several weeks ago. This is just getting stupid. I can still pick up a Tuniq Tower for £35 at another shop, why is OcUK at sixty damn quid?
 
Namistai said:
Can you not return the Phenom via the Distance Selling Regulation? I know you're mind set on AMD but really the performance difference for the money would be well worth going the Intel route.

Gl either way :)
Click to expand...

It was only £125 for the Phenom, im gonna stick with it as ive read good reviews and people seem to be getting decent overclocks out of it. Plus the stickers already on my case :p
 
Well fair enough, but if you take a bit of time to read comparisons of Core2Duo to Phenom you'll see what we're talking about :)
 
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