Views on this beastly mother

Kerplunk

Kerplunk

Kerplunk

Soldato
Joined
10 Jan 2006
Posts
9,418
Location
Bournemouth tbh
Can anyone poke holes and give their views on this spec please. Budget about £1000

Gainward GeForce GTX 280 1024MB GDDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail £259.99
(£305.49) £259.99
(£305.49)
Antec Twelve Hundred Ultimate Gaming Case £99.99
(£117.49) £99.99
(£117.49)
Asus DRW-20B1ST 20x DVD±RW SATA Dual Layer Rewriter (Black) - OEM £14.99
(£17.61) £14.99
(£17.61)
Corsair HX 1000W ATX2.2 Modular SLI Compliant PSU (CMPSU-1000HXUK) £129.99
(£152.74) £129.99
(£152.74)
Gigabyte GA-MA790FX-DQ6 AMD 790FX (Socket AM2) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £109.99
(£129.24) £109.99
(£129.24)
GeIL 4GB (2x2GB) PC2-8500C5 1066MHz Black Dragon EVO ONE DDR2 Dual Channel Kit (GE24GB1066C5DC) £79.99
(£93.99) £79.99
(£93.99)
Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (ST31000340AS) £68.99
(£81.06) £68.99
(£81.06)
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 6000+ 3.00GHz (Socket AM2) - Retail £55.99
(£65.79) £55.99
(£65.79)
Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium SP1 64-Bit - OEM (66I-01939) £62.99
(£74.01) £62.99
(£74.01)
Sub Total : £882.91
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £9.95
VAT is being charged at 17.5% VAT : £156.25
Total : £1,049.11
 
Seriously kerplunk, when spending that much you really don't want to skimp on the processor. Go for an Intel E8*** series or Q6600 if you can stretch to it, depending on whether this is mainly for gaming or other tasks.

If you go for Intel, change that motherboard for a P45 board if you aren't bothered about SLI or a 7 series board if you do plan on going for dual GTX280 in the future. What size monitor are you going to be using? That PSU is a bit overkill too, could save yourself some money by going with the Corsair 620W modular PSU.

edit: the current Intel chips overclock much better than the AMD and even at stock speeds they are the superior chip.
 
Put it this way.

AMD suck...really hard.

Seriously though, for your price AMD is a ludicrous decision.

Plus that GPU and that 6000+ CPU would create a horrible bottleneck.
 
Last edited:
Thanks guys, is this better?

Gainward GeForce GTX 280 1024MB GDDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail £259.99
(£305.49) £259.99
(£305.49)
Antec Twelve Hundred Ultimate Gaming Case £99.99
(£117.49) £99.99
(£117.49)
Asus DRW-20B1ST 20x DVD±RW SATA Dual Layer Rewriter (Black) - OEM £14.99
(£17.61) £14.99
(£17.61)
Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550 LGA775 'Yorkfield' 2.83GHz 12MB-cache (1333FSB) Processor - Retail £199.99
(£234.99) £199.99
(£234.99)
GeIL 4GB (2x2GB) PC2-8500C5 1066MHz Black Dragon EVO ONE DDR2 Dual Channel Kit (GE24GB1066C5DC) £79.99
(£93.99) £79.99
(£93.99)
Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (ST31000340AS) £68.99
(£81.06) £68.99
(£81.06)
Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium SP1 64-Bit - OEM (66I-01939) £62.99
(£74.01) £62.99
(£74.01)
Asus P5Q Intel P45 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £74.99
(£88.11) £74.99
(£88.11)
Corsair TX 650W ATX2.2 SLi Compliant PSU £54.99
(£64.61) £54.99
(£64.61)
Sub Total : £916.91
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £9.95
VAT is being charged at 17.5% VAT : £162.20
Total : £1,089.06
 
Thats more like it, though that PSU isn't modular (personally I find modular PSUs easier to work with). If you aren't going to be using anything larger than a 22" monitor you could drop down to an ATI Radeon 4870. Even if you bought the 1Gb version of it you would save £100. If however you have a 24" or bigger monitor going for the GTX280 or 4870X2 is the sensible choice (though personally I would go for the X2).

Just check with other forum members that that PSU will be sufficient, it should be but want to be totally sure.
 
Last edited:
If you wanted to save some cash think about the 4870 512mb or 1Gb, though a lot of people may even recommend you get the 4850 at that monitor size. Whats the primary use of the PC going to be?
 
i'd go...

intel
ati


-like you i've always bought nvidia and amd..

now intel are really whooping amd, and ati have just had a big bite back at nvidia..


i've currently got q6600, 8800gt (had it a few months)

-see what others say about the chip, i suspect many will say 'get q6600'


also, i'd change the hard drive to a Samsung F1 or a WD blue drive..
 
I have the Q9550 and although its got 12mb cache and is a behemoth, its gonna take a while at least before any progs will fully use its power. So spending £200 on one is not practical imho. As recommended, get a Q6600 and clock it to hell and back, or the E8400 as seems to like racing up to nigh on 4GHz.
Can't fault the 4870.
 
why change the psu to a modular one. they aren't that much easier to work with tbh. i have the 650W you initially chose and my cable management is far better than when I had a modular psu. don't see why you should pay more for a less powerful psu, when the cheaper more powerful one is easy to work with.

and i'd get the 4870.
 
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