PC Build - Games and 3D Art compromise needed for £1000

Varsh

Varsh

Varsh

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Edit: Updating this old rig to a new one, now starts from post #54

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Currently I've been totting around for a while trying to figure out a decent build needed to allow me to not only play top end games, but also being able to do 3D Modelling with a good 8 milliom+ polygons on screen at once and not have too much of a problem (something better than 1 frame every 4 seconds on my current rig when rotating the camera).

For what I do a lot of (excluding being an avid gamer), I tend to do 3D Modelling (Max/MudBox), video encoding, video capturing, and other general game/art development. I also have dual screens and possibly might want to have the option of a third of which one would be HDMI and the two I'm using now are DVI. Because I do lots of development I've decided to stick to Nvidia and 8GB RAM minimum, but for everything else I'm open for ideas. My current thoughts is this:

CPU: AMD Phenom II 965 BE (£165)
HSF: Noctua NH-U12P SE2 (£62)
GPU: Gainward GTX 260 Golden Sample 1792MB (£174)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-MA790XT-UD4P (£108)
RAM: Corsair XMS3 8GB DDR3 PC3-10666C9 (£170) - (2x £85)
PSU: Coolermaster Silent Pro Modular 850W (£123)
Case: Coolermaster RC-1000 Cosmos (£135)
Optical: LG BH08LS20 8x Blu-Ray-RW/DVD±RW (£144)
HDD: Samsung EcoGreen F2 1TB (£63)
HDD: Intel X25-V Value 40GB 2.5" SATA-II Solid State Hard Drive (£93)
Total: ~£1214.62

The PSU obviously I think is OTT wattage wise however I only want a fully modular PSU, not one that's half and half - although I still think this is half and half unlike my current Jeantech. Also I have a lot of USB devices that are powered by the PC which includes devices like a Wacom Tablet. The HDD situation I'm unsure about. I'm requiring fast access times but the price of SSD's right now are still far too high, so perhaps a RAID 0 2x 500GB HDDs might work better instead?

I'm pretty sure I could probably get a better PC than this and for cheaper (I'll be putting Win 7 64b), just need to have a better direction in what to get. Any ideas?
 
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Things I would change:
1.)The Phenom II X4 965 can be had for around £140 and under. £165 is too high a price!!

The other alternative is to get the slightly slower Phenom II X4 955BE for around £120 to £125.

2.)This motherboard will do the trick:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-366-AS&groupid=701&catid=5&subcat=

3.)The cooler is a waste of money. This one is far better value for money:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HS-008-TI

4.)If you are not overclocking then the stock Phenom II X4 cooler is very good.

5.)The PSU is OTT!! Get one of these PSUs instead:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-104-AN

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-104-AN

Both have got very good reviews.

6.)Get a Samsung F3 1TB as your storage drive:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-082-SA

7.)I would look for a GTX275 as this has more Stream processors which is important for CUDA. If you cannot get one for around £180 and under get the cheapest GTX260 for under £150. The problem is that both the GTX260 and GTX275 are in very short supply ATM.

8.)Get a Samsung F3 500GB as your boot drive as SSDs are still very expensive at the moment.
 
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  1. I'm taking the prices directly from this website including VAT, I'll be shopping around anyway for the best prices though I'm just using these as general references currently ;)
  2. I was contemplating that one with the Gigabyte too, I'll give it some thought
  3. Nice HSF, seeing as I most likely won't be OCing I guess this would be a better option
  4. I'll see what the stock is like before I get a new HSF. I chose one just in case though I always find that stock HSF's are loud and vibrate, I prefer quiet HSF's.
  5. You linked to the same PSU ^^;
  6. What should I use as my main HDD though? That's the part I'm stuck on
  7. The stream processors will certainly help but then the extra VRAM on the Gainward is something that will come in handy during modelling, so I need to have some sort of compromise in this department
  8. You just answered my question lol!
 
This is the other PSU:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-117-AN

The Signature only has 2 PCI-E power cables though!!

However it is a fantastic PSU and has excellent reviews:

http://www.jonnyguru.com/modules.php?name=NDReviews&op=Story&reid=113

http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/658

The PSU is made by Delta Electronics.

TBH,with some of the changes I suggested the build should be around £1000 now!! :)

For the case have you considered the Antec Solo or Fractal Design R2??
 
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The problem with the signature psu is also a lack of 8pin pci connectors. So any future card would need some sort of adaptor if it needed one.
 
I previously looked at that PSU and hated the fact that it had more built-in connections than what felt like my old PSU. Just so you know what my current PSU is it's similar to this: http://jeantech.com/storm.htm

It's 100% fully modular, decently quiet, and 84% efficient (my version doesn't have the LED and it's 750W). If there's another PSU similar to this then that would be great otherwise I might just get another one of these, especially knowing that the 12pin connector is very long so it's great for a tall case like the Cosmos.

The Antec Solo is too small, especially for a GTX card, plus it looks horrible :p. The Fractal Design is also too small of a case (and looks like a smaller version of my P180). I'll be needing 3 front 5.25" slots - 1 BD-RW, 1 spare DVD-RW, Creative X-Fi I/O, so those two won't cut it for me. ^^;

The price certainly has come down a lot though from the suggestions made thus far thankyou. :)

Edit: Stulid, you live in the same town as I do!
 
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Varsh, perhaps you would like to see how well a ANTEC new truepower 650w fits in a ATCS840 case?
 
The ATCS840 costs £20 more than the RC1000 and I'm still not keen on the Truepower. To be honest I've always had problems with Antec PSUs for some odd reason, it's like they hate me despite knowing their solidly built. I think I'm just jynxed with their PSUs.

Edit: Cheers for the other PSUs, I'll be taking a good look through these. :)
 
I used to shop at the burnt down Lidl but now moved to Aldi, they have better food. ;)

This Seasonic X-650 seems a bit too good... only £105 inc VAT elsewhere so that's already £18 cheaper than the CM 850.

I'm still open for cases with the silent treatments and also the RAM. I'm just searching round for the best prices at the moment to see what I Can come up with.
 
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The fortress is a bit expensive, and the Falcon has a window, I hate windows and rather not have lights shining everywhere, same goes for the Antec 1200. ;)

Sorry about being so picky!

I have been looking around and managed to get the entire lot down to ~£1080. I might have to just drop an HDD and go for a 250GB. I have plenty of HDDs that I use in my external enclosure so I can make do for a while, and possibly just stick with 4GB RAM instead of the 8GB for the time being too. That would cut it down to the magic mark.
 
It would be better to go with the F3 500GB for a boot drive!! I used to have a 320GB Spinpoint T before and the F3 is much faster and my system is more responsive IMHO.

Regarding the cases I am not a fan of case windows either.
 
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