Tips for 700 pound rig? Pretty please with a lolcat on top?

R3d_Menace · 18 Feb 2010 at 01:45

Hi fellas, this is what I've scrounged up so far, it's my first build. I'll be building in a few months time, so a few prices may drop here and there, but unless something groundbreaking comes up I'll probably stick with a variation on this.

I'm looking for fairly decent upgradeability (the mobo is expensive, but I want to be able to Crossfire). Otherwise, any recommendations with regard to bottlenecking? I'd like a faster GPU if possible, but the 5850 is quite a bit more expensive... what do you recommend I do? Also, the RAM is from nobodies on Ebay - could this cause a problem? DDR3 is hellishly expensive if bought normally. I'm not extreme overclocking or anything (I'm aiming to push the 750 to about 4Ghz) Cheers.

SPECS:

Core i5 750 - £150

PowerColor HD5770 graphics card- £120

4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 1333MHz/PC3-10666 CL7 Unbuffered - £66

NZXT Hades case - £61

OR OCZ ModXStream 600W - £60

Sony AD-5240S 24x DVD±RW DL Internal SATA Black Bare Drive - £15.30

Samsung SpinPoint F3 500GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - £37.6

Asrock P55 extreme -£116

Scythe Mugen 2 - 40

Arctic silver 5 - 5

Total: £671

Strawberry · 18 Feb 2010 at 02:00

If you want a faster GPU than the 5770 but can't afford the 5850 then get a 4890 or 4890X2 even better.

Also SSD. Harddrives bottleneck your entire system.

arknor · 18 Feb 2010 at 02:12

hardrives do not bottleneck an entire system because they arent constantly beeing read from, he wants to game not rip dvds...

Strawberry · 18 Feb 2010 at 02:16

Yeah but boot times, loading screens, program loading times etc. they all matter in the long run.

Hotwired · 18 Feb 2010 at 02:21

Strawberry said:
Yeah but boot times, loading screens, program loading times etc. they all matter in the long run.

No, they matter in the short run (unless you are using this for time critical work). Once loaded there's not much more for the storage drive to do.

A SSD will not speed up the running of a program unless running requires frequently reading/writing to storage. Since games tend to run from memory you don't get an advantage in play.

Also since the limit is £700 a SSD is going to trash storage space to get in on the list.

bJN · 18 Feb 2010 at 02:32

Strawberry said:
If you want a faster GPU than the 5770 but can't afford the 5850 then get a 4890 or 4890X2 even better.

Also SSD. Harddrives bottleneck your entire system.

If hard drives bottleneck a system then before they were available does that mean everyone was bottlenecked? *sigh*

SSDs are there for those that have the money to throw away / spend on computers, in the long run a hard drive will actually beat a SSD as the the SSDs will eventually die, they just provide quicker access, read and write times than standard drives.

arknor · 18 Feb 2010 at 02:34

bJN said:
If hard drives bottleneck a system then before they were available does that mean everyone was bottlenecked? *sigh*

SSDs are there for those that have the money to throw away / spend on computers, in the long run a hard drive will actually beat a SSD as the the SSDs will eventually die, they just provide quicker access, read and write times than standard drives.

yea i wouldnt waste my money on them they are still new tech and come at a price premium , even the newest models will be outdated masively within a year.

Strawberry · 18 Feb 2010 at 02:43

All right, listen to them

Slashiem · 18 Feb 2010 at 03:51

Your basket

Product Name Qty Price Line Total

Powercolor ATI Radeon HD 5850 "Dirt2 Edition" 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £209.98
(£178.71) £209.98
(£178.71)

Intel Core i5 750 2.66Ghz (Lynnfield) (Socket LGA1156) - OEM £149.99
(£127.65) £149.99
(£127.65)

Gigabyte GA-P55-US3L Intel P55 (Socket 1156) DDR3 Motherboard £80.99
(£68.93) £80.99
(£68.93)

Patriot Sector 5 Viper II 4GB (2x2GB) PC3-12800 1600MHz Dual Channel + 3D Mark Vantage (PVV34G1600LLKB) £76.99
(£65.52) £76.99
(£65.52)

OCZ ModXStream Pro 600w Silent SLI Certified Modular Power Supply £59.98
(£51.05) £59.98
(£51.05)

Antec 300 Three Hundred Ultimate Gaming Case - Black £40.98
(£34.88) £40.98
(£34.88)

Samsung SpinPoint F3 500GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD502HJ) £39.99
(£34.03) £39.99
(£34.03)

Titan TTC-NK85TZ Fenrir CPU Cooler (Socket 754/939/940/AM2/LGA775/LGA1366) £32.99
(£28.08) £32.99
(£28.08)

Samsung SH-S223C/BEBE 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £14.99
(£12.76) £14.99
(£12.76) Sub Total : £601.61 Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £12.50 VAT is being charged at 17.50% VAT : £107.47 Total : £721.58

You have your ATI 5850, but no crossfire support.

To save yourself 5 quid could get this http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-037-OC&groupid=701&catid=123&subcat= (low W's).

But over budget.

arknor · 18 Feb 2010 at 12:21

fenrir doesnt fit socket 1156?

R3d_Menace · 18 Feb 2010 at 14:42

Alright, thanks for the heads-up on SSDs! I might stick one in there once I run an upgrade. Any general comments otherwise? Will buying crappy RAM completely cream my system?

arknor · 18 Feb 2010 at 15:59

i wouldnt risk buying no name ebay ram its probably some fake cack from hongkong

the_spartan_mk · 18 Feb 2010 at 17:22

One thing to bare in mind when you are building your own computer is not to fall for the '' Overclocked '' trap.

They charge extortionate prices for a minor upgrade which you could have done your self very easily and saved your self hundreds of pounds.

Always go for stock settings and OC them your self.

R3d_Menace · 19 Feb 2010 at 01:02

Thanks for the tips, and bump.

sjcf1 · 19 Feb 2010 at 01:12

arknor said:
fenrir doesnt fit socket 1156?

I believe the new Fenrir has the bracket for socket 1156

R3d_Menace said:
Will buying crappy RAM completely cream my system?

Your spending £700 on a computer rig? My experience, don't skimp on parts, especially if your even thinking about oc'ing them. You won't thank yourself later.

Hotwired · 19 Feb 2010 at 01:40

The Titan Fenrir you have on that list does not fit 1156.

The V2 version or CS (red christmas) version does. But OCUK doesn't stock them.

wakayoda · 19 Feb 2010 at 10:59

don't get an ssd, just raid 2 hdds, the only thing a ssd will do is make every other pc you use slow

R3d_Menace · 19 Feb 2010 at 23:24

wakayoda said:
don't get an ssd, just raid 2 hdds, the only thing a ssd will do is make every other pc you use slow

Any particular reason I should RAID 2? Won't one do?

Strawberry · 19 Feb 2010 at 23:28

edit: oops wrong thread

Edit 2: Well, to contribute, RAID with two HDDs is faster than "RAID" with one (you can't RAID a single HDD, RAID is by definition multiple HDDs together), because the load can alternate between drives (at least if you're using RAID0), so if you're writing 5000 files, each drive only has to write 2,500 files, and can do this at the same time.

R3d_Menace · 21 Feb 2010 at 18:08

Strawberry said:
edit: oops wrong thread

Edit 2: Well, to contribute, RAID with two HDDs is faster than "RAID" with one (you can't RAID a single HDD, RAID is by definition multiple HDDs together), because the load can alternate between drives (at least if you're using RAID0), so if you're writing 5000 files, each drive only has to write 2,500 files, and can do this at the same time.

Alright, thanks! I'll try and save my old hard drive then.