Hi everybody, please could I have some advice (pc build)

PraxxtorCruel · 26 Mar 2010 at 16:43

New pc build, need advice...

Updated 28th March

Hello again, this is my new pc build yet again, looking for advice on compatibility issues if any, any recommendations and also why have the cheaper mobo's got 4 gpu support whilst the more expensive only 3? Would i be able to fit 3 gpu's in that case as shown below. Am I able to mix and match gpu's of different brands? Not just 3 x ati 5850 (example). Also I just noticed with the motherboard I chose I quote;

'Memory: 6x DDR3 DIMM 2200 / 1333 / 1066 / 800 MHz'

My chosen ram runs at 1600mhz, does that mean it does not support it? Lastly is it me or do the cheaper mobo's seem to have better specs Lol.

95thrifles · 26 Mar 2010 at 16:47

Hi and welcome
Youre right not to link to them, but tbh you shouldnt really mention them either, sry - you might wanna read the FAQs to make sure you dont make any othre mistakes
It can be done, but rather than building a replica of that machine why dont you tell us what you want the machine to be able to do and we can customise it even better for you

Higadeb · 26 Mar 2010 at 17:01

As above. Tell us what you want to do and we'll spec you a machine.
Also, you've gotta remember that most pre-build PC's often come with value components with stock cooling. Whilst this isn't a problem due to warranties. Even if you did build a PC with the same spec as you quoted one, you would have quality components which are much more stable, gives you the opportunity to OC should you wish to, plus the machine would be easily upgradable in the future.

Edit: sorry, seems I missed part of your original post. Is this basically a gaming PC? Do you need monitor, speakers, keyboard/mouse etc?

cmndr_andi · 26 Mar 2010 at 17:05

Hi there, welcome to the OCUK forums

You mention that you are looking for a gaming machine, is that the main usage of the system or will you be needing it to do other demanding tasks?

I just did a spec using OCUK components, and it came to £940 - but please let me stress that I am not saying that the dell is a good deal. Dell use crappy cases power supplies, custom (locked down) motherboard, and bargain basement components throughout. The OCUK spec was made with quality, overclocking friendly compoents.

However, with this all said - if you are wanting a gaming machine, an i7, HD 5770, 8GB system is exactly what you don't want. The CPU is far more powerful than the GPU, the RAM is surplus to requirements and the 5770 will hold everything back in games. Throw in the inability to overclock on Dell machines, and the high chance that the case/mobo/psu will not support crossfire means that it makes for a pretty bad gaming PC.

Here is my counter spec:

This motherboard supports proper x8x8 crossfire and the power supply is more than powerful enough to power 2 x 5850 cards should you wish.

If you want to add a second 1TB HDD and switch the optical drive to a blu-ray reader/ DVD writer you will be at your £1000 budget.

PapaLazaru · 26 Mar 2010 at 17:26

If it is just for gaming you could consider the AMD route and get a rig that would pee pee all over that Dell rubbish.

RichIbizaSport · 26 Mar 2010 at 18:44

PraxxtorCruel said:
I am mainly looking for something that in the future when I want to upgrade can hit 24gb ram and crossfire/sli.

That gave me a bit of a chuckle

The SQL servers at my work have only just got 12GB in, I certainly can't see home user's needing more than 8GB in the next 2-3 years, by which time you'll be after a new machine anyway

welshdragon · 26 Mar 2010 at 18:53

cmndr_andi said:
Hi there, welcome to the OCUK forums

You mention that you are looking for a gaming machine, is that the main usage of the system or will you be needing it to do other demanding tasks?

I just did a spec using OCUK components, and it came to £940 - but please let me stress that I am not saying that the dell is a good deal. Dell use crappy cases power supplies, custom (locked down) motherboard, and bargain basement components throughout. The OCUK spec was made with quality, overclocking friendly compoents.

However, with this all said - if you are wanting a gaming machine, an i7, HD 5770, 8GB system is exactly what you don't want. The CPU is far more powerful than the GPU, the RAM is surplus to requirements and the 5770 will hold everything back in games. Throw in the inability to overclock on Dell machines, and the high chance that the case/mobo/psu will not support crossfire means that it makes for a pretty bad gaming PC.

Here is my counter spec:

This motherboard supports proper x8x8 crossfire and the power supply is more than powerful enough to power 2 x 5850 cards should you wish.

If you want to add a second 1TB HDD and switch the optical drive to a blu-ray reader/ DVD writer you will be at your £1000 budget.

This, sage advice, go the dell route at your peril, it will cost you more in the long run

PraxxtorCruel · 26 Mar 2010 at 23:20

PapaLazaru said:
If it is just for gaming you could consider the AMD route and get a rig that would pee pee all over that Dell rubbish.

Yes mostly for gaming as I haven't been in the gaming scene for around 3-4 years now so would like to see whats been happening. I don't know why but I just feel intel is far more superior?

RichIbizaSport said:
That gave me a bit of a chuckle
The SQL servers at my work have only just got 12GB in, I certainly can't see home user's needing more than 8GB in the next 2-3 years, by which time you'll be after a new machine anyway

Haha I thought 12gb was standard these days

.

welshdragon said:
This, sage advice, go the dell route at your peril, it will cost you more in the long run

I agree with you guys, dell computers have crap upgrading possibilities and I'm looking for something that I can continue to upgrade in the future. I'm gonna play around a little with the build that one nice fella posted and see if I can get a motherboard that accepts triple channel, bump the ram to 6gb and hit an intel core i7 processor and hopefully not go too far over my budget hehe. So that psu and case is good to go with crossfire and sli gaming. Am I looking at max possibility of two ati hd5850's before I'd have to change the psu and perhaps the motherboard?

PraxxtorCruel · 26 Mar 2010 at 23:24

cmndr_andi said:
Hi there, welcome to the OCUK forums

You mention that you are looking for a gaming machine, is that the main usage of the system or will you be needing it to do other demanding tasks?

I just did a spec using OCUK components, and it came to £940 - but please let me stress that I am not saying that the dell is a good deal. Dell use crappy cases power supplies, custom (locked down) motherboard, and bargain basement components throughout. The OCUK spec was made with quality, overclocking friendly compoents.

However, with this all said - if you are wanting a gaming machine, an i7, HD 5770, 8GB system is exactly what you don't want. The CPU is far more powerful than the GPU, the RAM is surplus to requirements and the 5770 will hold everything back in games. Throw in the inability to overclock on Dell machines, and the high chance that the case/mobo/psu will not support crossfire means that it makes for a pretty bad gaming PC.

Here is my counter spec:

This motherboard supports proper x8x8 crossfire and the power supply is more than powerful enough to power 2 x 5850 cards should you wish.

If you want to add a second 1TB HDD and switch the optical drive to a blu-ray reader/ DVD writer you will be at your £1000 budget.

Hi thank you for your time. What is 8x8? Do you have any idea how much I'd be looking to dish out if I bumped the motherboard to something that accepted triple channel ram too, and replace the current ram with triple channel ddr3 and intel core i7 processor. You did a fantastic job with that build. It's quite nice. Thank you again. Also if I decided to go overboard with my budget should I be looking at paying something around £200 for a motherboard so its future proof for upgrading or is this one more than capable?

Audigex · 26 Mar 2010 at 23:30

12gb isn't standard - 4/6 is standard (dual and tri-channel respectively) 8 or 12gb is pretty rare, and only really used by those doing very heavy photo/music/video editing.

The Dell crap seems good, because they use a very basic trick - shout about the core components (Lots of GHz! Loads of GB! WOAH!) and then give you a complete load of **** for the components people don't know about.

Intel i5 and especially i7 are faster clock-for-clock than AMD - but in the price/performance i5 and Phenom II are pretty equivalent. Basically, it depends on your usage

Heavy encoding/video/music/imaging work, go for the i7 - basically only worthwhile if you spend 3+ hours a day using these types of programs.

Pure/mostly gaming, go for the AMD - it saves you the maximum amount of money for the GPU which really makes the difference, without sacrificing any day-to-day performance.

Moderate encoding etc/some gaming, get the i5. It'll be more expensive than the AMD (so either more money or worse gaming) and better in encoding.

Edit: just spotted your above post.

With another £200 i7 is better in range, but there's still not much point unless you do much encoding. Put the cash towards the GPU and perhaps an SSD to drastically reduce boot/loading times.

PapaLazaru · 26 Mar 2010 at 23:31

PraxxtorCruel · 26 Mar 2010 at 23:39

Audigex said:
12gb isn't standard - 4/6 is standard (dual and tri-channel respectively) 8 or 12gb is pretty rare, and only really used by those doing very heavy photo/music/video editing.

The Dell crap seems good, because they use a very basic trick - shout about the core components (Lots of GHz! Loads of GB! WOAH!) and then give you a complete load of **** for the components people don't know about.

Intel i5 and especially i7 are faster clock-for-clock than AMD - but in the price/performance i5 and Phenom II are pretty equivalent. Basically, it depends on your usage

Heavy encoding/video/music/imaging work, go for the i7 - basically only worthwhile if you spend 3+ hours a day using these types of programs.

Pure/mostly gaming, go for the AMD - it saves you the maximum amount of money for the GPU which really makes the difference, without sacrificing any day-to-day performance.

Moderate encoding etc/some gaming, get the i5. It'll be more expensive than the AMD (so either more money or worse gaming) and better in encoding.

Edit: just spotted your above post.

With another £200 i7 is better in range, but there's still not much point unless you do much encoding. Put the cash towards the GPU and perhaps an SSD to drastically reduce boot/loading times.

Okay dell is of the list! Hmm maybe I should give AMD a chance, I dunno maybe I'm just stuck in some sort of era where it was intel this intel that

. Hi when you say ssd to reduce boot/loading times are we talking about start/shutting down or generally loading pretty much any program? Thanks

PapaLazaru said:

Thank you papa. Oh also how comes nearly everyone goes for the same case? Is it really that good? God buying is so frustrating I want the best of everything but my damn pocket isn't deep enough ahahaha. Guess I have to sacrifice somewhere right?

PapaLazaru · 26 Mar 2010 at 23:42

PraxxtorCruel said:
how comes nearly everyone goes for the same case?

I have one. It is overrated by some on here, but for the money, it does the job well. looks good, plenty of space, that is it.

Cookeh · 26 Mar 2010 at 23:42

PapaLazaru said:

Id go with that over i5 for gaming.

Its also a lot more upgradable in the future as unlike Intel they don't change sockets on a whim

PraxxtorCruel · 26 Mar 2010 at 23:44

PapaLazaru said:
I have one. It is overrated by some on here, but for the money, it does the job well. looks good, plenty of space, that is it.

Oh i see, tell me if I'm wrong but aren't there quite a few cases that are about the same price and look like dell's alienware cases, why don't people go for those? Are they generally frowned upon? Do their design leave less space? I just find it weird that lots of people would go for the plain design?

PraxxtorCruel · 26 Mar 2010 at 23:45

Cookeh said:
Id go with that over i5 for gaming.

Its also a lot more upgradable in the future as unlike Intel they don't change sockets on a whim

Typical intel, well looks like I'm sorted will do my final preparations and when I'm done I'll post what back to show you lot what I'm gonna decide to buy, thank you to all. Have great weekends.

Audigex · 26 Mar 2010 at 23:47

Get the coolermaster 330 case, it's similar quality and a fair amount cheaper. It's also slightly roomier than the 300 IMO (I own both, and will be moving my rig from the Antec to the CM when I get a chance), and has tool-less HDD and PCI slots.

The 300 used to be excellent value for money - then it went up 70% in price and is merely average.

PapaLazaru · 26 Mar 2010 at 23:48

PraxxtorCruel said:
Oh i see, tell me if I'm wrong but aren't there quite a few cases that are about the same price and look like dell's alienware cases, why don't people go for those? Are they generally frowned upon? Do their design leave less space? I just find it weird that lots of people would go for the plain design?

Depends on whether you want design or function. It works well for me and many others. Read the reviews. Take the set-up and choose another case if you prefer innit.

PraxxtorCruel · 27 Mar 2010 at 00:22

Can I add things like soundcards and tv tuner cards later on after I've built the pc?

PraxxtorCruel · 27 Mar 2010 at 00:45

Okay guys this is what I came up with thanks to your ideas. Please help me perfect it and tell me what should be replaced or anything I'm missing. If their is something better for a few quid more please recommend it, thanks.