£800 Budget

glum · 7 Jun 2010 at 16:04

JCBeastie said:
(if he hasn't already bought a Dell or something out of despair).

last resort

but this is all good discussion as hopefully others who are reading will get ideas for future speccing as well

ps

still havent a clue what to go for yet :confused:

Freddie1980 · 7 Jun 2010 at 16:27

Well I think I speak for most members when I say you should be looking at ATI cards over Nvidia cards if you value price/performance. There's no point in brand lloyaty with computer hardware because they don't give club points!

BTW what do you plan to be using your new PC for? Internet browsing and gaming? Photoshop? Music creation? Video editing? Also I've just realised all the PC's don't inculde the cost of an Windows licence, are you going to need one of these as well or do you have this covered?

JeffyB · 7 Jun 2010 at 16:33

Superewza said:
I'd say mine's better value for money. One card is pretty much always better than two.

This is an outdated view, crossfire/sli have matured very well and offer fantastic performance gains. 2x5770 are far quicker than a single 5850 and are equal to a 5870. Big Wayne made a good post to highlight this.

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showpost.php?p=16675685&postcount=12

I think i can cope with warhammer being slower lol

CAT-THE-FIFTH · 7 Jun 2010 at 16:36

glum said:
last resort

but this is all good discussion as hopefully others who are reading will get ideas for future speccing as well

ps

still havent a clue what to go for yet

The AMD based build will probably have more scope for a processor upgrade in the future and you can get a faster graphics combination and better specified motherboard too. You can get a pair of HD5770 1GB cards with an 890GX based motherboard and a Phenom II X4.

The Intel based build will have a faster processor, but a less specified motherboard and also the platform is EOL in Q1 2011. You can get a Core i5 750 with a P55 based motherboard and an HD5850 1GB.

If you check the builds I suggested in post 16 you can a decent AMD or Intel based build with your budget.

Faztastic · 7 Jun 2010 at 16:38

Might as well add a blu ray drive in there.

glum · 7 Jun 2010 at 17:17

Freddie1980 said:
Well I think I speak for most members when I say you should be looking at ATI cards over Nvidia cards if you value price/performance. There's no point in brand lloyaty with computer hardware because they don't give club points!

BTW what do you plan to be using your new PC for? Internet browsing and gaming? Photoshop? Music creation? Video editing? Also I've just realised all the PC's don't inculde the cost of an Windows licence, are you going to need one of these as well or do you have this covered?

gaming and watchin movies (will use existing rig for browsing and back up as it already has 500gig hd ) windows license is covered

Freddie1980 · 7 Jun 2010 at 19:30

glum said:
gaming and watchin movies (will use existing rig for browsing and back up as it already has 500gig hd ) windows license is covered

Gaming ah, good on you. After seeing JeffyB's post (quoting Bigwayne) I would look at building a gaming PC around 2 HD5770's in Crossfire which are cheaper then one Hd5870 and the same speed and would save you another £70. Using my build above which was £25 under budget + £70 saving with the video cards you have nigh on £100 for better parts elsewhere or put it towards a Windows 7 Licence.

Mr Krugga · 7 Jun 2010 at 20:03

Yeah, I'm the best (£800 with free shipping):

CAT-THE-FIFTH · 7 Jun 2010 at 22:16

The OP said they wanted a Blu-Ray drive in post 9.

Mr Krugga · 7 Jun 2010 at 22:18

Only asked if it would increase the budget a lot.

JCBeastie · 7 Jun 2010 at 22:52

Well I gave glum his Intel/nVidia spec before, thought I'd see what an ATi/AMD build could do:

Looks nice.

Freddie1980 · 7 Jun 2010 at 22:57

Actaully to be predantic he asked for a Pentium/Nvidia spec PC.

JCBeastie · 7 Jun 2010 at 22:59

Freddie1980 said:
Actaully to be predantic he asked for a Pentium/Nvidia spec PC.

Thanks, that was useful.

Mr Krugga · 7 Jun 2010 at 23:01

Why would anyone want nVidia over ATI card for gaming?

JCBeastie · 7 Jun 2010 at 23:05

PhysX?

Long shot I know.

nVidia make a strong gaming card, only problem is that it's hotter, louder and more power hungry than the cheaper ATi alternative.

People are entitled to brand loyalty though I suppose.

glum · 8 Jun 2010 at 00:00

my prefered choice was a pentium/Nnvidia combo but thats why i come to these forums to be a. given advise b. constructive objections to why i shouldnt go that route c. to get a better understanding than i already have on what to choose d. to get the most out of my budget . BUT ( adds to the thread ) what happens if i add £100 to the budget as this is not a must have tomorrow purchase (in the month of june would be nice though )

JCBeastie · 8 Jun 2010 at 00:14

Depends what your using your PC for. If you're a gamer (or you're planning to be) you want a better graphics card (although the high-end cards are really built for pushing pixels at higher resolutions, so if you only have a small monitor you can go mid-range).

Maybe you could add a sound card in there, an X-Fi for EAX in games.

Maybe you want to encode video or 3d render etc, then you might need a beefier CPU and more memory.

Do you own a real copy of Windows? A genuine copy of 7 would be a good investment.

The list goes on...

glum · 8 Jun 2010 at 08:34

No real need for soundcard,i tend to use headphones,and if need be i can take the 1 i have in another rig out and use, again only really using this rig to game on and watch movies.
The ati crossfire card setup is an interesting thought after looking at tests against the single card,the cpu choice is the sticking point for me atm as i am not knowledgable enough to know what is the best (if there is such a thing) then that will determine the mobo as well,(i have not done any overclocking before)

glum · 8 Jun 2010 at 08:35

No real need for soundcard,i tend to use headphones,and if need be i can take the 1 i have in another rig out and use, again only really using this rig to game on and watch movies.
The ati crossfire card setup is an interesting thought after looking at tests against the single card,the cpu choice is the sticking point for me atm as i am not knowledgable enough to know what is the best (if there is such a thing) then that will determine the mobo as well,(i have not done any overclocking before)

Freddie1980 · 8 Jun 2010 at 11:01

What monitor do you have i.e. how big and what’s its maximum resolution?

And do you need Windows with this or do you have sorted? If you do need a licence then that’s about £90 on software you need to spend before getting any hardware.