Build for student gamer

qtpinom · 30 Jun 2010 at 11:56

Having never built a pc before I'm not entirely sure how compatible parts are etc so I was wondering if someone with experience would just go through the build I put together late last night after messing around with several intel and amd builds and reading on here a fair bit about the longevity of cores at the moment, especially important as being a student I am nearly always skint

Any advice, guidance or alternatives appreciated considering my budget being £780 and needing to include the Os

edit: image wouldn't show so I'll write out the specs and prices underneath.
CPU - AMD Phenom X6 1055T - £159.99
Mobo - Gigabyte GA-870A-UD3 AMD 870 DDR3 - £84.99
Graphics Card - XFX ATI Radeon HD 5770 1024 GDDR5 Pci Express - £130.99
Ram - Patriot G Series 4GB DDR3 1333mhz dual channel - £88.99
PSU - OCZ StealthXStream 2 600w - £69.99
Hdd - Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500gb - £39.99
Disk Drive - LG 22x Dvd-rw - £14.99
Case - Antec 300 - £41.99
Cpu cooling - Coolermaster Hyper 212 plus - £21.98
Fans - Sharkoon Silent Eagle 1000 120mm - £10.21 x2
Thermal Compound - Arctic Silver 5 - £6.99
OS - Windows 7 Home Premium OS - £84.99
Total - £777.99 including vat and shipping.

cmndr_andi · 30 Jun 2010 at 12:01

Hi there, welcome to the OCUK forums

Unfortunatley, that picture link doesn't seem to work at the moment. If you havne't already, I would suggest uploading the image to a free imagehost site like imageshack then copy the URL, click the "picture button" on the message box on the ocuk forums and paste the link into the box, and hit OK.

£780 sounds like a nice budget for a new gaming build. Is this just for the box & OS, or will you be needing peripherals (like monitor, speakers, mouse, keyboard etc.) included in the budget?

Edit: I think this is what you were linking to:

Analysis and alternatives shortly.

qtpinom · 30 Jun 2010 at 12:08

Wow, that was quick!

Yeah, that's what I was going for - ended up writing it out anyway. I already have a monitor, speakers, mouse and keyboard ready to go, just the box and OS to do.

Mason- · 30 Jun 2010 at 12:10

Just from a quick observation, I would get windows 7 retail and get 955BE instead of 1055T. If your just gaming on it then you shouldn't notice much difference.

Redmint · 30 Jun 2010 at 12:10

What resolution is the monitor you're using?

qtpinom · 30 Jun 2010 at 12:13

Currently it's 1280x1024 although once I've paid this off I'll be looking for a bigger monitor anyway 19" just doesn't do it

Boozebeard · 30 Jun 2010 at 12:14

Just a little thing but MX-3 seems the be the preferd thermal compound, it isn't conductive (I think the arctic silver is?), it doesn't have to cure and also you get a much bigger tube.

Redmint · 30 Jun 2010 at 12:17

Alternative to your current spec:

As you're a student you should be able to get either a cheap or free copy of Windows 7.

The quad core 955 BE is actually faster in most games than the hex core.

qtpinom · 30 Jun 2010 at 12:23

Yeah I looked into cheap/free windows 7 and it's upgrade only which isn't much use to me as I no longer have my xp discs

[WU-TANG]GZA · 30 Jun 2010 at 12:36

Intel Core i5 750 2.66GHz (Lynnfield) (Socket LGA1156) - Retail + Napoleon Total War £167.99

XFX ATI Radeon HD 5770 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £130.99

Asus P7P55D-E Intel P55 (Socket 1156) DDR3 Motherboard £126.98

OCZ Gold 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C8 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (OCZ3G1600LV4GK) £99.99

Samsung SpinPoint F3 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (HD103SJ) £57.99

OCZ ModXStream Pro 600w Silent SLI Certified Modular Power Supply £55.99

Antec 300 Three Hundred Ultimate Gaming Case - Black £43.99 (personal choice so I stuck with yours)

Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro Rev 2 CPU Cooler (Socket 939 / AM2 / AM3 / 775 / 1156 / 1366) £18.99

LG GH22NS50 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £14.99

x2 Sharkoon Silent Eagle 1000 80mm Fan - 3/4 Pin £11.72

That totals £721.63 inc VAT. Enough room to get W7 in there for around £70.

Personally, I'd try my best to save up another £100 or so and try to get an i7 based system. i7 920 can be had for less than £200 and the mobos can be as little as £25 more than the above mobo but you get 6GB of ram which will be around £40 more. So it WOULD cost more but it would last you longer. Other than that, all I would say is that the next upgrade (perhaps after ur monitor) would be to get an SSD. They are so bloody good and will make ANY system feels so much better and HDDs have been bottlenecking top-end systems for years Raid or no Raid. SSD *** !

cmndr_andi · 30 Jun 2010 at 12:37

How does this look?

For gaming, the 5850 is pretty awesome. Also, if you want to do some CPU overclocking, I suggest getting this cooler as well.

linaaslt · 30 Jun 2010 at 12:48

i would recomend getting 8xx chipset mobo, as people thinks that it will be compatible with upcoming AMD Bulldozer cpu, where 7xx series won't be. thats why people are choosing AMD for their longelivity. intel will be changing their chipset next year.

opethdisciple · 30 Jun 2010 at 12:53

Dont get me wrong, im sure the six core AMD cpu's do just great at gaming.

But I did read a review that didnt really advocate the new six core amd cpu's as that great for gaming.

I would maybe look at a similar price ranged intel coreI with a higher clock frequency....

At this stage in gaming/hardware evolution, the clock frequency is still marginally more important than pure cores.

Then again, im sure the AMD six core, would do just fine regardless....

cmndr_andi · 30 Jun 2010 at 13:01

linaaslt said:
i would recomend getting 8xx chipset mobo, as people thinks that it will be compatible with upcoming AMD Bulldozer cpu, where 7xx series won't be. thats why people are choosing AMD for their longelivity. intel will be changing their chipset next year.

Really? Where did you see this?

I imagined that if 800 series chipsets would work with bulldozer, then 700 series would work too - as the main difference is just the southbridge. Have I got something wrong?

Dont get me wrong, im sure the six core AMD cpu's do just great at gaming.

But I did read a review that didnt really advocate the new six core amd cpu's as that great for gaming.

I would maybe look at a similar price ranged intel coreI with a higher clock frequency....

At this stage in gaming/hardware evolution, the clock frequency is still marginally more important than pure cores.

Then again, im sure the AMD six core, would do just fine regardless....

Agreed - for gaming at this budget, hex cores are a waste of time. Few games can make use of the extra cores yet, and most of the extra CPU speed is not needed in modern games. At the same time, this takes money away from the graphics card budget - which is the component that limits performance in modern games. In my mind, a Phenom X4 955 @£129 is the best CPU to go for at this budget. It offers 4 pysical cores, is clocked reasonably fast, is easily overclockable (unlocked multiplier) and is pretty cheap.

qtpinom · 30 Jun 2010 at 13:52

cmndr_andi said:
How does this look?

I like the look of this actually, perhaps changing the for the 8** series motherboard if it turns out that the 7** series isn't going to be forward compatible, any solid info on that before I commit?

welshdragon · 30 Jun 2010 at 13:56

Thats a really nice build. Would think about getting a better cooler though and not using stock as those chips love the heat. Well my 965 BE does anyway. Maybe a Titan Fenrir or the thermolab baram!

Also would get retail win 7 not oem.

thingemajib · 30 Jun 2010 at 13:59

cmndr_andi said:
Really? Where did you see this?

I imagined that if 800 series chipsets would work with bulldozer, then 700 series would work too - as the main difference is just the southbridge. Have I got something wrong?

its not confirmed yet, but fudzilla (link) put an article about future AMD sockets and 800 series chipset compatability is mentioned there. Although i have to agree, the 700/800 series are very similar, so if it works on the 800 series, with the right BIOS support i can't see why it wouldn't work with the 700 series.

theres another article on there saying fusion will be using a completely different socket, although i guess that was expected given it had a gpu on board (link)

cmndr_andi · 30 Jun 2010 at 14:03

qtpinom said:
I like the look of this actually, perhaps changing the for the 8** series motherboard if it turns out that the 7** series isn't going to be forward compatible, any solid info on that before I commit?

AFAIK, there is no solid info (ie. Info from AMD) other than Bulldozer (Zambezi core) will work with AM3. This info just said "AM3", not "AM3 800 series chipset", so I would assume the AM3 700 series boards will work too.

There are rumors and speculation about what is compatible, but no official info AFAIK. There is even talk of new AM3+ boards that will full utilise all the features of the new chips.

Redmint · 30 Jun 2010 at 14:48

qtpinom said:
I like the look of this actually, perhaps changing the for the 8** series motherboard if it turns out that the 7** series isn't going to be forward compatible, any solid info on that before I commit?

The Fudzilla link that thingemajib posted seems to be the most up to date info. I was thinking of suggesting the 5850 but after you've added in a better heatsink and switched to Windows 7 Retail it's a fair bit over budget, so it's up to you if you can stretch to that.