Please check my £2000 first-time build before I pull the trigger!

jimwilluk

jimwilluk

jimwilluk

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25 Jun 2010
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Hi, can you guys please have a look at my parts list for my new PC before I go ahead and buy. Any suggestions/tips/experience are much appreciated as this is my first homebuild.

Things i will be using the Pc for:
- Some gaming
- Photo (and a little video) editing
- Some fairly serious multi-tasking, downloading, webbrowsing, media etc
- a base for a HTPC (possibly with a 3d projector somewhere down the line...)
- Quiet!! i really want this PC to be as quiet as possible.

OS:
Windows 7 Professional - OEM 64-bit - £111.90
is it worth getting retail version?

Optical:
LG BH10LS30 10x BD-RE & DVD±RW £112.99

Monitor:
Dell U2410 UltraSharp 24" £455.31
tough choice between this, HP LP2475W (hard to find), HP ZR24W and NEC 2490Wuxi

CPU:
Intel i7 930 2.8GHz £231.49

Mobo:
Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD3R £164.59
thought about ud7 but dont think the extra features are worth the extra £100 to me

Input:
Logitech Wireless Desktop Wave Pro £79.99
Anyone got this?

Cooler:
Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro rev 2 £17.95
Thinking about WC in future but for now just want a cheap quieter cooler

SSD:
Intel 80GB X25-Mainstream £169.99
have a little spare budget so tempted to up the capacity here but may just get another one at a later date if needed

Storage:
Western Digital WD20EARS 2TB OEM £97.98
One for now, looking to buy another if performance is good

RAM:
Corsair 6GB (3x2GB) DDR3 1600MHz XMS3 Dominator Memory CL8(8-8-8--24) £159.98
Not really a well considered decision but heard 1600MHz+ is good and dominator line seemed well regarded

Case:
Antec P193 Mid tower case £121.15
Quiet case, fits GPU and doesnt look like a UFO/christmas tree

PSU:
Antec CP850 850W Modular PSU - £87.87

GPU:
XFX ATI Radeon HD 5970 725Mhz 2GB PCI-Express 2.0 HDMI (Black Edition) £490.67

Total: £2299.31 inc VAT £1956.85 ex VAT

Many thanks
 
Looks good nice choice of components, I'm guessing yuou want to go the silent route so the Artic Freezer 7 isn't the best choice. It is quiet but it will have to run fairly quick to keep that i7 cool. I suggest going for THIS, its larger so has better heat dissapation also has a larger fan so can spin slower for the same performance which equals less noise and isn't much more expensive ither and plus it fits in your case, which always helps!
 
re windows, yes retail is possibly worth it as it allows you to transfer it to a new pc if you retain windows that long, in theory OEM is tied to that PC (for self builds generally considered to be mobo) do you need ultimate over home premium?

do you really need a blu ray rewriter? If so fair enough

Nice screens, got the HP LP2475W myself, for your serious photo editing etc it will be invaluable

agree re mobo

cpu cooler, could maybe get a quieter one here, check out frostytech for decent quiet coolers

SSD: it depends on number of games if you need bigger or not, I have a 160gig X25M and its bout 90gig full with about half a dozen games on at anyone time, if you want lots of games then go bigger, if youre happy just having a few on at a time the 80 will suffice, along with win and other programs etc on there then everything else on storage drive which is good choice btw

RAM fine

Case + PSU excellent choice

gfx card - hmm, for quiet this is where it may fall down, try and look at a sapphire vapor X version, theyre quite a bit quieter, though you may have to drop back to a 5870 but it should still cope with everything anyway
 
Just be careful with that case, it's not always as roomy as it seems, especially when it comes to CPU cooler size, do your homework and make sure the one you want will fit.

I recently fitted a NeroS into a P182 and that had about 5 mm clearance to the side panel, the P193 has that fan in the side (and yes i have a P193 as well) .... and NO the NeroS would not have fitted, TBH you might be worth looking at one of the sealed water kits like the CoolIT Eco or Corsair H50 ... no better than top end Air coolers, but, will fit easily and save you a lot of headaches, just remember to check if your motherboard chipset relies on the air flow from a regular CPU cooler to help keep it cool ;)
 
...get a decent fan controller if silence is important to you, lets you tweak things depending what your doing with the PC at the time. To echo what others have said get a different CPU cooler, ive got a H50 and its brilliant.

Hawker
 
I'd wonder over the 5970 as well, it is and absolute slap of money, are you certain that is the GFX card you need?

There were thread on the Dell U2410 having issues, check the monitor forums, this might have all been totally resolved now.
 
YOu can get a much better PC for similiar price look at this spec !






This gives you the option to have 2 more GTX 470 later on the road if you want. The case will not be UBER silent however it will be quite, and keep your components very cool.THE SSD in raid 0 will have the OS installed on them and they arealdy come with adapters, however the Antec case comes with 2 2.5 drives, on at the top of the case wich is external and one internally right at the bottom :)

the price for this spec, £2039, also you got EVERYTHING YOU NEED FOR YOUR FIRST PC BUILD, AND THE DUST CLEANER IS VERY USEFUL BECAUSE ALL THE INTAKE CASE FANS ALL COME WITH DUST FILTERS AND THEY NEED TO BE CLEANED REGULARY + THE inside of your pc such as GPU card will need to be cleaned.
 
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Just a heads up if you want a silent PC. Both of the Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD3R ive had have both suffered some kind of capacitor squeal when CPU hault is on. This is the thing that down clocks the CPU dependant on what you require at that specific moment. If you are overclocking or want the CPU to run at full speed then it can be turned off in the BIOS but if not it can get quite annoying. It probably does not occur on ever one just that both ive had have got it.
 
CPU
----------------
Intel Core i7 930 2.80GHz (Bloomfield) (Socket LGA1366) # £229.11

Motherboard
----------------
Asus Rampage III Extreme Intel X58 (Socket 1366) DDR3 Motherboard # £329.99

Ram
----------------
OCZ Reaper 6GB (3x2GB) DDR3 16000C9 (2000MHz) Tri-Channel Kit # £172.98

Graphics Card
----------------
HIS ATI Radeon HD 5970 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card (Inc. CoD MW2) # £446.99

Hard Drive
----------------
Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM # £79.99

SSD
----------------
Crucial RealSSD C300 64GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive # £117.49

Power Supply
----------------
Cooler Master Silent Pro Modular 1000W Power Supply # £160.99

Case
----------------
Coolermaster CM-690 II Advanced Window Edition Dominator Case # £84.99

Optical Drive
----------------
Sony Optiarc AD-7260S 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) # £15.99

Cooling
---------------
Arctic Cooling MX-3 Thermal Compound # £6.99

OS
----------------
Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate 64-Bit # £153.98

Monitor
----------------
Samsung B2430L 23.6" Widescreen LCD Monitor # £146.86

Peripherals
----------------
Steelseries Kinzu Optical Mouse # £26.99
Steelseries QcK+ Gaming Mouse Pad # £13.27
Keysonic KSK-8000U Full-Sized Black USB Keyboard # £5.80

Misc
----------------
Belkin 8-Socket SurgeMaster with Telephone & AV Protection - 2 Metres # £20.99
Dust Off Gaming Gear PC/Console Cleaning Kit # £11.99


Total: £2,044.55 (Inc. VAT & Delivery)


If you go on youtube and search the case I put in above, there are reviews that show how good the case is for cooling and cable management, perfect for you :)
 
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A word of warning with the Dells. Check out the U2410 to see if it suffers the same problem.

input_4.jpg


They seem to have fixed the problem compared to the 2408WFP, which had notorious input lag. The U2410 has a game mdoe that seems to reduce the lag further (at the detriment of image quality I suspect).
 
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