A beginners first build...

lukefinch · 5 Aug 2010 at 15:16

Evil-I said:
Hi Luke,

I'd say it's more accurate to say that the AMD x4 once overclocked won't be far behind the overclocked i3 (if at all) in FSX, but would certainly be faster in most other games and mean that your computer is more future proof for future games than with the i3.

To be honest for a straight gaming rig, a new gfx card in a years time probably wouldn't make much difference to you if you are still using your 19" monitor. Typically the native resolution of a 19" monitor is low enough that a relatively low end graphics card would happily run at that resolution and fairly high graphics setting without too much difficulty.

I'd almost suggest you next upgrade should be a nice hi resolution monitor?

Best,

E-I

Yeah, im now thinking that going with the X4 components will be the best thing to do as it will be a little more future-proof.I could then save some more money and buy 2 24" monitors and a 5770 or better GPU with eyefinity.

honosuseri · 5 Aug 2010 at 15:26

I think it's wise. You could still gamble on a 550/555 BE unlock, even the X2 overclocked would be on par with the i3 i reckon. Remember the new AMD chips will be AM3 so further down the road a cpu upgrade will be easier.

I'm not sure of the spec your planning on. If you can manage or have a quick HDD (spinpoint F3) in the system it would help performance.

lukefinch · 5 Aug 2010 at 15:30

honosuseri said:
I think it's wise. You could still gamble on a 550/555 BE unlock, even the X2 overclocked would be on par with the i3 i reckon. Remember the new AMD chips will be AM3 so further down the road a cpu upgrade will be easier.

I'm not sure of the spec your planning on. If you can manage or have a quick HDD (spinpoint F3) in the system it would help performance.

I do need a new HDD actually. I was going to use two laptop hard drives that add up to 240GB but i want only one hard drive. Can you recommend some for me? The cheaper the better!

honosuseri · 5 Aug 2010 at 15:42

Well a SSD is out of the question although they do kick ass.

The next best option is a small WD raptor drive (they spin at 10,000rpm as opposed 7200rpm) that will definately improve performance. Although small (74GB) it will improve OS performance and fsx too im sure. You could use the other laptop drives for extra storage.

Or a spinpoint F3 is a good speed drive (still 7200rpm though) a 500Gb example should be £35ish

Hope this helps

lukefinch · 5 Aug 2010 at 15:53

honosuseri said:
Well a SSD is out of the question although they do kick ass.

The next best option is a small WD raptor drive (they spin at 10,000rpm as opposed 7200rpm) that will definately improve performance. Although small (74GB) it will improve OS performance and fsx too im sure. You could use the other laptop drives for extra storage.

Or a spinpoint F3 is a good speed drive (still 7200rpm though) a 500Gb example should be £35ish

Hope this helps

The last one sounds perfect thanks.

SamC123 · 5 Aug 2010 at 16:21

lukefinch said:
The last one sounds perfect thanks.

Spinpoint F3's are awesome definitely go for that. And definitely don't use two laptop hard drives it will be slowww...

Also recommend the monitor upgrade too, theres a Benq one on here that's 1080P and only £160

Evil-I · 5 Aug 2010 at 17:14

+1 for Samsung F3 I've got 2 x 1Tb in RAID0, nice and quick.

I'd love to go SSD, I've done some tests in work between a laptop with a SSD drive against my big work graphics workstation running 4 x sas 15000 rpm drives in raid 5.

The ssd won.....

Shame they are still so bleeding expensive though.

E-I

Evil-I · 5 Aug 2010 at 17:25

honosuseri said:
The next best option is a small WD raptor drive (they spin at 10,000rpm as opposed 7200rpm) that will definately improve performance. Although small (74GB) it will improve OS performance and fsx too im sure. You could use the other laptop drives for extra storage.

Even the 150Gb raptors have slower transfer rates than a 1Tb Samsung f3....

The wonderful competition between rotation speed and data density. The raptors do have quicker access speeds though.

Think you'd have to go up to the Velociraptor 2's (the 600Gb Sata 3) ones before you have a reasonable speed improvement over the newer 1Tb or above sata drives.

honosuseri · 5 Aug 2010 at 17:36

I was just listing options. I knew the F3 would win because of the price ;p

I'm not keen on advising raid configs. If a drive fails you lose data on both drives and backing up the array can be a bother unless you have 1TB ot 2TB drives lying around.

Yes i know raid can be used to clone drives but most people meld the drives for the performance increase. With my luck lately I prefer not to tempt fate.

So are we nearer to a spec list now luke?

lukefinch · 5 Aug 2010 at 19:40

honosuseri said:
I was just listing options. I knew the F3 would win because of the price ;p

I'm not keen on advising raid configs. If a drive fails you lose data on both drives and backing up the array can be a bother unless you have 1TB ot 2TB drives lying around.

Yes i know raid can be used to clone drives but most people meld the drives for the performance increase. With my luck lately I prefer not to tempt fate.

So are we nearer to a spec list now luke?

Getting there, i just need to realistically think about money, selling some stuff and getting a job might help too

I should have a full spec by the morning. BTW, does anyone know when you can get onto the MM? I can't find the page that tells you anywhere :S

Evil-I · 5 Aug 2010 at 21:36

honosuseri said:
I'm not keen on advising raid configs. If a drive fails you lose data on both drives and backing up the array can be a bother unless you have 1TB ot 2TB drives lying around.

Me neither to be honest, I only mentioned it as that's how my main rig is set up, but thats fine in my case as I have a file server to which it backs up that has a proper hardware raid5 array.

honosuseri · 5 Aug 2010 at 21:40

Well you could do what I did and go with a mobo with an IGP. The ati's are generally better than the nvidia chipsets. As i said i can't test fsx on my rig but an ati 4200 will run the game, i just cant say how well.

When you have some more spondoolies you can buy the gfx card and drop it in to up performance. The IGP will tide you over and let the bulk of the budget ensure you get a decent base to the system.

Look forward to seeing what you put together

lukefinch · 6 Aug 2010 at 08:23

honosuseri said:
Well you could do what I did and go with a mobo with an IGP. The ati's are generally better than the nvidia chipsets. As i said i can't test fsx on my rig but an ati 4200 will run the game, i just cant say how well.

When you have some more spondoolies you can buy the gfx card and drop it in to up performance. The IGP will tide you over and let the bulk of the budget ensure you get a decent base to the system.

Look forward to seeing what you put together

That is an excellent idea actually. The motherboard i am planning to get has ATI 3000 graphics. Would this be good enough for FSX until i get a new graphics card?

lukefinch · 6 Aug 2010 at 16:19

lukefinch said:
That is an excellent idea actually. The motherboard i am planning to get has ATI 3000 graphics. Would this be good enough for FSX until i get a new graphics card?

Anyone? I want to get this ordered ASAP

honosuseri · 6 Aug 2010 at 17:42

To be honest there isn't going to be a great difference in performance but some boards will have the 4200 or higher and I would rather have the higher spec'ed chip. Then again if it's just a stop gap till you can get a better gfx card I doubt it really matters

lukefinch · 6 Aug 2010 at 20:14

honosuseri said:
To be honest there isn't going to be a great difference in performance but some boards will have the 4200 or higher and I would rather have the higher spec'ed chip. Then again if it's just a stop gap till you can get a better gfx card I doubt it really matters

OK cheers, hopefully it should only be about 2/3 months before i get a separate graphics card anyway, and until then i could still use my MacBook if i really need to.

honosuseri · 6 Aug 2010 at 20:48

It's probably wise to wait for the new cards to be released, that's what i'm doing. A 5770 is a good budget card but you'll kick yourself if the 5800 cards drop to the 5770 price point.

I think the new 6000 series cards will be more of a revision than a major breakthru so waiting and picking up one of the current cards cheap could be the way forward

lukefinch · 6 Aug 2010 at 20:58

honosuseri said:
It's probably wise to wait for the new cards to be released, that's what i'm doing. A 5770 is a good budget card but you'll kick yourself if the 5800 cards drop to the 5770 price point.

I think the new 6000 series cards will be more of a revision than a major breakthru so waiting and picking up one of the current cards cheap could be the way forward

Another great idea. I think i will do just this, I may be able to pick up a pretty cheap 5770 at least.

lukefinch · 6 Aug 2010 at 21:29

OK, final spec time. How does this look?

honosuseri · 7 Aug 2010 at 00:07

I would be very surprised if the heatsink didnt come with some half decent TIM. Unless you really really want arctic silver 5 it's just an added cost.

I'd consider dropping the TIM and pick up the G.skill ripjaw memory instead of the OCZ gold. Yes it's £10 more but the ram timings are lower (better) plus with the TIM gone it's only technically £5 more on the final bill