New build - opinions please!

NyKon

NyKon

NyKon

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Joined
11 Oct 2010
Posts
15
Good afternoon fellow forum peeps, :)

I'm new around here so go easy on me! ;)

I was wondering if you guys would be happy to cast your expert eyes over my proposed build and let me know what you think... I'm pretty much starting from scratch here - all I currently own is a keyboard!

I've been into my computers for as long as I can remember but i've not had what i'd consider a decent machine in quite some time. I've been to the darkside (console gaming) and have now seen the light and want to blow the dust off my keyboard and get back into some PC gaming as well as a bit of home studying.

So here is what i've come up with... let me know what you reckon!

build.jpg
 
As most would point out, if there ever was a time to wait a little while when it comes to GPU options, now is the time. As much as I love the Sapphire Vapour-X models, I am not sure I could in good conscience actually recommend getting the 5870 crossfired at this point in time.

Also, for the monitor, unless you really want 3D gaming for specific titles, I would really much rather invest in an IPS and get the Dell 23'' for slightly cheaper.

And yeah, good choice on the case. I really fancy the red one, but not in stock yet and of course that is all personal preference.

Finally, welcome to the board. With that kind of budget, you have a ton of options and most of them are absolutely awesome.
 
Thanks for the comments guys,

Regarding the HDD choice, I was thinking of a Gold, Silver, Bronze kinda setup

Gold - SSD - OS/latest games
Silver - Fast 6GB sata for apps/older games
Bronze - 2x big disks in RAID 1 for a bit of resilience for mp3s/movies etc

As far as the monitor goes I wasn't really up for 3D gaming (is that actually possible on an ATi card??) I wear glasses as it is so glasses on my glasses doesn't really appeal to me.. it was more for (as far as I understand it) smoother FPS that you get with 120Hz... Would the Dell deliver comparable performance? A lot of what i've been reading seems to suggest that 120Hz is a good choice for 2D as well as 3D.

How long are we talking for the next gen GFX cards? Is it going to be a serious improvement over the last lot and does anyone have any idea on pricing as yet?

Thanks for props on the case choice btw... i kinda think it looks like a recycled storm trooper! :D
 
The Samsung is equally as fast as the Western digital drive for almost half the price :)

New graphics are due next month I believe
 
I personally wouldn't spend that much on a motherboard, it's the one place where you could save maybe £100 without losing much if anything on performance that you could spend on better gpu/cpu, unless you need or plan on using all of the additional features it offers that is. This is just my experience anyway, i've spent more on deluxe Asus boards in the past, that have all sorts of features that I never end up using but just got them because I wanted the best i could afford.
 
change the monitor, its for 3d glasses, it needs 120hz so each eye is refreshed at 60hz it has nothing to do with smoothness.
 
stulid said:
change the monitor, its for 3d glasses, it needs 120hz so each eye is refreshed at 60hz it has nothing to do with smoothness.
Click to expand...

Some people have a bit of an fps fetish, though, and choose a 120 Hz monitor and ridiculous GPU solution so that they can run normal stuff and vsync at 120 Hz/fps. I had some reservations when finally moving away from my trusty old CRT on which I could game at such lofty fps, because it does indeed look stunning. But 60 fps is just fine for me, and in some modern games my rig can't even do that, so I dont mind the 60 Hz ceiling of my new 24" flat panel.
 
Hmm interesting comments chaps...

Ok so swap the 2 WD hard drives for the Samsung, change the mobo for the Asus and change the monitor for...??? Any ideas? Porcelina mentioned the 23" Dell screen... however that has a refresh of 8ms... would that still be ok for serious gaming or is 2ms the staple here?

Thanks as always!

NyKon :)
 
Your basketProduct Name Qty Price Line Total
Intel Core i7 950 3.06GHz (Bloomfield) (Socket LGA1366) - Retail £252.61
(£214.99) £252.61
(£214.99)
OcUK Value GeForce GTX 470 1280MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card with MAFIA 2 £211.49
(£179.99) £422.98
(£359.98)
BenQ G2420HDBL 24" Widescreen LED Monitor - Black £164.49
(£139.99) £164.49
(£139.99)
Gigabyte GA-X58-USB3 Intel X58 (Socket 1366) DDR3 Motherboard £134.98
(£114.88) £134.98
(£114.88)
Corsair HX 750W ATX Modular SLI Compliant Power Supply (CMPSU-750HXUK) £119.98
(£102.11) £119.98
(£102.11)
Crucial RealSSD C300 64GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive (CTFDDAC064MAG-1G1) £110.44
(£93.99) £110.44
(£93.99)
Patriot Viper 6GB (3x2GB) DDR3 12800C8 1600MHz Low Latency Triple Channel (PVT36G1600LLK) £99.99
(£85.10) £99.99
(£85.10)
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-Bit - OEM (GFC-00599) £80.99
(£68.93) £80.99
(£68.93)
Coolermaster CM-690 II Lite Dominator Case - Black £62.99
(£53.61) £62.99
(£53.61)
Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.5TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (ST31500341AS) £54.04
(£45.99) £54.04
(£45.99)
Logitech MX518 Gaming-Grade Optical Mouse (910-000616) £22.98
(£19.56) £22.98
(£19.56)
Samsung SH-S223C/BEBE 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £13.99
(£11.91) £13.99
(£11.91)
Sub Total : £1,311.04
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £13.75
VAT is being charged at 17.50% VAT : £231.84
Total : £1,556.63

look how well sli GTX470 compares against a 5970(dual gpu card) - http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/geforce-gtx470-sli.html
 
Last edited:
NyKon said:
Hmm interesting comments chaps...

Ok so swap the 2 WD hard drives for the Samsung, change the mobo for the Asus and change the monitor for...??? Any ideas? Porcelina mentioned the 23" Dell screen... however that has a refresh of 8ms... would that still be ok for serious gaming or is 2ms the staple here?

Thanks as always!

NyKon :)
Click to expand...

Well given that at 60 fps a frame lasts 16.7 ms, an 8 ms response time should be fine. Input lag is more important really, and reviews seem to suggest the dell is pretty good there. Check out some reviews before making a decision. You could always consider the 24" dell, or the cheaper 24" HP IPS. More moolah but both claim faster response times, and of course are bigger! IPS is very very nice though.

For single monitor gaming you're spending an awful lot on overkill GPU. And a lot on that OTT benchmarker's mobo. You could definately save a lot there if you wanted to reduce the monster price a little.
 
lol ok so perhaps I got a bit carried away! I've missed having a decent rig but there is no sense in wasting cash for little to no return! So thank you all in helping me refine my shopping list! :) :)

I did like the idea of the remote tweaking that you get with that Rampage board but i'm not sure that feature is worth the additional money over the £140 version and that BenQ monitor looks v.good while being over £100 cheaper!

Regarding GFX i've heard that the current NVIDIA 480 series GPUs have monster power consumption and heat output. 2 in SLi use approximately 840w at max whereas 2x 5870 only draw around 330w. I'm hoping to OC my proc to 4Ghz and wanted to ensure around 60fps in all games hence the 2 cards. If you guys are saying I can still hit that with a cheaper option i'm all ears... or should that be eyes? lol :)
 
this chart from Anandtech shows the maximum power draw using Furmark.

23920.png


no need for two GTX480, the 470's in sli in the above spec will beast anything.
 
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