New build for a mate- advice welcome

[Curly]

Howdy, my mate wants to build a PC but has no experience so asked me to help. I have been out of the loop a while too but have put a spec together below and would like some advice. He gave me the budget of a grand including monitor mouse and keyboard and says he isnt too bothered about gaming, but i don't believe him so put a 460 in there

My main area of concern is the SSD ive thrown in with a sata 6Gb/s controller card. Will the asus card work on a gigabyte board? Is it good enough? It takes a pci x4 slot i think.. but the board has 2 pci.2 x16 slots. If i plug the controller card in there will that limit the GFX slot to x8??

Plan to overclock the i3 a bit but not too much.. so the cooler may be another issue.

Advice on the other stuff would be great too!
Cheers,

Curly.

 

[95thrifles]

Id change the cpu/mobo/gfx/psu to the following

Intel Core i5 760 2.80GHz (Lynnfield) (Socket LGA1156) - Retail £139.99 (£119.14)
Asus GeForce GTX 460 Direct CU TOP 768MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card with HAWX2 PC-Game £117.49 (£99.99)
Asus P7P55D-E Intel P55 (Socket 1156) DDR3 Motherboard £99.99 (£85.10)
Corsair CX 430W ATX Power Supply £37.98 (£32.32)

that way he's getting quad core cpu instead of dual core, the mobo has 6Gb/s SATA onboard so no need for the controller card (it would work btw but isnt necessary going this route) the gfx card performs almost as well and is quite a saving (if he says he doesnt intend to game then why you trying to say he will?) and the psu should be sufficient

gfx card comparison

 

[Curly]

Cheers,

All he does is game but on his x box and wii. He hasnt played any games on a PC. I think when he does hel see that gaming on his PC is pretty good. Plus games tend to be cheaper for PC. I think he thought i would spec him a 300quid card which is why he said not so much for gaming. But yea the 768MB card is still pretty good. May wait and see what the new ATI cards are like anyway. Heard they may be releasing something to compete with the 460 next week.

I also read that the sata 6gbs controllers on the mobo's arnt so good so using a PCI card can get the full potential read speed out of the C300. Il try and find where i read it and go through it again.

 

[Big.Wayne]

• mate wants to build a PC but has no experience so asked me to help.
• I have been out of the loop a while too
• He gave me the budget of [£1000] including monitor mouse and keyboard
• he isnt too bothered about gaming, but i don't believe him
• Advice on the other stuff would be great too!

"I believe in the Golden Rule . . . . . . . . . . The Man with the Gold . . . Rules!"

£324.05 under budget! . . can be put towards a GPU or whatever your friend actually wants himself . . . motherboard has graphics built in . . .



AMD® Athlon II X4 640 is 100MHz faster . . .

 

[Jony27]

get some nuts

 

[Curly]

mobo's with integrated gfx make me want to vomit
I think he wants to spend a grand though. He just wants the best PC possible. Il run the budget suggestion by him anyways, ta.
Ive been honest with him though, wasnt like i said 'you need a ssd and a sick GFX card or your PC will be rubbish'.
Think he like the idea of OC'ing too so the intel chips may be better. Again il ask him.

 

[[WU-TANG]GZA]

Intel Core i5 760 2.80GHz (Lynnfield) (Socket LGA1156) - Retail

Asus P7P55D Evo Intel P55 (Socket 1156) DDR3 Motherboard

Samsung B2230W 22" Widescreen LCD Monitor - Glossy Black

Asus GeForce GTX 460 Direct CU TOP 768MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card with HAWX2 PC-Game

OCZ Vertex 2E 60GB 2.5" SATA-II Solid State Hard Drive (OCZSSD2-2VTXE60G)

Antec 900 Nine Hundred Ultimate Gaming Case - Black

Corsair XMS3 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMX4GX3M2A1600C9)

OCZ StealthXStream 2 600W Power Supply

Razer Lycosa Gaming Keyboard

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

Razer DeathAdder Respawn 3500dpi Xtreme Precision Gaming Mouse - Retail

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

Sony Optiarc AD-5260S 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM

TOTAL: £1033.48 inc VAT + Shipping

Some 'fancy' unnecessary parts in there (mouse and keyboard that could be downgraded to save some money and keep it under £1k - it's all personal preference)

Wu

 

[Big.Wayne]

Hey Curly

mobo's with integrated gfx make me want to vomit

I have been out of the loop a while too

How have you formed that opinion? . . . to speak badly of something you don't know about is . . . with all due respect . . . an ignorant* statement! . . .

*Ignorance is a state of being uninformed (lack of knowledge)

I think he wants to spend a grand though

It's not what you think that's important . . . it's what the client (person spending the money ££) thinks? . . . most people with a finite amount of money tend to consider "value" quite highly! . . . if you tell him you have spoken to some in-the-loop geeks and they have suggested a system which saves him £300 and will offer more processing power what do you think he will say? . . .

He just wants the best PC possible

That's a blanket statement? . . . you could spend up to £15,000 and still not have the " best PC possible"?

I think what you meant to say was either of these two statements

1. He wants the best PC possible for exactly £1000
2. He wants the best PC possible for his "needs" while offering the best "value"

Il run the [more affordable & more processing power] suggestion by him anyways, ta.

No probs! . . . it's always nice to have options!

Ive been honest with him though, wasnt like i said 'you need a ssd and a sick GFX card or your PC will be rubbish'.

he isnt too bothered about gaming, but i don't believe him

If he said he isn't bothered about gaming then he probably meant he isn't bothered about gaming? . . . the IGP's are fine, more than fine actually! . . . if in a month or two nearer xmas he changes his mind then its super easy to purchase and install a GPU . . . new ones coming out all the time! . . .

SSD's are nice but expensive, unless he insists on it you could save him some nice cash £££ . . . whats more important . . his cash £££ or you getting to try out a new toy?

Think he like the idea of OC'ing too so the intel chips may be better. Again il ask him.

If you overclock the Intel® Core™ i3 then you overclock the AMD® Athlon™ II X4 . . . a DualCore (with HT) cannot compete with four *real" cores! . . . The AMD® Athlon™ II X4 is always going to offer more processing power in modern MultiCore applications . . . even overclocked @ 4GHz the Intel® Core™ i3 is still not as fast as an AMD® Athlon™ II X4 @ 3.5GHz

Forget the Intel® Core™ i3 . . . these are your four best options . . .

• AMD® Athlon™ II X4 640 @ £76.36
• AMD® Phenom™ II X4 955 @ £105.74
• Intel® Core™ i5 760 @ £139.99
• AMD® Phenom™ II X6 1055T @ £159.99

 

[Curly]

Yo thanks for the further advice big wayne. Il be honest- when reading it through it comes across a touch on the aggressive side. Perhaps if i was a small furry mammal i may have keeled over out of fright or maybe just poo'd myself upon reading your response. Luckily im a relatively stoic, adult robot and can see you are simply being logical and honest which i appreciate. Thus i remain alive and more importantly, clean.

I may have been slightly misleading saying i have been out of the loop. I sold my PC a few years ago to help fund my travels and havnt built anything since. I have however checked bit-tech.net fairly regularly and often skim over their reviews of new hardware.

The integrated GFX vomit comment was meant to be light hearted. Im a gamer at heart and like the eye candy and frames/s. I use a netbook with integrated gfx and it makes me sad sometimes.

I think he wants to spend a grand though. He just wants the best PC possible.

^ EDIT I think he wants to spend a grand, he just wants the best pc possible for it.

Initially i gave him a cheap spec, a mid priced spec and an expensive spec. The cheap came in at about 800 quid and had a 5750 and an athlon dual core.
I didnt think of integrated gfx and will mosdef suggest it to him-ta, the ability to upgrade to a card if he needs one is a great point.
Anyhoo, he leant towards the mid priced one but liked the idea of a SSD too so suggested a budget of 1000.

Perhaps he has more money than sense and perhaps i was a touch encouraging
I sure would like to see how those crucial C300's go!

Il be going through it all again with him so will try to get a better picture of what exactly he needs and whether he wants to pay extra for the premium bits.

Good advice on the quad core athlon, I read somewhere they were hard to OC and that an aspirant overclocker should take the intel path but the benchmarks dont lie!

 

[Big.Wayne]

Hey Curly . . . hehe sorry if you felt the blast of wind from my previous post, my intention was not to be rude in anyway but I didn't yet figure out how to wrap the truth up in little fluffy clouds!

If he wants to spend a grand then that's his shout . . . . does he actually know though that he could probably have a new machine that meets his requirements for much less? . . . some people still think we are living back in the 90's when you normally needed to spend 1K . . . its your ethical duty to put his interests before your own and reverse the old "salemen" trend of extracting the cash £££ from the customer and instead try and keep as much of it as possible in his pocket!

As much as your are "keen" to buy the new shiny to test with his money that wouldn't be the most ethical route . . . I would say you have a conflict of interests here and as a rational philosophy student learning about "ethics" I can't just ignore this! . . . .

There are no shortage of people here that will take your request "literally" and spec you a 1K system but at the end of the day will your client (and more importantly your friend) be actually able to tell the difference and will he be getting good "Value" for his money!

Apart from that May the Force be with you!

 

[Jony27]

hahahaha lol i see the edit big.wayne
its that amd sticker/logo on her belt
is that the only edit? my amateur eyes cant see anything else