money well spent?

paulf · 4 Dec 2010 at 12:00

Well its time for me to upgrade from my old Pentium 4 and its been a while since ive built one, i was amazed by the amount of memory i could get :eek:

so yeah its been quite a while. Its only going to be used for internet use and the occasional game like Call of Duty.

Anything below i should change?

Intel Core i7 950 3.06GHz (Bloomfield) (Socket LGA1366) - Retail £234.99

MSI Big Bang-XPower X58 Motherboard MSI Big Bang-XPower X58 Motherboard £229.99

MSI GeForce GTX 470 Twin Frozr II 1280MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card with MAFIA 2 ***OcUK Exclusive*** £220.00

Antec TruePower New Modular 750W Power Supply Antec TruePower New Modular 750W Power Supply £102.99

Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-Bit - OEM (GFC-00599) Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-Bit - OEM (GFC-00599) £82.24

Coolermaster CM-690 II Advanced Dominator Case - Black Coolermaster CM-690 II Advanced Dominator Case - Black £69.99

Geil Black Dragon 6GB (3x2GB) DDR3 PC3-10666C7 1333MHz Triple Channel (GB36GB1333C7TC) £69.99

Samsung SpinPoint F1 750GB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (HD753LJ) £46.89

Sub Total : £899.65
Shipping : £13.75
VAT : £159.85
Total : £1,073.25

ive been changing things as i read the forum but the only thing im not sure on is the motherboard and the memory. Like i said its been a few years since ive built a computer so im not quite back up to date with things. I probably wont be ordering until after crimbo unless the family wants to buy me parts for crimbo. Help me please

gilljoy · 4 Dec 2010 at 12:04

Maybe add in an SSD for your boot drive if you really want a fast system.

besides that It looks really good

95thrifles · 4 Dec 2010 at 12:04

Hi and welcome to forums

Your build matches up, however I'd try and get PC12800 RAM rather than PC10666
That being said i7 is overkill for your needs, just get an i5 if you are getting for XMAS, save yourself/family money and same performance
However if you wait til next year Sandybridge is Intels new release which is on the Horizon for Q1 2011

(ST)Pohaku · 4 Dec 2010 at 12:09

That being said i7 is overkill for your needs, just get an i5 if you are getting for XMAS

Am I right in thinking though, that i7 makes use of triple-channel memory whereas i5 does not?

I'm an AMD man, so better to check, but pretty sure that's the case.

Blue160 · 4 Dec 2010 at 12:16

Yes it does use triple channel, but in games you're not going to see any difference in performance. That said, if you're planning on keeping the rig for a long time, it may have some advantages in a few years time.

95thrifles · 4 Dec 2010 at 12:17

(ST)Pohaku said:
Am I right in thinking though, that i7 makes use of triple-channel memory whereas i5 does not?

I'm an AMD man, so better to check, but pretty sure that's the case.

Yes, i7 triple, i5 dual
Check the thread in my sig for some build ideas if you like

roger_37 · 4 Dec 2010 at 12:18

95thrifles said:
Hi and welcome to forums

Your build matches up, however I'd try and get PC12800 RAM rather than PC10666
That being said i7 is overkill for your needs, just get an i5 if you are getting for XMAS, save yourself/family money and same performance
However if you wait til next year Sandybridge is Intels new release which is on the Horizon for Q1 2011

spot on advice imo

paulf · 4 Dec 2010 at 12:36

the 3 most expensive parts im going to pay for but the cheaper stuff the family can buy.

Would this memory be suitable http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-129-OC&groupid=701&catid=8&subcat=1389

i dont plan on upgrading anytime soon after this. Thanks

zombiegenesis · 4 Dec 2010 at 12:36

Drop the i7 950, you really don't need it. Chop a £100 odd quid from your price and get an i5 760, trust me, in benchmarks the difference is nigh non-existent. The additions of architecture and hyperthreading do nothing for games- and don't do much for anything other than graphics rendering and photoshop.
And I would not suggest an SSD either- maybe when they've gotten to replacing HDD in both price AND size, but until then the extra few seconds saved when booting up windows is really not worth the few hundred tag.

Oh yes, and with an i5 you would only be using 4GB memory, but I will say this now- anything over 3GB is damn near impossible to tell anyway. You could do well with just 2GB if you really wanted, but you can get 4 pretty cheap, so why not?

And just for assessment sake, a GTX 470 can run on a 500w PSU if you really want to save some extra dough

Trust me man, it'll run just the same at £700 as it would at £1000+

I made the same mistakes when I started out

My poor wallet.

Armitage Shanks · 4 Dec 2010 at 12:48

I5-760 is the one to get. At the moment theres no real advantage to triple channel memory. That may change with Sandy bridge

Sgt Tackleberry · 4 Dec 2010 at 13:12

hello there,

The i5 760 is gr8 i have it and with the rest of my spec i can play every game out there on the max setting and runs smooooths! but change the stock fan to something like this http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HS-072-AK&groupid=701&catid=57&subcat= runs the cpu really cool and quite! and if you want to overclock it you can, most of the i5 760 can with easy hit 4ghz mine does and still runs gr8 temps of 35'c idle and 60/c fully loaded with cpu cool i said to get..

paulf · 4 Dec 2010 at 13:33

Armitage Shanks said:
I5-760 is the one to get. At the moment theres no real advantage to triple channel memory. That may change with Sandy bridge

this is why i may wait to after crimbo. Thanks for all your help ill have a look at the i5 and see whats what

paulf · 30 Jan 2011 at 15:40

bit of an update to this, ive now gathered enough pennies to start buying but just need someone to check my list for me

Intel Core i7-2600K 3.40GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - OEM £241.98
Asus GeForce GTX 480 1536MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card with Far Cry 2 ***PRE-ORDER ONLY PRICE*** £194.99
Asus P8P67 PRO Intel P67 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard - (Sandybridge) £149.99
Antec TruePower New Modular 750W Power Supply £109.99
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-Bit - OEM (GFC-00599) £81.98
Coolermaster CM-690 II Lite Dominator Case - Black £61.26
Samsung SpinPoint F3 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (HD103SJ) £41.99
GeIL 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz VALUE PLUS Dual Channel (GVP34GB1600C9DC) £37.99
Gelid Tranquillo CPU Cooler (Socket 754/939/940/AM2/AM2+/AM3/LGA775/LGA1155/LGA1156/LGA1366) £26.53
Samsung SH-S223C/BEBE 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £13.98
Akasa AK-FN059 120mm Ultra Quiet Viper Cool Fan - 3/4 Pin £13.26
Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound (3.5g) £6.73

Sub Total : £817.23
Shipping : £11.25
VAT : £165.70
Total : £994.18

is the i7 worth it or would the i5 suit me better, unsure which one to pick. im itching to hit the buy button but just want help making sure im getting the most for my money.

King Damager · 30 Jan 2011 at 15:48

If you're only just using it for internet use and gaming, 2500k would definitely be more than enough for you. It's not really until you start encoding etc.... that you'll need a 2600k, well that and ebragging rights....

Apart from that this is pretty solid

I guess as mentioned above you could add a SSD if you can find the room in the budget, which would increase boot times etc...

kd

paulf · 30 Jan 2011 at 16:00

right i5 it is and apart from ssd is there nothing else i could change

stulid · 30 Jan 2011 at 16:02

nothing worth changing, if you wanted sli gTX480? then a bigger wattage psu, such as 850w+

Cookeh · 30 Jan 2011 at 16:09

stulid said:
nothing worth changing, if you wanted sli gTX480? then a bigger wattage psu, such as 850w+

+1

You got it pretty much bang on!

paulf · 30 Jan 2011 at 16:14

shweet am just about to confirm the ordered. hopefully paypal will play ball

paulf · 30 Jan 2011 at 16:16

its a weird feeling spending lots of money at once......me likey

thanks for the assistance, hopefully i wont have problems putting it together

stulid · 30 Jan 2011 at 16:22

dont forget the build log/pics.