Please review my rig before i buy and build

kagg8

kagg8

kagg8

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30 Dec 2010
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79
Hi there,

I have sold my PS3, and in the process of selling my laptop. I want to build a decent pc which I can game as well as use for browsing and university course work. I have chosen the following components.

Processor- AMD Athlon II X3 455 3.3GHz AM3 95W Triple-Core £69.37

Motherboard- ASRock EXTREME3: AM3 770 SATA 6Gb/s USB3.0 ATX £65.73

RAM- Corsair 2X2GB DDR3 1600mhz £40.90 -will this RAM work with my processor? the description of the item keeps talking about i7 and i5 processer.

GFX- MSI GeForce GTX 460 HAWK "Talon Attack" 1024MB GDDR5 £165 http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-106-MS&utm_source=froogle

HDD- Samsung F3 1TB 7200rpm £42.99

DVD- SAMSUNG £12.25

The above is what I have settled on, but I would really appreciate if anyone could suggest alternatives which are equally good/better/cheaper as I am on a budget.

Also I am having trouble deciding on the Wireless card, I would require B/G as a minimum, and N would be a bonus. I wouldnt mind paying a few more quid just to future proof myself, but I will be perfectly happy with B/G cause infact I am very close to my router so might end up connecting via ethernet.

You will ofcourse notice I have not put a Case or PSU in the list above, this is because I dont know which one to get. I desperately need advise on this. I do not care about looks, I just want a very cheap case that all the components will fit into. Also if you can suggest one with a PSU so as to save money that would be great. Also if a case has added cooling functionalities then maybe I will not need to buy the Zalman CNPS10X-PERFORMA High Performance CPU Cooler which is for £27.49.

If it is impossible to reccomend a case which includes a PSU, how about a cheap case without, PLUS the Antec BP550PLUS 550W PSU which is for £51.68

Basically please advise to save the most money to keep the pc below 500pds.

PS. I already have a 24" Full HD Benq monitor, but if my chosen graphics card is not capable of good fps at full hd I will play at lower resolutions. Basically the only games I play are Dirt 2, PES 2011, and COD: Black Ops.

Thank you all in advance
 
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First of all thank you both for your replies.

Thanks for showing me the quadcore cpu, i have decided on that instead.

Also, the reason I chose the ASROCK motherboard is because to be honest I found a guide on how to build a budget gaming pc, and he highly reccommended that. I don't know if I am allowed to link the article but about the motherboard he says "If you want SATA 6.0Gb/s and USB 3.0 support, without spending a fortune, this is the board to get. It features six USB ports, two of them being USB 3.0, an E-SATA port, S/PDIF Out via Optical and Coaxial, two PS/2, Gigabit LAN and 8 Channels audio on the back. Toward the bottom, there’s one PCI-Express 2.0 16X, three PCI-Express 1X and two PCI slots, four SATA 3.0GB/s, two SATA 6.0GB/s ports and the usual IDE port, etc. I understand that some of you may not have heard of ASRock before and may not be comfortable going with an ASRock branded motherboard. However, I can fully vouch for them making motherboards that, on average, are just as reliable, if not even more reliable than motherboards from other brands such as ASUS, Gigabyte, MSI and others. Over the years, ASRock has garnered a reputation for offering good value (cost/performance), without sacrificing reliability and this is why I recommend them in budget PCs."

Should I beleive him? Or do you have any other suggestion which is similarly priced and is better?

Also, is the MSI GeForce GTX 460 HAWK "Talon Attack" 1024MB GDDR5 a really good GFX, as in will I regret selling my PS3 or I wont miss it?

So now my total cost so far is 402.06. I wanted to spend a maximum 500pds. So basically I have another 98pds to get a case, psu and wireless card.

Reason I want to keep the case, psu, wireless card to minimum is because maybe if i have say 40-50 quid left over, maybe I will get the ATI 6950 card instead and upgrade it to a 6970 using the hack posted on these forums. Basically the GTX 460 is £165 pd, if I save 50pds, I would invest in the ATI 6950.

Unfortunately the case adaswani suggests is out of stock, any thing similar? it would have been perfect because of the bundled PSU.
 
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Found the motherboard and I suppose its got some good features condidering its a 770 chipset, usually its the newer 8 series chipsets that have the sata and usb3.0 stuff.

http://www.asrock.com/mb/overview.asp?Model=770 Extreme3

The GTX460 1GB card is very fast, but there are cheaper 1GB models available - http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-128-GW&groupid=701&catid=1914&subcat=1830 is the "talon attack" is worth an extra £10? is up to you.

Most of the cases I would have suggested are out of stock at OCUK, such as.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-212-CM&groupid=701&catid=7&subcat=29

or this in stock - http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-000-XG&groupid=701&catid=7&subcat=1572 or http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-054-CT&groupid=701&catid=7&subcat=1901
 
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Oh, it is just the name "talon attack" that is different in the one I had chosen? I had thought it had some sort of special feature :(.

Once again I guess I am guilty of following that guide blindly because he says "In short, this is sort of the ultimate GTX 460 1GB, that was specifically designed with overclocking in mind. While by default, it’s overclock to only 810MHz, 1620MHz and 3900MHz (Core, Shader and Memory respectively), there are various reports of people reaching 1GHz+ on the core, which is nothing short of amazing!".

So that is just marketing huh? Thanks, I will go for the one you have linked, maybe use that 10pds I save on a wireless card if you would be kind enough to reccomend one, wireless b/g is fine.

About the case I have found the case with psu adaswani reccomended elsewhere for £58.73. So my total cost so far is 461.33pds, I assume a wireless card is 15pds, so I have 23.67pds left over from my budget...hmmm should i ditch the gtx 460 altogether, and spend the extra 50pds to get the ATI 6950 http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-027-HS&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=1752

It would mean I am only 25pds over my budget and may be better in the long run....wat do you think?
 
kagg8 said:
Oh, it is just the name "talon attack" that is different in the one I had chosen? I had thought it had some sort of special feature :(.

Once again I guess I am guilty of following that guide blindly because he says "In short, this is sort of the ultimate GTX 460 1GB, that was specifically designed with overclocking in mind. While by default, it’s overclock to only 810MHz, 1620MHz and 3900MHz (Core, Shader and Memory respectively), there are various reports of people reaching 1GHz+ on the core, which is nothing short of amazing!".

So that is just marketing huh? Thanks, I will go for the one you have linked, maybe use that 10pds I save on a wireless card if you would be kind enough to reccomend one, wireless b/g is fine.

About the case I have found the case with psu adaswani reccomended elsewhere for £58.73. So my total cost so far is 461.33pds, I assume a wireless card is 15pds, so I have 23.67pds left over from my budget...hmmm should i ditch the gtx 460 altogether, and spend the extra 50pds to get the ATI 6950 http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-027-HS&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=1752

It would mean I am only 25pds over my budget and may be better in the long run....wat do you think?
Click to expand...

I know absolutely nothing about wireless cards and such like so maybe someone can suggest some.

That case+psu is very good for the price and will have enough power to run that setup(including a 6950) the psu only has one pci-e connector so you will have to use the molex to pci-e adaptor supplied with either card.

To me all GTX460 1Gb models are almost the same, and all can be overclocked to provide GTX470 performance, the "talon attack" also includes useless features such as voltage measuring points if you have a multi-meter.

Spending a bit more to get a 6950 card seems like a wise move - http://www.anandtech.com/show/4061/amds-radeon-hd-6970-radeon-hd-6950/13 some good gains there looking at the charts.


ALSO remember to take into account buying bits from various sources, if you get free delivery from all places then not a problem , but if you have to pay a £10 here and a £10 there for delivery, then try sourcing all parts from one supplier.
 
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I've used the ASRock 870 Extreme3 AMD 870 MB ( can be had for £77 ) in a build a few months ago and found it to be solid, capable board :)

Clocked a 955 BE to 3.8Ghz no problem at all :)
 
Very true about the delivery costs, I will try to order more components from the same place especially since I am so excited dont want a vital component to come very late, the anxiety would kill me lol.

I will just look around for the cheapest wireless card or do without one for the first few weeks.

Also I have decided to get the 6950 card, instead of the gtx 460, once i upgrade it to be the 6970, i think i will be happy enough for at least a year before i think of upgrading.

Thank you very much stulid, happy new year to you mate :)

@Essexraptor, I will search for your motherboard, for an extra 7quid, why not? :)
 
thanks for that wifi card, just wondering since it uses a pci-express slot, so does the dvd writer, and the graphics card, will they all fit on the motherboard? i thought i only have 2 pci express cards? sorry i have never built a pc before :s
 
its a 1X pci-e card so will slot into any pci-e slot on the motherboard, be it a 1,4,8 or 16 size slot.

the graphics card will fit into the top 16X slot.
 
One last question, everywhere I am seeing resolutions of 1920x1200, 1680x1050, thats fine but my monitor is 16:9, so resolutions are 1920x1080 etc, so will I have black bars or stretched out images because of my graphics card? or can i set the resolution to exactly what I want in the games and OS?
 
kagg8 said:
One last question, everywhere I am seeing resolutions of 1920x1200, 1680x1050, thats fine but my monitor is 16:9, so resolutions are 1920x1080 etc, so will I have black bars or stretched out images because of my graphics card? or can i set the resolution to exactly what I want in the games and OS?
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That's the least of your worries. Windows will automatically set the native resolution for your monitor. No Black bars.

You can lower it in games to improve frames per second, but on the desktop and general computing. It will be at your monitors native res.

I don't mean to sound cheeky here, but are you sure you are upto the task of building your own computer, a lot can go wrong and it's not that easy. Not that difficult either mind you, but if you run into snags, which is common. Then a little knowledge is golden.

Why have you chosen to build your own rather than buy a pre-built one. Which seems like a better option for yourself in my opinion. It's different if you have someone to help you if you get stuck, but there would be nothing worse, spending a fortune on lots of components only to find yourself standing looking at them, wondering where it all goes and why it won't turn on for the first time.
 
Thanks for the concern, Buchanan0204, but I really want to give building a pc a shot, and my housemate is really good when it comes to following tutorials, he managed to jtag a xbox 360 following tutorials, so he will help me assemble it, worst comes to worst i will take it to the university IT help desk, I know someone who will charge some money but do the job :)

Just wondering, I have been reccommended the AMD Athlon II X4 Quad Core 630 2.80GHz (http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=AMD+Athlon+II+X4+630) for 75quid, but I have managed to find AMD Athlon II X4 640 Socket AM3 3GHz (http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=AMD+Athlon+II+X4+640)for the same price delivered? Looking at the links it shows the 640 is better, should I go for that instead then? Is it compatible with my motherboard and psu?

Also, the only games I really play are PES11, and Black Ops and Dirt 3 (when it releases), and I dont mind reducing resolution as long as it looks equal to ps3 graphically, so should I really go for the 6950 since it is 220quid now, or will a GTX 460 be more than enough? I know I should future proof myself by getting the 6950, but I have just recently found out about crossfiring GFX cards, so is it possible, in future (say a year), to add a second GTX 460 to achieve near 6950 performance or rather be able to play most games at maximum settings?

I understand for crossfire I will need a different motherboard, any suggestions?

Thank you
 
 
I wouldn't worry at all about not being able to build your PC. It's very simple and you could probably build one simply using all the supplied manuals.

1920x1080 is full HD so don't worry that resolution is pretty much the main gaming resolution atm :)
 
once again thank you stulid for your reply and also Si105. :)

Just to be sure, IFi crossfire 2 GFX cards, does that mean I will get near double the graphics performance? Or will it make more sense to get a single 6950 and to stick with it for a while?
 
kagg8 said:
once again thank you stulid for your reply and also Si105. :)

Just to be sure, IFi crossfire 2 GFX cards, does that mean I will get near double the graphics performance? Or will it make more sense to get a single 6950 and to stick with it for a while?
Click to expand...

Theres no harm in getting a crossfire capable motherboard and just using the single 6950 card untill you feel its not enough, infact i bet if you counted the number of people who come on to these forums asking for a spec, stating they may want a sli/crossfire in the future, but actually do get a second card, could be counted on two hands this year alone.

You probably want a better psu if you wanted two 6950.
 
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