£1300 for a work build

MouthBoy

MouthBoy

MouthBoy

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Hi Guys

A friend of mine is wanting to purchase a new PC for his last few months at uni but also to continue for a while after. He does game but the pain purpose is to work on. He is on the same course as me which is Computer Game Design. He likes my PC but has more money to use to upgrade. What he has now is irrelevant as its a laptop. He has looked at parts himself and I have given him some advice, but I would like to get your opinions also. The build should be inclusive of a monitor.

He already likes the Samsung SyncMaster B2430L and he likes the CM-690 II Adv. case. He has been looking at an i7 system with 6Gb RAM and a suitable motherboard. I suggested the ASUS Sabertooth. He likes the look of the 6850 due to the price. He is interested in overclocking but I would probably be the one doing that for him. I suggested the Megahalems with some apache blacks to achieve around 4Ghz. Powersupply is something that I was hesitant to recommend. I personally have a OCZ ModXStream 700W and I am happy with it, but the overall opinion of these doesnt feel me with confidence to recommend it to him.

So yea, £1300 to include monitor and OS, which will be windows 7 home. Mouse and Keyboard he already owns.

Thanks
 
Heh I know that sandybridge has come out and if it was me I would go and buy one but he likes the "tried and tested" approach to things. An i7 950 @ 4Ghz would last him for ages, I hope! :P
 
smeaney said:
Heh I know that sandybridge has come out and if it was me I would go and buy one but he likes the "tried and tested" approach to things. An i7 950 @ 4Ghz would last him for ages, I hope! :P
Click to expand...
Wait a month and SandyBridge will be tried and tested to death :p

There is only a £30 difference between an i7 - 950 and a 2600k. That extra money gets you a bit more oomph, better overclocking potential, lower temperatures/more energy efficiency and most importantly a brand new motherboard with UEFI and SATA 3 :)
 
Intel Core i7-2600K 3.40GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor with FREE Lost Planet 2 PC Game - Retail £267.98
(£223.32) £267.98
(£223.32)
OcUK ATI Radeon 6950 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £224.99
(£187.49) £224.99
(£187.49)
LG W2442PE-BF 24" Widescreen LCD Monitor - Black £167.99
(£139.99) £167.99
(£139.99)
Asus P8P67 Intel P67 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard - (Sandybridge) £129.98
(£108.32) £129.98
(£108.32)
Crucial RealSSD C300 64GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive (CTFDDAC064MAG-1G1) £102.12
(£85.10) £102.12
(£85.10)
GeIL 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz VALUE PLUS Dual Channel (GVP38GB1600C9DC) £91.99
(£76.66) £91.99
(£76.66)
Coolermaster CM-690 II Advanced Dominator Case - Black £76.99
(£64.16) £76.99
(£64.16)
Antec TruePower New Modular 650W Power Supply £73.52
(£61.27) £73.52
(£61.27)
Samsung SpinPoint F2 EcoGreen 1.5TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (HD154UI) £53.09
(£44.24) £53.09
(£44.24)
Akasa AK-CCX-4002HP Venom CPU Cooler (Socket LGA775/LGA1155/LGA1156/LGA1366/AM2/AM3) £35.74
(£29.78) £35.74
(£29.78)
Sub Total : £1,020.33
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £20.10
VAT is being charged at 20.00% VAT : £208.09
Total : £1,248.52



I didn't include Windows, as its possible to get Windows 7 Professional for around £30-40 as a student. His uni course might even offer it for free, worth enquiring with the tutors.

Also, the need for hyperthreading is debatable. I'm not sure exactly how much of a bearing it has using game design software, but the gaming difference will be negligible compared to the i5 2500k
 
Last edited:
The spec below would outperform an i7-950 easily. AL you have to do is add a screen and graphics card.
I intentially left them out because the screen is down to personal choice (BenQ G2420HDBL 24" would be an option) and the graphics card can be dependant on the programs being used.
Some graphical design programs make use of CUDA which make nVidia your make of choice. If CUDA isn't important then the ATI HD6950 is a great card which has the possability of being unlocked to a 6970. Take a look and see what you think:

Intel Core i7-2600K 3.40GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor with FREE Lost Planet 2 PC Game - Retail £267.98
(£223.32) £267.98
(£223.32)
Asus P8P67 PRO Intel P67 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard - (Sandybridge) £149.99
(£124.99) £149.99
(£124.99)
GeIL 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz VALUE PLUS Dual Channel (GVP38GB1600C9DC) £91.99
(£76.66) £91.99
(£76.66)
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-Bit - OEM (GFC-00599) £83.99
(£69.99) £83.99
(£69.99)
Coolermaster CM-690 II Advanced Dominator Case - Black £76.99
(£64.16) £76.99
(£64.16)
Antec TruePower New Modular 650W Power Supply £73.52
(£61.27) £73.52
(£61.27)
Samsung SpinPoint F3 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (HD103SJ) £44.99
(£37.49) £44.99
(£37.49)
Akasa AK-CCX-4002HP Venom CPU Cooler (Socket LGA775/LGA1155/LGA1156/LGA1366/AM2/AM3) £35.74
(£29.78) £35.74
(£29.78)
Sub Total : £687.66
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £12.50
VAT is being charged at 20.00% VAT : £140.03
Total : £840.19

(Edit - lol almost as above, most recent graphics design programs should use hyper-threading)
 
Last edited:
Invertigo said:
I didn't include Windows, as its possible to get Windows 7 Professional for around £30-40 as a student. His uni course might even offer it for free, worth enquiring with the tutors.

Also, the need for hyperthreading is debatable. I'm not sure exactly how much of a bearing it has using game design software, but the gaming difference will be negligible compared to the i5 2500k
Click to expand...

Windows 7 can only be got as an upgrade for cheap as a student, he doesnt have the current OS to upgrde from. Our course doesnt offer it for free either.

Our daily applications right now are Maya, UDK and Photoshop. We are creating a vertical slice of a game in UDK. The UDK engine is pretty lax on what it needs to run but when we have to render the game out every few hours to see how its doing is annoying.

I mentioned to him waiting a month or two to see about sandybridge but he really needs it now as his laptop is almost unusable due to problems. I will see if I can talk him into sandybridge.
 
Sandy Bridge really is the way to go. It performs about 15 -25% faster clock for clock than the Nehalem i7's, and can overclock further too. 4.5ghz+ should be doable quite easily.

It's possible to do a clean install with an upgrade copy of windows too
 
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