"We didnt do anything Dad but...

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Soldato
Joined
9 Apr 2004
Posts
2,702
...there was a big flash from your computer and its not working anymore - we werent near it promise!!"

The burial site is already sorted but now it looks like a new PC is going to be required. Close as we are to Christmas I am trying to get the best balance between cost and performance. I am not a big gamer, predominantly I use the PC for work purposes.

Current spec was along the following lines:

Corsair 600w PSU (still seems to be working)
GeForce 6800 (no video signal)
AMD Phenon 2 X4
8Gb of Dual channel ram

I am planning on replacing the motherboard, CPU, memory and graphics card. Also planning on taking the plunge and installing a SSD as I will need to reinstall windows anyway.

At the moment I have specced up the following:

MSI GeForce GTX560Ti
Krypton 700a FX4 Quad Core Bundle (upgraded to 8Gb of Ram)
OCZ Vertex 2E 60Gb

All in its coming to £515.95 - is this the best combination for the price?
 
YOUR BASKET
1 x Gigabyte GeForce GTX 560Ti OC 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £179.99
1 x Intel Core i3-2120 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £101.99
1 x Gigabyte Z68AP-D3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £84.98
1 x Crucial RealSSD M4 64GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive (CT064M4SSD2) £82.99
1 x Kingston HyperX Genesis Grey 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1600C9D3X2K2/8GX) £35.99
Total : £497.34 (includes shipping : £9.50).



This is lower priced and will satisfy your needs for a while. If you ae not a big gamer, why go for the GTX560 ti? If you want to save a bit of money i sugeest the GTX460.

I put the Z68 board in so you have the option to upgrade to a i5 2500k and Overclock. The RAM is low profile so not to foul an aftermarket CPU cooler if you put one in at any point. The SSD is SATAIII compatible and a lot faster than the 2E.

All round, a lot better and cheaper.
 
Doomedspeed said:
YOUR BASKET
1 x Gigabyte GeForce GTX 560Ti OC 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £179.99
1 x Intel Core i3-2120 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £101.99
1 x Gigabyte Z68AP-D3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £84.98
1 x Crucial RealSSD M4 64GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive (CT064M4SSD2) £82.99
1 x Kingston HyperX Genesis Grey 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1600C9D3X2K2/8GX) £35.99
Total : £497.34 (includes shipping : £9.50).



This is lower priced and will satisfy your needs for a while. If you ae not a big gamer, why go for the GTX560 ti? If you want to save a bit of money i sugeest the GTX460.

I put the Z68 board in so you have the option to upgrade to a i5 2500k and Overclock. The RAM is low profile so not to foul an aftermarket CPU cooler if you put one in at any point. The SSD is SATAIII compatible and a lot faster than the 2E.

All round, a lot better and cheaper.
Click to expand...

Very true, if you don't need new things to look smashing at 1080p theres not an awful lot of point there, however I would suggest using the saved funds to get a 2500K. as a OC'd 2500K (very easy to do) will haul a lot more proverbial than the 2300 :)
 
I agree with the recommendation of upping the CPU. Considering the OP is not a heavy gamer, something like a GTX460 1GB would do him fine (still a huge upgrade from what he's got at the moment), and the money he saved by not going with a GTX560Ti can then be put toward the 2500K instead of getting the i3 2120.
 
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YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £179.99
1 x EVGA GeForce GTX 460 Superclocked 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £119.99
1 x Gigabyte Z68AP-D3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £84.98
1 x Crucial RealSSD M4 64GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive (CT064M4SSD2) £82.99
1 x Kingston HyperX Genesis Grey 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1600C9D3X2K2/8GX) £35.99
Total : £515.34 (includes shipping : £9.50).




Something like that fits your budget.

You need an aftermarket CPU cooler if planning on overclocking. If you haven't go one id sugeest this one.
 
I would check that PSU, unless you can see damage from the components. Open it up, and see if anything has blown/scorched.

It's rare that a motherboard or graphic card would produce a big flash, since everything connected outside the PSU is 12v, 5v or 3.3v.
 
Thanks for all the feedback all. The basket now looks like this:

MSI Geforce GTX 560Ti 2048Mb £199.99
Intel Core i5-2500 (sandybridge) £167.99
Gigabyte Z68AP-D3 Intel Z68 £84.98
Crucial RealSSD M4 64Gb £82.99
Kingston HyperX Genesis Grey 8Gb DDR3 1600Mhz Dual Channel £35.99
Total £583.34

I am assuming the PSU is still working as the fans fire up and the mobo light comes on. Could this still be the case but the PSU be blown?
 
If everything can power up, I'd guess the PSU is fine, but as said, you wouldn't get a huge flash as such from 12v or less. And the spec there looks fine :)
 
Bar said:
Thanks for all the feedback all. The basket now looks like this:

MSI Geforce GTX 560Ti 2048Mb £199.99
Intel Core i5-2500 (sandybridge) £167.99
Gigabyte Z68AP-D3 Intel Z68 £84.98
Crucial RealSSD M4 64Gb £82.99
Kingston HyperX Genesis Grey 8Gb DDR3 1600Mhz Dual Channel £35.99
Total £583.34

I am assuming the PSU is still working as the fans fire up and the mobo light comes on. Could this still be the case but the PSU be blown?
Click to expand...

You want the i5-2500K if you're thinking of overclocking.

If you're not a big gamer as you said in the OP, I'd go this way.
Rather than spend that much on the GPU, spend it on a bigger faster SSD and decent cooler.
This will get more work done faster and the graphics will still be pretty good at reasonable resolutions :)


YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - OEM £163.99
1 x Crucial RealSSD M4 128GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive (CT128M4SSD2) £151.99
1 x EVGA GeForce GTX 460 Superclocked 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £119.99
1 x Gigabyte Z68AP-D3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £84.98
1 x Kingston HyperX Genesis Grey 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1600C9D3X2K2/8GX) £35.99
1 x Gelid Tranquillo CPU Cooler (Socket 754/939/940/AM2/AM2+/AM3/LGA775/LGA1155/LGA1156/LGA1366) £25.99
Total : £594.34 (includes shipping : £9.50).

 
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In terms of CPU vs GPU I am not into overclocking - never really have been, and although this is primarily used for work I do occasionally play BF3/MW3/C&C4.

Thanks for the comments and suggestions, will hopefully get the order finalised tonight. As I am not clocking I take it stock CPU cooler will suffice? The case is a CM Storm and has plenty of fans and ventilation.
 
Bar said:
Thanks for the comments and suggestions, will hopefully get the order finalised tonight. As I am not clocking I take it stock CPU cooler will suffice? The case is a CM Storm and has plenty of fans and ventilation.
Click to expand...
The stock cooler is not only fine for stock speed, it will handle the 2500K clocked to 4.0GHz on stock voltage fine.

And you should definitely overclock the 2500K from 3.3GHz to 4.0GHz, considering it is just a simple process of going into the bios, changing the multipler from x33 to x40, save and exit the bios and that's it! Don't even need to temper with any other settings, or voltage etc.
 
For the sake of four crosshead screws, remove the cover from the PSU and visually check it. If unsure, take photos and upload here.
 
Stock Cooler will be fine if you dont plan on overclocking... had mine at 4.0ghz overclock with stock cooler for a few weeks until the aftermarket cooler turned up.. Temps weren't back even with IBT running at 4.2ghz i was only hitting mid 70's.. and your not llikely to be hitting the stresses that IBT performs that often in day to day use..
 
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