First Build.

Tomrhawk · 17 Feb 2012 at 13:30

Ok, here are my parts ive chose:
Western Digital Caviar Blue WD5000AAKS 500GB 7200 RPM - Internal Hard drive
Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit
Lite on DVD Burner iHAS124-04
Cooler Master Elite 430 - Case
G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 Model F2-6400CL5D-4GBPQ - RAM
ASUS M4A88T-M - Motherboard
COOLER MASTER R4-L2R-20AC-GP 120mm - Fan
AMD Phenom II X4 960T - Processor
ASUS VH242H - Monitor
I missed out the PSU because I am not sure which one to go for.

Also I don't know whether to get a graphics card or stick with the one on the motherboard, please leave your opinions on what changes you would make and what you would do with the graphics card and the PSU (I only have £50 left to spend on the PSU ?and graphics card?) the budget is around £650 including Postage and packaging ( including monitor) and the system is going to be used for gaming and just browsing the web. I'll probably be using it quite a lot. I want it to be able to handle most games. Also could you tell me if all the parts are compatible. Could you also tell me if all the parts are compatible and i want it to be able to run minecraft and skyrim etc. smoothly . Thanks

for your time!

Gregster · 17 Feb 2012 at 13:36

If you are a gamer then you will realy need to add a GFX card bud. I would recommend a 560ti or 6950 these will let you game at a great detail level. Also the PSU I recommend is on special till wednesday.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-056-OC

bluDawg · 17 Feb 2012 at 13:37

If you are going to game on it you will need a GPU as the on-board card wont suffice
this should be ok to run skyrim :http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-280-SP&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=1983

Stinger53 · 17 Feb 2012 at 13:39

Gregster · 17 Feb 2012 at 13:45

sorry bad links

dfour · 17 Feb 2012 at 13:56

@ Tomrhawk Your ram is wrong you have specced ddr2 and its a ddr 3 board

http://uk.asus.com/Motherboards/AMD_AM3/M4A88TM/

honosuseri · 17 Feb 2012 at 14:01

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i3-2100 3.10GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £94.99
1 x OcUK E2250SWDA 22" Widescreen LED Monitor - Black £89.99
1 x OcUK ATI Radeon HD 6850 OC 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card **PRE-ORDER ONLY PRICE** £89.99
1 x Gigabyte Z68AP-D3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard REV 1 £84.98
1 x Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-Bit - OEM (GFC-02050) £79.98
1 x Samsung SpinPoint F3 500GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD502HJ) £68.99
1 x Zalman Z9 Plus Tower Case with Fan Controller - Black £49.98
1 x Cooler Master GX 450W '80 Plus' Power Supply £35.99
1 x Kingston HyperX Genesis Grey 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1600C9D3X2K2/4GX) £23.99
1 x OcUK 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £14.99
Total : £656.78 (includes shipping : £19.10).

That's my take fella.

The F3 HDD is faster than the caviar Blue one. The Z9 case has cable management, 4 fans, a digital temp display and a fan controller. It's excellent value for money, I use it a lot for builds and use one myself.

I use that iHAS burner you wanted. Is a good drive, it can be flashed to the iHAS 524 spec and has custom firmware available. If none of that matters go with the cheap OCuk drive.

I know i'm slightly over anyway but it would be worth looking at the OCZ 550W PSU. That 450W we are spec'ing is a good budget PSU but it would be nice to have a lil more power, incase you ever wanted to upgrade the GPU later on.

Good luck with the build, any problems or questions you know where we are

shadow_boxer · 17 Feb 2012 at 14:08

For any sort of gaming you're going to need a reasonable dedicated graphics card. The best bang for buck mid range card right now is the 6850 which is on pre-order at OcUK.

I would try to squeeze in a 24" monitor too.

How about this,

YOUR BASKET
1 x BenQ G2420HDBL 24" Widescreen LED Monitor - Black £129.59
1 x Intel Core i3-2100 3.10GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £94.99
1 x OcUK ATI Radeon HD 6850 OC 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card **PRE-ORDER ONLY PRICE** £89.99
1 x Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-Bit - OEM (GFC-02050) £79.98
1 x Western Digital Caviar Blue 500GB SATA 6Gb/s 16MB Cache - OEM (WD5000AAKX) £61.99
1 x Intel BLKDH67BL H67 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard - (Sandybridge) £51.70
1 x OCZ ZS Series 550W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £46.98
1 x BitFenix Merc Alpha Gaming Case - Black £29.99
1 x Kingston HyperX Genesis Grey 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1600C9D3X2K2/4GX) £23.99
1 x OcUK 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £14.99
Total : £648.30 (includes shipping : £20.10).

Motherboard has USB 3.0 and SATA 6.0Gb/s. If you can stretch just a bit more then I would get the Gigabyte Z68AP-D3 motherboard as it'll mean in the future you could pop in an i5-2500K or i7-2600K and overclock.

Tomrhawk · 17 Feb 2012 at 17:44

I don't know what to do now, :confused:

I thought my Set-up was ok but then you said what else I should get :confused:

do you think I should stick with my set up now and add a graphics card and PSU or or go for what the other guys said ?? thanks.

beejjacobs · 17 Feb 2012 at 17:47

I'd probably say go for Hono's build, though they are all similar.

Your spec was okay, but AMD really aren't doing well at the moment, and the i3 is a much better choice, here's a comparison:
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/102?vs=289

Also the Z68 boards will allow you to put an i5 2500K in or similar later, which can be overclocked and offer great performance!

Tomrhawk · 17 Feb 2012 at 18:13

Do you know How I can lower the cost a little from Hono's build?

beejjacobs · 17 Feb 2012 at 18:16

This screen instead is a bit cheaper, but may not come with cables as its b-grade:
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=BG-009-PH&groupid=595&catid=670&subcat=

Tomrhawk · 17 Feb 2012 at 18:25

Thanks m8

now ive just gotta find a way to get £650

Tomrhawk · 17 Feb 2012 at 19:23

So this Graphics card will run most games including minecraft skyrim etc smoothly?
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-178-OK
Thanks again

also will i be able to have dual monitors by plugging one hdmi into the one onboard motherboard and the other into the graphics card ??

cmndr_andi · 17 Feb 2012 at 19:31

Tomrhawk said:
So this Graphics card will run most games including minecraft skyrim etc smoothly?
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=gx-178-ok

yes, the hd 6850 is a good gaming card that provides nice performance in modern games like bf3 and skyrim (see here). In comparison, minecraft is pretty easy to run, but the 6850 will certainly handle it without problems.

Tomrhawk said:
also will i be able to have dual monitors by plugging one hdmi into the one onboard motherboard and the other into the graphics card ??

You can two monitors at the same time, yes. However, you will want to plug them both into the graphics card.

Also, I would strongly recommend the Z68 gigabyte board recommended by honosuseri, shadow boxer and beejjacobs (and honosuseri's build in general). This board offers some key features that will likely be useful in future - the main one being the ability to overclock i5 and i7 CPUs (so if you upgrade the CPU in the future you will be able to get the most out of it).

Tomrhawk · 17 Feb 2012 at 19:35

You can two monitors at the same time, yes. However, you will want to plug them both into the graphics card.[/QUOTE]

But if I use the vga outputs won't it be bad quality?

cmndr_andi · 17 Feb 2012 at 19:40

Tomrhawk said:
But if I use the vga outputs won't it be bad quality?

The graphics card has two DVI ports, one HDMI and one display port - all of which carry digital video signals.

Plugging in two monitors with digital video inputs would work fine and not require you to resort to a VGA connection.

Tomrhawk · 17 Feb 2012 at 21:15

I don't understand is HDMI better than DVI I mean better quality wise if so could i use a Premium HDMI to DVI Cable Gold 2 Metre

cmndr_andi · 17 Feb 2012 at 21:25

HDMI and DVI offer exactly the same video image quality - since they both transmit the same video signal. The only real differences between the two are the connector configuration and that HDMI can carry sound (useful for TVs, no often needed for monitors).

Would you be able to remove the link to that cable on a competitor site, as it is against forum rules?

If neither of your monitors have a DVI or Displayport connection, but they do have HDMI connections then a cable like this or an adapter like this will work fine from one of the graphics card's DVI outputs.

Tomrhawk · 17 Feb 2012 at 21:37

ok thanks, and i removed the Link by editing if thats ok?