£1500 New Build - Suggestions For Improvement Please!

EDIT: I have decided to change the mobo, monitor, os, gpu's and psu on the advice of forum mebers. Keep suggestions coming!

I have finally decided that my Athlon 64/6600 GT won't cut the mustard any more (it has been sometime since I built a PC!) and I have decided to buy my new PC. I have chopped and changed a list of components for a few weeks now and I have come up with a final list, but I am sure there is room for improvement.

Computer Use
It will mainly be used for programming, photoshopping and web design (silverlight mainly), but I would like to do some 3D modelling and gaming on it too. I will be using it for a minimum of 9 hours a day 5 days a week so I need a fairly quiet system with a comfortable keyboard and mouse, and a decent screen (I have considered 24" but I think 22" would be better for my work space.

Budget
As the thread title suggests, I will be spending around £1500. I actually want to spend a maximum of £1470 so I can afford delivery, but the less the better!

So now you know what I am using it for and how much I have to spend, I better tell you want I am getting!

Motherboard - Asus Maximus Formula (£152.74)
On the advice of forum posters, I have gone with a slightly older, but much cheaper x38 board

CPU - Intel Core 2 Quad Q9450 (£206.79)
The reason I picked this processor is that it was the fastest Intel quad core without jumping into silly money, and I have been reliably informed I can clock it to 3 GHz without too much hassle. I didn't even consider AMD this go around, I'm not sure it was even an option. I went with quad core for future proofing more than anything, I want this to run for a few years without many changes.

RAM - OCZ 8GB (4x2GB) PC2-6400C5 800MHz (£117.49)
I went with 8GB because of the 3D modelling, but mainly because my job entails me working with massive Photoshop documents, alongside illustrator and visual studio. I have also considered getting 8GB of 1066MHz if you think it's worth it, please say!

GPU - Powercolor ATI Radeon HD 4870 512MB (£350.12)
I have been doing a bit of research, and I don't think I could afford a 4870x2 in my budget, but dual 4870 in CF should give me enough welly to keep the games running for a while.

HDD - Dual for RAID 0 Hitachi Deskstar T7K500 320GB - (£68.12)
I don't need oodles and oodles of space, but I wanted to run in RAID 0 and these drives have a 16MB cache whereas the 250GB versions only had 8MB.

Case - Antec P182 (£91.64)
Saw a mate's and it was a nice big, quiet case and very sturdy too, and it isn't a crazy price. The triple 120mm case fans were appealing too.

PSU - PC Power & Cooling Silencer 750 Quad-Crossfire PCI-E 750W Power Supply (£105.74)
On the suggestion of forum posters

Monitor - OcUK Value L2442WD-VA 24" Widescreen LCD Monitor (£234.99)
I got convinced

Keyboard & Mouse - Microsoft Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000 & Logitech MX 400 Performance Laser Mouse (£56.38)
I wanted a comfortable wired keyboard and mouse, one which can be used day in and day out, and these seemed like good choices

OS - Windows Vista Home Premium 64-bit Edition (£117.49)
Since I got told about virtualbox, I saved myself £50

Optical Drive - Samsung SH-S203P/BEBN (£16.44)
It burns DVD's. Nuff said.

Grand Total = £1,467.41

So there are my choices, and why I made them. Please let me know if you think I should change anything for better performance/better value for money, or let me know if I have missed anything!

Spec looks good, not sure about the Hitachi drives in RAID, I would buy one 640gig drive, but thats just a personal thing, I`m running 2 250gigs in RAID 0 and have not noticed any real speed difference compared to my media center which runs a 320gig.

samsung spinpoint F1 are the drives to go for.

be aware that the 45nm range is being changed very soon, and the q9550 is going to be the price that the q9450 is now, along with other changes such as the q9400 coming in.

vista home premium should also be more than fine.

personally I'd buy one 4870, that'll do well for quite a while. then you can add another 4870 or an X2 if and when you need to.

Right firstly echo and the bunnymen fan for "couldnt cut the m-m-mustard!!"

Right now thats out the way save yourself a bit and get vista x64 home premium as the ms vurtual pc 2008 is now a free download and works on all post xp ms operating systems (eg xp32 xp-x64 and all versions of vista)

Secondly this should help you get the budget for one of 2 options. Either 4870's (its faster and therefore better... i know simple logic) OR get a good quality 24" screen.

I say the 24" would be a better buy as it will out last most pc's and the 1900x1200 res is a lot more an 1680x1050 (i wish i held out for a year or so when getting a new screen as 1680 is pretty big but still a little dissapointing). Given your stated use of photoshopping and webdesign these both are massivly enhanced by more desktop space to work on (for 2 inches of screen you get something like 20% more pixels to playwith). Hopefully thats a good case to up the screen

Finally id personally change the psu to a Ethermax or Seasonic branded psu (at about the same price) as they both carry a better brand reputation (probably the most important bit about picking a psu if lots of people have had good experence's using them). I like Ethermax more but both are well regarded (and something in the 600-700W is really all you would need ensuring nothing extra needs spending from you current spec) Oh and keep it modular (best thing ever for a psu)

Other than that wicked pc

Just a few suggestions:

I would go for a Corsair, Seasonic or Enermax PSU especially as your pc will be on almost constantly. A single 4870 would be better value imo, two of them aint much more than 2x4850's either. You could also save a few pennies and get a cheaper X38/48 board - Maximus Formula or P5E for example

Edit; Bit slow

Oooo yeah second for motherboard change (to save pennys) aka what he said ^^
(being slow and for got that point)

Thanks for the suggestions!

I will take a look at the cheaper mobo's I had a feeling I would get away with a slightly older one. As for the Vista version, I have checked MS's website and even tried downloading it, it will only work on Business and Ultimate which is a real bummer

I will look at a slightly lower rated, but better branded PSU, and having had to fiddle with PSU cables many, many times, I am really looking forward to a modular one!

On the GPU front, I was told I would see quiote a jump with 4850 in CF over a 4870, especially the 1GB versions and that was quite a bit cheaper than 2 4870's. Any one got some links to benchmarks between the two?

I am really tempted for the 24" monitor (if I can squeeze it into budget), can anyoen suggest a good one? I have heard the OCUK one is good, but there is a bit of a panel lottery with it??

Thanks all for the suggestions, keep 'em coming!

http://www.legitreviews.com/article/734/1/

Shows comparisons between all the major players!

Oooo ask about the ocuk ones in the monitor forums (there's a few people who know about them, i think they have been checked recently to remove the TN pannels)

As for virtual pc 2007 it has problems on vista home premium (iv just tried it ) so as a thought for an alternative you could try out VirtualBox as a free alternative

the the graphics cards the 4870's have a lot faster gddr5 ram in instead of the 4850's with gddr3. The graphics card forum have loads of threads on these debates (and lots of boring fanboyism). I would go for either the 4870 or 4870 x2 as they would be better to upgrade if you feel the need/have a bit more cash soon....

This is what I would do and if you really can't go over, change the gfx cards and/or monitor

pingwing said:

Oooo ask about the ocuk ones in the monitor forums (there's a few people who know about them, i think they have been checked recently to remove the TN pannels)

As for virtual pc 2007 it has problems on vista home premium (iv just tried it ) so as a thought for an alternative you could try out VirtualBox as a free alternative

the the graphics cards the 4870's have a lot faster gddr5 ram in instead of the 4850's with gddr3. The graphics card forum have loads of threads on these debates (and lots of boring fanboyism). I would go for either the 4870 or 4870 x2 as they would be better to upgrade if you feel the need/have a bit more cash soon....

Click to expand...

Thanks very much, I've gone for the 2 4870's since i saved money on the mobo. I've never heard of virtualbox, but if it can save me £50 on the OS, awesome!

A sweet! 2 4870's will be awesome!

http://www.virtualbox.org/ is virtualbox's website and basically its a free virtual pc app (same functions as virtualpc 2007 but with more support as its now developed by sun) and amoungst other host operating systems it supports both x86 and 64bit windows (all versions) which is pretty awesome

Thanks very much for your help, I think I have my final build now (which includes 2 x 4870's and 24" monitor!). It's quiet a bit better than a few hours ago, and only £10 more expensive!

I shall put the order in tomorrow and let you know how I get on