Building a Decent Gaming rig (although i might have over cooked it)

Aqueitas

Aqueitas

Aqueitas

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Joined
14 Sep 2010
Posts
109
Hi folks,

Im looking to build a decent gaming Rig, something thats future proof enough to last me a couple years or so.

£169.99 ASUS CROSSHAIR IV
£224.99 AMD Phenom II X6 Six Core 1090T Black Edition 3.20GHz (Socket AM3) - Retail [HDT90ZFBGRBOX]
£152.73 Corsair XMS3 4GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-10666C9 1333MHz Single-Channel Module [CMX4GX3M1A1333C9]x2
£279.99 HIS ATI Radeon HD 5870 iCooler V 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card [H587FN1GD]
£124.98 Antec 1200 Twelve Hundred Ultimate Gaming Case - Black [0761345-08120-7
£128.99 Coolermaster Silent Pro Gold 800W Power Supply
£240.00 OCZ Vertex 2E 120GB 2.5" SATA-II Solid State Hard Drive (OCZSSD2-2VTXE120G) [OCZSSD2-2VTXE120G]
£46.00 Samsung SH-B083L/RSBP 8x BluRay ROM / 16x DVD±RW Drive - Black (Retail)
£88.99 Corsair Hydro H70 High Performance CPU Cooler (Socket LGA775/LGA1156/LGA1366/AM2/AM3) [CWCH70]

£1,456

Now i think i might have over-cooked it and if you think maybe im spending money in places where im just wasting it please feel free to adjust.
I want to be able to play any game that comes out at high settings and play online multiplayers without much of a drop.

I look forward to your advice and help
 
Hi and welcome

There are a few areas you can afford to shave money without losing any performance or next to none anyway

Mobo - theres no need to spend this much on a top end mobo
CPU -again you could get 1055 or even just the quad core 955 which for gaming will still be just as good
RAM - not overcooked it but youre better actually getting 2x2gig rather than 1x4 so your RAM runs in dual channel mode rather than single

Have a read of the thread in my sig/at top of page for a bit more advice/ideas

Edit: Oh and as Stulid says i7 is an option to you at this budget, as is pretty much anything
 
yes you can afford i7.

Product Name Qty Price Line Total
HIS ATI Radeon HD 5870 iCooler V 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £279.99
(£238.29) £279.99
(£238.29)
OCZ Vertex 2E 120GB 2.5" SATA-II Solid State Hard Drive (OCZSSD2-2VTXE120G) £239.99
(£204.25) £239.99
(£204.25)
Intel Core i7 930 2.80GHz (Bloomfield) (Socket LGA1366) - Retail £209.14
(£177.99) £209.14
(£177.99)
Asus P6X58D-E Intel X58 (Socket 1366) DDR3 Motherboard £143.98
(£122.54) £143.98
(£122.54)
Antec 1200 Twelve Hundred Ultimate Gaming Case - Black £124.98
(£106.37) £124.98
(£106.37)
Corsair HX 750W ATX Modular SLI Compliant Power Supply (CMPSU-750HXUK) £119.98
(£102.11) £119.98
(£102.11)
Corsair XMS3 6GB (3x2GB) DDR3 12800C9 1600MHz Triple Channel (CMX6GX3M3A1600C9) £117.49
(£99.99) £117.49
(£99.99)
Corsair H50-1 High-Performance CPU Watercooler (Socket LGA775/1156/1366/AM2/AM3) £62.99
(£53.61) £62.99
(£53.61)
Samsung SH-S223L/RSMN 22x DVD±RW SATA Lightscribe ReWriter (Beige/Black/Silver) - Retail £13.49
(£11.48) £13.49
(£11.48)
Sub Total : £1,116.63
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £14.75
VAT is being charged at 17.50% VAT : £197.99
Total : £1,329.37
 
stulid said:
HIS ATI Radeon HD 5870 iCooler V 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £279.99
Click to expand...
Wow they have dropped. Oh and for his original cost I'd say 2 of those gigabyte 460's? I'm looking to get one for "Hackfire X" with my 5850 if get one of those 150 quid Fuzion boards.

OP, if you do go i7, go with the ASUS P6X58D-E motherboard, not the similarly priced Gigabyte X58-UD3R, as they have a rep for cold boot problems.
Welcome to OCUK
 
Stulid build is perfect :D

Everything is spot on..you could wait about 3-6weeks for the new ATi 6000 series.

P.s
Have a browse at the cases as they are personal preference.
I love Silverstone cases such as Raven RV02 or the FT02
 
w1llyg said:
Stulid build is perfect :D

Everything is spot on..you could wait about 3-6weeks for the new ATi 6000 series.

P.s
Have a browse at the cases as they are personal preference.
I love Silverstone cases such as Raven RV02 or the FT02
Click to expand...

+1 the Silverstone FT02 looks like a really good case.
Also I am thinking of pushing back my build to wait for the new ATI 6xxx as well because I know if I don't wait I will be annoyed when the new cards come out :mad::D
 
Hi Guys thank you very much for the advice.
Stulid thanks for the advice i will look into the I7 a bit more then as i have always been AMD but i assume the I7 would be more future proof ??
 
stulid said:
yes you can afford i7.

Product Name Qty Price Line Total
HIS ATI Radeon HD 5870 iCooler V 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £279.99
(£238.29) £279.99
(£238.29)
OCZ Vertex 2E 120GB 2.5" SATA-II Solid State Hard Drive (OCZSSD2-2VTXE120G) £239.99
(£204.25) £239.99
(£204.25)
Intel Core i7 930 2.80GHz (Bloomfield) (Socket LGA1366) - Retail £209.14
(£177.99) £209.14
(£177.99)
Asus P6X58D-E Intel X58 (Socket 1366) DDR3 Motherboard £143.98
(£122.54) £143.98
(£122.54)
Antec 1200 Twelve Hundred Ultimate Gaming Case - Black £124.98
(£106.37) £124.98
(£106.37)
Corsair HX 750W ATX Modular SLI Compliant Power Supply (CMPSU-750HXUK) £119.98
(£102.11) £119.98
(£102.11)
Corsair XMS3 6GB (3x2GB) DDR3 12800C9 1600MHz Triple Channel (CMX6GX3M3A1600C9) £117.49
(£99.99) £117.49
(£99.99)
Corsair H50-1 High-Performance CPU Watercooler (Socket LGA775/1156/1366/AM2/AM3) £62.99
(£53.61) £62.99
(£53.61)
Samsung SH-S223L/RSMN 22x DVD±RW SATA Lightscribe ReWriter (Beige/Black/Silver) - Retail £13.49
(£11.48) £13.49
(£11.48)
Sub Total : £1,116.63
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £14.75
VAT is being charged at 17.50% VAT : £197.99
Total : £1,329.37
Click to expand...


I Have never overclocked before would you say your build above will be easy enough to overclock?? i would imagine the answer is yes but if anyone has experience with overclocking the I7 etc some useful links/advice would go down a treat

Stulid thanks for the build it looks very nice.. With the Board there will it be easy enough the CrossFire if i so wished in the future as reading the forums sometimes space seems to be a issue etc?
 
Why go i7, he's wanting future proofing for a couple of years.
i7 socket is almost dead in the water.
I'd personally go AM3 as when bulldizer is released then the chips work in existing board without costly RAM, Mobo and CPU upgrade
 
milkinc13 said:
Why go i7, he's wanting future proofing for a couple of years.
i7 socket is almost dead in the water.
I'd personally go AM3 as when bulldizer is released then the chips work in existing board without costly RAM, Mobo and CPU upgrade
Click to expand...

Didnt realise this.
I have always had AMD and found it easy to upgrade hense using the build in the original post.

Feeling more confused as which way to go now lol.
 
milkinc13 said:
Why go i7, he's wanting future proofing for a couple of years.
i7 socket is almost dead in the water.
I'd personally go AM3 as when bulldizer is released then the chips work in existing board without costly RAM, Mobo and CPU upgrade
Click to expand...

No they wont. Its been changed in the last month or so. Bulldozer will be am3+ so wont be compatible with am3 boards. So either way for an upgrade you will need a new mobo and cpu (ram should be fine to upgrade as were a way off ddr4).

The i7 will last longer than the 6 core phenom right now and the build is cheaper. In games the 4 core phenom with outlast the 6 core as its not really a gaming chip. Go for the i7 if you have the money, if you want to cut back a hundred or 2 then a phenom 2 x4 955 is still a very good chip. If you do want to have a go at beginner overclocking then the black edition phenoms are excellent subjects with the unlocked multipliers it makes it fun to tinker xD

Current chips will work in bulldozer boards but that wouldnt be an upgrade but the new chips wont be compatible with current boards which was one of the early reasons people were looking foreward to them but it was corrected recently.
 
AM3+ is backward compatable with AM3, same as AM2+ could take an AM2 chip but won't use the advances that the new socket/chips use.

How can you say a i7 will last longer than PhenomII x6? that makes no scence to me!

Podmonkey can you define a "gaming chip" so how can you say a hex core is not gaming chip?
 
i7 socket will be around for quite a while (775 is still about for goodness sake!)

that cpu will overclock like a beast and strips any comparible (by cost) amd processor bare, and thats just for breakfast.
 
(Quoted from http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18173796&page=5&highlight=bulldozer - As I said the boards with be backwards compatible with older chips but the chips themselves arent backwards compatible from the looks of things)

Bulldozer
"Orochi" (32nm, 8-core)

* 4 AMD Bulldozer modules
* Support new ISA: XOP, FMA4, SSSE3, SSE4.1, AVX, AES, CLMUL
* L2 cache shared per module
* L3 cache shared by all modules on a single die
* Support fusion of CMP and JMP instructions
* Advanced Quad-Channel Memory Sub-System
* Higher memory level parallelism
* DDR3
* AM3+ socket [Incompatible with AM3 and AM2+]
* Tentative release date Q2/2011

heres a quick link to a bit tech review - http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/cpus/2010/04/27/amd-phenom-ii-x6-1090t-black-edition/8

The simple answer for an i7 lasting longer is that they perform better right now (remember the guy wants a gaming maching, not a multi tasking machine) so you will get more milage out of. Using framerates as a simple explanantion - If below 30fps is your limit in general then the phenom will drop sooner than the i7 because it doesnt perform as well in pretty much every game.

I never said a hex core isnt a gaming chip. but those phenom x6s do not appear to have been designed for gamers. Their overclocking headroom is lower than their 4core counterparts (from what ive seen) and for the cost at stock they perform on par if not below the 4 cores in most game simply because games dont use that many cores - depending on how long you intend keeping the cpu, even in a couple of years games will still be using only a few cores (based on current progression) which still makes the x4 perfectly fine but by that point both will be outdated. If gaming is the sole reason then you arent getting anything for the extra cost. If he does much more (encoding, vid editing etc) then he would get the use from the extra cores but for just gaming, no.

(and just incase i get labelled a fanboy, I use amd, little athlon x3 unlocked and overclocked. Moving to a phenom x4 in the next few weeks - bang for your buck is where its at.)
 
Last edited:
Aqueitas said:
Hi folks,

Im looking to build a decent gaming Rig, something thats future proof enough to last me a couple years or so.

£169.99 ASUS CROSSHAIR IV
£224.99 AMD Phenom II X6 Six Core 1090T Black Edition 3.20GHz (Socket AM3) - Retail [HDT90ZFBGRBOX]
£152.73 Corsair XMS3 4GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-10666C9 1333MHz Single-Channel Module [CMX4GX3M1A1333C9]x2
£279.99 HIS ATI Radeon HD 5870 iCooler V 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card [H587FN1GD]
£124.98 Antec 1200 Twelve Hundred Ultimate Gaming Case - Black [0761345-08120-7
£128.99 Coolermaster Silent Pro Gold 800W Power Supply
£240.00 OCZ Vertex 2E 120GB 2.5" SATA-II Solid State Hard Drive (OCZSSD2-2VTXE120G) [OCZSSD2-2VTXE120G]
£46.00 Samsung SH-B083L/RSBP 8x BluRay ROM / 16x DVD±RW Drive - Black (Retail)
£88.99 Corsair Hydro H70 High Performance CPU Cooler (Socket LGA775/LGA1156/LGA1366/AM2/AM3) [CWCH70]

£1,456

Now i think i might have over-cooked it and if you think maybe im spending money in places where im just wasting it please feel free to adjust.
I want to be able to play any game that comes out at high settings and play online multiplayers without much of a drop.

I look forward to your advice and help
Click to expand...

Pretty nice setup and nearly the same as mine, stick with it and you will be very happy, i play all games at max settings and everything runs fantastic, you wont be dissapointed trust me :)
 
1. Grab cheaper board, save yourself at least 50-60quid there.
2. Get 1055T or 955
3. Different case
4. PSU is on the pricey side, not sure if you'll need 800W, can save there a few quid as well.
5. H70 is very overpriced and won't let you OC any further than 30-40quid air cooler, if you want better then that, stretch to 150-200 and get proper custom WC loop instead.

----------
i7 option from stulid is good too but I think I'd rather grab a 955/965 and see what comes up later and upgrade later if needed.
 
thanks for your responses so far.

I am now on the Fence as to which way to Go

The I7 seems like a great choice.

The AMD also has some merits and i have had AMD for years.

I would say im swaying towards the I7..
 
If it's just gaming then an i5 would be a better and a cheaper choice but if you could grab a 2nd hand i7 920 for around 120-130quid it's hard to resist.

If you're planning to buy new i'd stick with 955/965 ;-).
 
milkinc13 said:
Why go i7, he's wanting future proofing for a couple of years.
i7 socket is almost dead in the water.
I'd personally go AM3 as when bulldizer is released then the chips work in existing board without costly RAM, Mobo and CPU upgrade
Click to expand...

you what?

the new Bulldozer require a new motherboard and wont work in AM3!! this has been confirmed. LOL
 
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