Time for a new PC

chaders

chaders

chaders

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Joined
18 Aug 2005
Posts
178
Hi All,

It's got to that time to replace my desktop PC. Now days it's really only used for FSX (with a bucket load of addons) as I do all other tasks on a laptop. I'm hoping a new build will open my mind once again to looking at some modern games since the worlds moved on since 2006 when I built my last PC. My old specs were:-

E6600 2.40GHz,
Asus P5W DH,
2x1GB Geil PC6400 DDR2,
Tagan TG530-U15 PSU,
Samsung SH-W163 DVD RW,
ATI X1900XT,
Lian-Li PC-7 case,
2xSeagate Barracuda 7200.10 250GB SATAII HDD

The new specs I've come up with so far are:-
MSI ATI Radeon HD 6950 Twin FrozR II 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics
Intel Core i5-2500 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail
MSI P67A-GD53 Intel P67 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard - (Sandybridge) ** B3 REVISION **
Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-15000C9 1866MHz Dual Channel Kit
Corsair Enthusiast Series TX 750W V2 High Performance Power Supply
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-Bit - OEM (GFC-00599)
Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM

A couple of questions for you experts out there.

Will my Current Optical drive be OK? I don't see any reason why not. Will my old HDD's be usable as extra storage with this MOBO. What case would you suggest to fit it all in?? I don't think the old one will do the trick.

Thanks in advance.
 
Blimey that was quick!! Thank's for the speedy responses. I'm trying to keep the build under £1000. Depending how much under that I come in may lead to me treating myself to a new monitor. I'll check out the links and see how this evolves.
 
Hi there,

If you are mainly using FSX then I would suggest sticking with an Nvidia card - I believe they just work better in that particular "game" - this is the card I would go for (or this GTX 570 if you can afford it).

Also, I would strongly recommend going for the K series i5 2500K, which allows you to verclock properly.

The Vengeance RAM is nice, but it is relatively expensive and has massive heatisnks. Instead I would go for this much better value kit - and spend the money you save on a CPU cooler like this to overclock your CPU and get a real meaningful boost in performance.

As for the PSU, do you plan on running a second card in the future? If you don't then I would go with this PSU - it's great value, will power any single GPU system and is good quality. If you want a 750W PSU (for running two cards at some point), then I would go with this PSU.

You current optical drive will be fine, and running your existing HDD as a secondary storage drive is no problem.

Since you are running FSX and loading a lot of data off the hard drive, then I would strongly suggest investing in an SSD for the primary hard disk.

Finally, for a new case, it really depends on your budget. If you can stretch to it - I think the Silverstone Raven 2 Evolution is a fantastic case. However, if you don't want to spend as much, the Fractal Design Define R3 is a really nice bit of kit and rather quiet.
 
chaders said:
I'll check out the links and see how this evolves.
Click to expand...

Done it for you with the changes I recommend doing:)

Your basketProduct Name Qty Price Line Total
MSI ATI Radeon HD 6950 Twin FrozR II 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £199.99
(£166.66) £199.99
(£166.66)
Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor £161.99
(£134.99) £161.99
(£134.99)
MSI P67A-GD53 Intel P67 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard - (Sandybridge) ** B3 REVISION ** £109.99
(£91.66) £109.99
(£91.66)
Corsair Enthusiast Series TX 750W V2 High Performance Power Supply (CMPSU-750TXV2UK) £92.99
(£77.49) £92.99
(£77.49)
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-Bit - OEM (GFC-00599) £79.99
(£66.66) £79.99
(£66.66)
G.Skill RipJawsX 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (F3-12800CL9D-8GBXL ) £69.59
(£57.99) £69.59
(£57.99)
Samsung SpinPoint F3 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (HD103SJ) £39.98
(£33.32) £39.98
(£33.32)
Sub Total : £628.77
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £10.00
VAT is being charged at 20.00% VAT : £127.75
Total : £766.52
 
Hi All,

Just thought I'd dig this one up again. Didn't manage to replace my PC last year due to one thing and another but I'm planning it in the next month. My Budget is now £1400-1500 but must include a Monitor and OS. As stated before It will be used mainly for FSX/X-Plane. I'm thinking of getting 2 SSD's one for the OS and one for my FSX install and games. For storage I'll use my existing drives plus a 1TB NAS that I have. From what I've been reading I might struggle to fit a modern GFX card in my Existing case to I'll Probably need a new one of those. What I've come up with so far is:-


ame Qty Price Line Total
Asus VE278Q 27" Widescreen LED Multimedia Monitor - Black £259.99
(£216.66) £259.99
(£216.66)
Intel Core i5-3570K 3.40GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail £189.95
(£158.29) £189.95
(£158.29)
Sapphire HD 6950 OC "Dual Fan Edition" 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £169.99
(£141.66) £169.99
(£141.66)
Intel 330 Series 120GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive - Retail £109.99
(£91.66) £219.98
(£183.32)
Corsair Vengeance 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C10 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMZ16GX3M2A1600C10) £109.99
(£91.66) £109.99
(£91.66)
Gigabyte Z77-D3H Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £79.99
(£66.66) £79.99
(£66.66)
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-Bit - OEM (GFC-02050) £79.98
(£66.65) £79.98
(£66.65)
OCZ ZS Series 750W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £69.98
(£58.32) £69.98
(£58.32)
 
Given this builds use I've been considering changing the single 27" monitor for the Samsung Eyefinity Bundle. Would the card have enough juice to run all three monitors?? I understand that due to the S23A700D having no display port I'd need an converter. Is this what I'd need??

Also is 16Gig of Ram a waste of time? Would I be better slimming it down to 8Gig? I'm still no wiser as to what case to use. I've also thought about letting OCUK do the hard work and going with a Titan Wizard but dropping the soundcard (the onboard should be fine for me). The advantage of the prebuilt is it's already overclocked so little chance of me breaking anything.
 
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