£1K build - need help with spec

MarkPW

MarkPW

MarkPW

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12 Aug 2005
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I'm looking to build a new workstation PC to replace my almost 4 year old rig, which was also my first build. Q6600 2.4Ghz, 4GB DDR2 RAM, GeForce 8800 GTX, Vista 64 bit.

The current system works ok but I tend to get carried away opening and working in many applications at once for programming, photo and video editing, albeit the biggest memory hog these days is Firefox. I don't do any gaming however.

Would anyone be kind enough to spec me a build?

I'm going for a Win 7 64 bit system (already purchased the OS) and looking to get some high end components so I can work away as I please.

I'm not looking to overclock it (not familiar enough), although I wondered if it's worth going for one of the pre-overclocked bundles offered by OCUK.

Regarding hard drives - is SSD worth it and reliable enough? I was thinking of having an SSD solely for the OS and have a couple of normal drives for music/video/general storage.

Also, is anything I could re-use from my current build (here), such as the PSU? Although perhaps I should keep it intact in case anything goes wrong and I have nothing to do work on!

Thanks for any help!
 
You would be able to re-use your PSU, Case and drives, you could re-use your cooler if you vp an find the correct mountain bracket.


Your basket
Product Name Qty Price Line Total
Intel Core i7-2600K 3.40GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail with FREE TrackMania 2 Canyon PC Game £247.99
(£206.66) £247.99
(£206.66)
HIS ATI Radeon HD 6950 IceQ X Turbo 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card with FREE Dirt3 & Deus Ex PC Games £199.99
(£166.66) £199.99
(£166.66)
Asrock Z68 Extreme4 Gen3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £154.98
(£129.15) £154.98
(£129.15)
Crucial RealSSD M4 128GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive £134.99
(£112.49) £134.99
(£112.49)
Corsair XMS3 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMX8GX3M2A1600C9) £47.99
(£39.99) £47.99
(£39.99)
Gelid Tranquillo CPU Cooler (Socket 754/939/940/AM2/AM2+/AM3/LGA775/LGA1155/LGA1156/LGA1366) £22.98
(£19.15) £22.98
(£19.15)
* Sub Total : £674.10
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 : £136.82
* Total : £820.92
 
if you don't game why'd you get a 8800gtx(top of the range on release)? :)

you should be able reuse everything apart from the cpu/mb/ram/cpu cooler if you want to jump to sandy bridge.

do any of your programs support hyper threading? if they do then 2600k, if not i2500k.

upgrade something like:

cpu http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CP-365-IN&groupid=701&catid=6&subcat=

mb: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-368-GI&groupid=701&catid=5&subcat=1990

ram: 2x http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-290-CS&groupid=701&catid=8&subcat=1517

cpu cooler: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HS-001-GD&groupid=701&catid=57&subcat= will keep temp lower than intel stock and quiter, plus option there for you to play with oc upto 4.5/4.6ghz should you wish in the future.

ssd: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-009-CR could go fo 256gb if you wish.

all well under £1k.

edit: damn it rjc got in while I was typing. why spec a 6950 if op wouldn't be gaming?
 
Last edited:
RJC, the OP said he doesnt game. £200 on a graphics card seems a bit much for a non gamer. the OP might get a benefit from the cuda cores of an nvidia card for his video editing depending if the program he uses supports it, but other than that theres no need for anything bigger than the intel onboard (or the 8800GTX)


Aretenon said:
I edited this because I realise what I said wasn't true for the Asrock Z68 Extreme4 Gen3.
Click to expand...
didnt realise that myself either, bit of a shame because that was a great feature of the pro3
 
Indeed, read that as he was gaming, no hard ship in removing the gpu and going for something more reasonable.

But, the op may start gaming !
 
personally i'd recycle the card reader + floppy, case, PSU, HDD, graphics card and DVD drive. the graphics card isnt a necessity, but its better than the onboard so the only reason you wouldnt want it is for power saving

also, if the fan if its powerful enough and quiet enough for a H60 you could recycle that too. since i have no idea about fans i've not bothered putting one in - i'll let someone else decide on that

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i7-2600 3.40GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail with FREE TrackMania 2 Canyon PC Game £233.99
1 x Asrock Z68 Extreme4 Gen3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £154.98
1 x Crucial RealSSD M4 128GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive £134.99
2 x Corsair XMS3 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMX8GX3M2A1600C9) £47.99 (£95.98)
1 x OcUK H²Flo Liquid CPU Cooler (Socket LGA1366/1155/1156/775/AM2/AM3) £36.98
Total : £668.32 (includes shipping : £9.50).
 
Reaper 392 said:
personally i'd recycle the card reader + floppy, case, PSU, HDD, graphics card and DVD drive. the graphics card isnt a necessity, but its better than the onboard so the only reason you wouldnt want it is for power saving

also, if the fan if its powerful enough and quiet enough for a H60 you could recycle that too. since i have no idea about fans i've not bothered putting one in - i'll let someone else decide on that

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i7-2600 3.40GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail with FREE TrackMania 2 Canyon PC Game £233.99
1 x Asrock Z68 Extreme4 Gen3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £154.98
1 x Crucial RealSSD M4 128GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive £134.99
2 x Corsair XMS3 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMX8GX3M2A1600C9) £47.99 (£95.98)
1 x OcUK H²Flo Liquid CPU Cooler (Socket LGA1366/1155/1156/775/AM2/AM3) £36.98
Total : £668.32 (includes shipping : £9.50).
Click to expand...

you forgot the k ;)
yes the op said they wouldn't be overclocking but having a capable one will give them the opertunity should they decide.

other than the cooler and non k its basically what I said :)
 
Thanks for the replies.

Regarding the Asrock Z68 Extreme4 board, I notice there are lots of recommendations on here for it but I've read of many suffering BSOD with this board and with other 1155 boards. Asus have apparently addressed the problem, but Asrock haven't which obviously concerns me.

Should I go for the Asus P8Z68-V PRO Intel Z68? It this pretty much the equivalent of the Asrock?

fowler002 said:
if you don't game why'd you get a 8800gtx(top of the range on release)? :)
Click to expand...

I was planning to game but it didn't happen. Is it worth getting a cheaper dedicated GPU or just use the onboard? I could use the GTX but I occasionally get an insufficient power error popping up on Vista.

Thanks
 
Re-use your case but get 3 better fans in there.
You can re-use your cooler with the other Viper, the Extreme4 Gen3 has 775 mountings as well as 1156.
Re-use the 8800GTX, plenty good enough if not gaming. The IGP can do the encoding.
Re-use the PSU, Otical and hard drives for storage.
I wouldn't bother with the card reader-floppy drive, you'll want the usb3 front panel installed with the SSD in it's caddy. Just get a usb card reader.


YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i7-2600K 3.40GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail with FREE TrackMania 2 Canyon PC Game £259.99
1 x Asrock Z68 Extreme4 Gen3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £159.98
1 x Crucial RealSSD M4 128GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive £139.99
2 x Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C10 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (BL2KIT51264BA160A) £39.98 (£79.96)
4 x Akasa AK-FN059 120mm Ultra Quiet Viper Cool Fan - 3/4 Pin £10.99 (£43.96)
Total : £695.30 (includes shipping : £9.50).



All I can say is I've got the board above and haven't had any problems with it.
Asus boards have problems too you know, as do MSI, Gigabyte and any other manufacturer. A lot of the problems are down to PICNIC's.

As for the error in Vista, what do you expect from Vista. I only used it for 3 weeks and that was enough for me, nearly as bad as Millenium:rolleyes:

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18317608&highlight=Asus+P8Z68-V+PRO
 
Last edited:
Davefran said:
Re-use your case but get 3 better fans in there.
You can re-use your cooler with the other Viper, the Extreme4 Gen3 has 775 mountings as well as 1156.
Re-use the 8800GTX, plenty good enough if not gaming. The IGP can do the encoding.
Re-use the PSU, Otical and hard drives for storage.
I wouldn't bother with the card reader-floppy drive, you'll want the usb3 front panel installed with the SSD in it's caddy. Just get a usb card reader.


YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i7-2600K 3.40GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail with FREE TrackMania 2 Canyon PC Game £259.99
1 x Asrock Z68 Extreme4 Gen3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £159.98
1 x Crucial RealSSD M4 128GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive £139.99
2 x Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C10 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (BL2KIT51264BA160A) £39.98 (£79.96)
4 x Akasa AK-FN059 120mm Ultra Quiet Viper Cool Fan - 3/4 Pin £10.99 (£43.96)
Total : £695.30 (includes shipping : £9.50).



All I can say is I've got the board above and haven't had any problems with it.
Asus boards have problems too you know, as do MSI, Gigabyte and any other manufacturer. A lot of the problems are down to PICNIC's.

As for the error in Vista, what do you expect from Vista. I only used it for 3 weeks and that was enough for me, nearly as bad as Millenium:rolleyes:

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18317608&highlight=Asus+P8Z68-V+PRO
Click to expand...

ram lower latency and only £2 more http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-094-KS
 
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