£2k spec please

Masterdog · 22 Mar 2007 at 10:18

Hey all,

I'm looking to build a new rig for about £2000. It's been a while since I've upgraded and I'm a bit at sea with current components available and what goes with what, so I just want to see what you chaps can come up with, if that's okay.
I need everything except a monitor (my monitor goes up to 1680x1050, so no need for SLI 8800's). I also need to fit a router and Vista in the budget. I use my pooter mainly for gaming, movies etc.

Thanks in advance,

MD

melbourne720 · 22 Mar 2007 at 10:35

How about:-

Team Elite 2GB (2 x 1GB) DDR2 PC2-6400C5 800MHz Dual Channel Kit (TEDD2048M800HC5DC)
(£129.24)

Akasa Eclipse 62 Aluminium Case - No PSU
(£93.99)

Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 320GB ST3320620AS SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM
(£61.09)

Samsung SH-183LBEBN 18x18 DVD±RW Dual Layer Serial ATA Lightscribe ReWriter (Black) - OEM
(£23.49)

Tuniq Tower 120 CPU Cooler
(£35.24)

Corsair HX 620W ATX2.2 Modular SLI Compliant PSU (CMPSU-620HXUK)
(£99.86)

BFG GeForce 8800 GTX OC 768MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail
(£399.49)

Intel Core 2 DUO E6600 "LGA775 Conroe" 2.40GHz (1066FSB) - Retail
(£199.74)

EVGA nForce 680 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard
(£170.36)

Belkin 125Mbps Wireless ADSL2+ Modem/Router (F5D7633UK4A)
(£64.61)

Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium 64-Bit Edition DVD - OEM - 1Pk (66I-00788)
(£75.19)

Total : £1,367.51

Toyota_Mr2 · 22 Mar 2007 at 11:37

any reason for that ram. It is CAS 5.

Get the geil ram. It is cheaper and runs @ 4-4-4-12

Pandorasghost · 22 Mar 2007 at 11:43

No offence but why a belkin router? why not cisco? or Lynksys? they are much better!

cosmogenesis · 22 Mar 2007 at 12:16

Your monitor goes to 1680x1050 at the moment but say you wanted to upgrade it in 12 months time, get SLI if you m8 I would suggest. Also consider RAID for disk access, HDD's are very cheap and a 0 +1 array will improve performance to.

£2000 is loads m8. My rig was £1100 and incuded 6600 C2D, 2 GB Geil RAM, 2x X1900 XT CF graphics, an Antec case, DVD RAM drive, 2x 160 GB HDDs, 550 Watt PSU and a 150 quid motherboard.

What are you're requirements? What do you use the computer for mainly. Get Vista Ultimate if you can afford it as it has more extras that you might require.

Before we can spec it out let us know what you want to use it for please ?

A2Z · 22 Mar 2007 at 12:17

cosmogenesis said:
Before we can spec it out let us know what you want to use it for please ?

read the OP...

masslac · 22 Mar 2007 at 12:18

SLI is almost entirely nonsense.

I will spec a rig and post back shortly.

masslac · 22 Mar 2007 at 12:24

Plus router.

Near silent. Extremely powerful. More than enough storage (RAID 0). Yup.

Edit - Typo fixed.

cosmogenesis · 22 Mar 2007 at 12:26

Does he want quad core or dual core? I would have thought that buying a SLI capable mobo would be a must really as having the option to go there is a good thing I would have thought.

Ok Games and movies so it needs to be a good rig but what type of games: FPS or MMORPH etc. You gonna play Crysis etc ?

melbourne720 · 22 Mar 2007 at 12:38

Toyota_Mr2 said:
any reason for that ram. It is CAS 5.

Get the geil ram. It is cheaper and runs @ 4-4-4-12

It's also Micron chips, unlike the Geil, and will clock much faster.

Timings have little real world difference to C2Duo setups. Clock speed on the other hand...

melbourne720 · 22 Mar 2007 at 12:41

Pandorasghost said:
No offence but why a belkin router? why not cisco? or Lynksys? they are much better!

Bad experience with a Linksys - they are problematic as hell. I don't touch mine for fear it will die again.

The neighbour's Belkin one seems to be working 24/7.

mishima · 22 Mar 2007 at 12:44

Melbz is back and posting excellent spec's already

Tbh building a rig to a game that hasn't been released (Crysis) is unrealistic as we don't yet know the spec needed for it. But a rig under 2K should tackle anything thrown at it. I would spend under £1500 on a spec if I was you as anything over isn't going to offer much more of a performance increase and would be wasting dollar!

melbourne720 · 22 Mar 2007 at 12:58

mishima said:
Melbz is back and posting excellent spec's already

Can't keep away it seems

Masslac's build looks good as well. You won't need stellar FSB clocks on the mobo, as the multiplier on the e6600 will keep the clock speed maxed at around 330-370MHz FSB, depending on the cooling.

Masterdog · 22 Mar 2007 at 14:17

Wow, thanks for the help guys...wasn't expecting so many replies in such a short time. I'm an FPS gamer mainly, and will be getting Crysis when it comes out.
A couple of other questions...I was thinking of going quad core, but the price difference seems to be rather large and no games are making use of it yet (although I know Valve are talking about it). I don't do any other CPU-intensive tasks to make it worthwhile either. Nonetheless, I don't know how soon 2 extra cores would show their worth.
Also, 4gb ram = worth it or not?

masslac · 22 Mar 2007 at 14:20

Quad core: TBH not really worth it for gaming till the prices drop somewhat.

4GB RAM: Not at this time. Just drop in another 2GB kit when there's more software that will utilise it fully.

melbourne720 · 22 Mar 2007 at 15:26

masslac said:
Quad core: TBH not really worth it for gaming till the prices drop somewhat.

4GB RAM: Not at this time. Just drop in another 2GB kit when there's more software that will utilise it fully.

2nd'd

stickroad · 22 Mar 2007 at 16:19

Operating System - Windows Vista Home Premium 64bit OEM

CPU - Intel Core 2 Duo E6600

CPU Cooler - Scythe Ninja Plus Rev.B Heatpipe CPU Cooler

Thermal Paste - Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound

Motherboard - Intel Bad Axe 2 975x

Memory - Team Extreme 2GB (2 x 1GB) 6400 4-4-4-12

Hard Drive - Seagate 320 GB Hard Drives 7200.10 x2

Graphics Card - BFG 8800GTX OC 768 DDR3

DVD Drive - Pioneer DVR-112DBK 18x18 DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter

Sound Card - Creative X-Fi Xtreme Gamer Fatal1ty Professional 7.1

Power Supply - Corsair HX 620W ATX2.2 Modular SLI Compliant PSU

Case - Lian-Li PC-7 PLUS Aluminium Midi-Tower Case

Keyboard + Mouse - Microsoft HABU 2000dpi High Precision Gaming Mouse
SpeedLink Ultra SL-6465 Flat Metal Keyboard

Total : £1,501.42

Keyboard and Mouse obviously up to you. And Case, but if you do get the 8800 make sure it fits in the case that you will be getting.

redzep · 22 Mar 2007 at 16:37

£2000 budget? how about this ? :cool:

Intel Core 2 DUO E6600 "LGA775 Conroe" 2.40GHz (1066FSB) - Retail £162.99
(£191.51)

Asus Commando Intel 965 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £129.99
(£152.74)

CellShock 2GB (2 x 1GB) DDR2 PC2-6400C4 800MHz Dual Channel Kit £149.99
(£176.24)

Western Digital Raptor X 150GB WD1500AHFD 10,000RPM SATA 16MB Cache - OEM £136.99
(£160.96)

Creative X-Fi Xtreme Gamer Fatal1ty Professional 7.1 Soundcard - Retail £75.99
(£89.29)

Enermax Infiniti 720W EIN720AWT ATX2.2 Modular SLI Compliant PSU £127.99
(£150.39) £127.99

BFG GeForce 8800 GTX OC 768MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail £329.99
(£387.74)

NEC AD7170A 18x18 DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM £16.99
(£19.96

Scythe Ninja Plus Rev.B Heatpipe CPU Cooler (478/754/939/940/AM2/LGA755)

Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound (3.5g) £5.99
(£7.04) £5.99

Lian-Li PC-60 PLUS Aluminium Midi-Tower Case - Black £59.99
(£70.49)

Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium 64-Bit Edition DVD - OEM - 1Pk (66I-00788) £63.99
(£75.19)

Razer DeathAdder Blue 2000dpi High Precision Gaming Mouse - Retail £39.99
(£46.99) £39.99

Razer Tarantula Advanced Gaming Keyboard - Black £59.99
(£70.49)

Sub Total : £1,390.86
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £14.95
Vat : £246.02
Total : £1,651.83

Even under budget

masslac · 22 Mar 2007 at 16:38

Everything posted so far here has been way under budget tbh. Mine is still the best.

Pandorasghost · 5 Apr 2007 at 09:01

melbourne720 said:
Bad experience with a Linksys - they are problematic as hell. I don't touch mine for fear it will die again.

The neighbour's Belkin one seems to be working 24/7.

Alright i understand, lol funny thing is, i have had no real problems with my Lynksis only once it played up reset and it was fine, but my Belkin, for a start the Customer service is a pile of steaming ****, It kept kicking or timing out when i tried to play BF2 and well, since thats my lifeline away from home, that didnt help! :-)