£500 Build Excluding GPU

m0r94n

m0r94n

m0r94n

Soldato
Joined
9 Jun 2006
Posts
4,045
Location
Swindon
Hi,

Considering upgrading for BF3, Skyrim, Rage, etc and am unsure as to whether to do it at present, or to wait a month in the hope that prices might fall :p.

I'm currently running with:

Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 5850 Extreme 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card
AMD Phenom X4 Quad Core 9750 2.40GHz (Socket AM2)
Gigabyte GA-MA790X-DS4 AMD 790X (Socket AM2) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard
OCZ Reaper HPC 4GB (2x2GB) PC2-6400C4 800MHz Enhanced Bandwidth Edition Dual Channel (OCZ2RPR800C44GK)
2x750gb Samsung drives
650w psu
Bog standard case with a few added fans.

Win 7 Professional - 64bit

Can't remember a lot about the build to be honest, purchased most of it in 2008 (had to dig up my OcUK order history to get product names).

I've got £500 to spend and ideally am looking to keep the card as I've only had it a few months. I can be flexible around the cash in all honesty, especially as I want to get as much as I can for the money. Had a look at the following products:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-309-CS
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-131-CR
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-244-SE

Am just looking for a few suggested specs to help me tie everything together. If possible I'm looking for 2x2tb HDD's to be thrown in to the mix as I've got far too many externals that I keep losing.

Thanks in advance.
 
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no need what so ever for 16 gig of RAM for gaming, even 8s not really necessary but given prices ATM it doesnt hurt to have
Have a look at something like this for your main components, and add your HDDs in as needed


YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £169.99
1 x Gigabyte Z68A-D3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £72.98
1 x Corsair Vengeance Blue 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMZ8GX3M2A1600C9B) £44.99
Total : £299.36 (includes shipping : £9.50).



Edit: maybe get a new case too, have a look at which ones you like
 
In all honesty would stretch to £600 with a new case, psu and Blu Ray drive. The above looks good.

I run two screens from the GPU, one for gaming and one for media/browsing generally so if any performance issues arise I'm hoping the new hardware can handle it.
 
MY BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £169.99
1 x Gigabyte Z68A-D3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £72.98
1 x Corsair Vengeance Blue 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMZ8GX3M2A1600C9B) £44.99
2 x Seagate Barracuda Green 2TB SATA 6Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM (ST2000DL003) £123.98
1x Samsung SH-B123L/BSBP 12x BluRay ROM / 16x DVD±RW Lightscribe SATA-II Optical Drive - Black (OEM) (SH-B123L/BSBP) £49.99

Total : £461.93

Going to £600 with a case and PSU, though still looking to keep costs down. Not too clued up on how much power I'd need. Been looking at the fractal design cases as they look quite nice. Don't really want some massive LED ridden thing sat next to my desk. Anyone have any recommendations or revisions?
 
check the case forum on the fractal's seen mention of build quality issues etc.

have a look at the zalman z9 / BitFenix Shinobi Gaming cases.

power wise , single card go for 600/650w if you think you might crossfire the 5850 then 750/850w.

Lepa W-Series 600W '80 Plus' is £57, OCZ ZS Series 750W '80 Plus Bronze' £75.
 
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Yeah the Fractals are good, PSU wise a decent 650W would do, if your current one is good make, just keep, alternatively the Antec TruePower's (link) are good, well priced and modular
Edit: completely missed last post for some reason, lol, nothing wrong with above advice either, whatever you fancy
 
I too am thinking it might be upgrade time. But waiting to see what happens with the upcoming AMD release.

If you are looking for a new power supply then take a look at this thread http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18325608 works out pretty cheap if you are getting or thinking off that game.

I like the Zalman case mentioned above looks good, has good build quality and isn't too much money.
 
Just to add, is there any major difference between the i5 mentioned in this thread and say one of the phenom models in this weeks sale?

This for example.

On top of that you've also got the Hex cores here.
 
the i5 sandy is the current intel processor socket and seems to be the best around at the moment for gaming.

the quad/hex cores are the current amd socket but bulldozer release is due soon, i wouldn't upgrade to either at the moment as there set to be replaced fairly soon (no valid date as yet as far as i'm aware, set to be end of this year /start of next at a guess)
 
It's tempting to wait. My current setup handles BF3 ok, but I want to run Skyrim as best I can. Always feel like I missed a trick with Oblivion not having it on high at the start.
 
Might as well wait to see how Bulldozer performs, it's so close to release now it makes sense too. Unfortunately getting 2x2TB takes a massive chunk of your budget which is ashame. If you don't want to wait then the i5 2500K really is the best at the moment.
 
m0r94n said:
It's tempting to wait. My current setup handles BF3 ok, but I want to run Skyrim as best I can. Always feel like I missed a trick with Oblivion not having it on high at the start.
Click to expand...

tbh if your thinking like that then you have to ask yourself which your likely to regret more:

1) not starting skyrim on high, what difference does it make to you whether its on medium or high ?

2) finding out bulldozer is a cheaper than sandybridge and/or performs just as well/better.

unless they really pull something out the bag i can't see that bulldozer will be that impressive, but the problem is no one knows :(.
 
Final "make or break" post :p.

Anyone see any issues with this, or any ways to bring the price down? (Don't want to sacrifice performance too much).

Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail
£167.99

Corsair Vengeance 16GB (4x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual/Quad Channel Kit (CMZ16GX3M4A1600C9)
£89.99

Gigabyte Z68AP-D3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard
£79.98

2x Western Digital Caviar Green 2TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (WD20EARX)
£111.98

Samsung SH-B123L/BSBP 12x BluRay ROM / 16x DVD±RW Lightscribe SATA-II Optical Drive - Black (OEM)
£49.99

Total: £499.93
 
looks fine, might want to check a retail version of the blue ray player, unless you have some blue ray playing software.
 
Thought I would keep.this in here. Posting on my phone atm as the new build won't boot. Hooked everything up as normal and tried to start the thing but it errors. Fans start and then stop after a few seconds and repeat ad infinitum. Any ideas?
 
Got the two power connectors in the GPU?

Got the extra power connector in the board near the CPU?
 
Got the 4 and 20(?) pin powers in along with both gpu ones. Psu gpu cpu and additional.fans spin but stop. Just about to reseat bios battery to see if it fixes it.
 
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