£800 spec

Sayso · 28 May 2011 at 20:35

I have come up with a spec for a friend but i want to see if you can better it he wants (i told him) to get Sandybridge not interested in OC and needs a 24inch monitor and capable gfx card (for light gaming)....fill ya boots

olivier renault · 28 May 2011 at 20:44

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor £173.99
1 x Iiyama ProLite E2409HDS 24" Widescreen LCD Monitor - Black £149.99
1 x Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 5850 Extreme 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card **OcUK Exclusive** £124.99
1 x MSI P67A-C45 Intel P67 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard - (Sandybridge) ** B3 REVISION ** £89.98
1 x Microsoft Windows 7 Bundle - Home Premium 64 Bit £68.40
1 x Western Digital Caviar Blue 500GB SATA 6Gb/s 16MB Cache - OEM (WD5000AAKX) £32.99
1 x XFX Pro 550W Core Edition Power Supply £50.99
1 x Antec 100 One Hundred Ultimate Gaming Case - Black £43.99
1 x Corsair XMS3 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMX4GX3M2A1600C9) £39.98
1 x Sony Optiarc AD-5260S 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £15.98
Total : £815.40 (includes shipping : £20.10).

The usual suspects.

Everything seems more expensive somehow :/ Looks like a couple of weeks ago, you'd have saved at least £20 on that lot. All in stock at least.

Sayso · 28 May 2011 at 21:37

was thinking the i5-2300...no over clocking?

cammy5477 · 28 May 2011 at 21:41

put some kind of ssd in it.....best upgrade there is just now...
i just built a system for my mate with a ocz agility 3 and its silly fast

Surveyor · 28 May 2011 at 21:44

Sayso said:
was thinking the i5-2300...no over clocking?

The 2500K is considerably faster even at stock speed.

If you're absolutely sure about no overclocking you could get the plain 2500 for £16 less.

Sayso · 29 May 2011 at 09:16

if it was mine i would clock the nuts off it and the 2500K is a no brainer the spec i came up with (no OS) and minus the 5850.

i have some ddr3 ocz 1600 stuff, but stock voltage is 1.7, is this to high for SB?

Sayso · 29 May 2011 at 09:26

how about this.

he likes the idea of a bluray drive so kids can use it, i will have to ask about wifi card, speakers etc

sk82jack · 29 May 2011 at 11:15

Go for a H67/61 motherboard with a non k edition CPU.

P67 is for overclocking and the H67/61 boards are cheaper.

You won't need an after market cooler if your not overclocking, the stock intel cooler is good enough.

I would use the saved money from these tips to upgrade the case a bit, maybe an antec 100 or something.

olivier renault · 29 May 2011 at 12:17

final offer.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Iiyama ProLite E2409HDS 24" Widescreen LCD Monitor - Black £149.99
1 x Intel Core i5-2400 3.10GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £145.99
1 x Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 5850 Extreme 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card **OcUK Exclusive** £124.99
1 x Gigabyte P61-USB3 Intel P61 Chipset (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard **B3 REVISION** £69.98
1 x Microsoft Windows 7 Bundle - Home Premium 64 Bit £68.40
1 x Western Digital Caviar Blue 500GB SATA 6Gb/s 16MB Cache - OEM (WD5000AAKX) £32.99
1 x Samsung SH-B123L/RSBP 12x BluRay ROM DVDRW DL & RAM Lightscribe SATAII Optical Drive - Black (Retail) £59.99
1 x XFX Pro 550W Core Edition Power Supply £50.99
1 x Corsair XMS3 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMX4GX3M2A1600C9) £39.98
1 x Cooler Master Elite 430 Windowed Case - Black £33.98
Total : £794.99 (includes shipping : £14.75).

No point adding a 3rd party cooler if you 're not gonna overclock. That saves you money towards a better case. You haven't included an OS. With an extra £60 on tap, you should really get a P67.

EDIT : Pretty much what Jack said.

Sayso · 29 May 2011 at 12:38

looks good thanks will run it past him, looks like i will be building it

honosuseri · 29 May 2011 at 18:26

What is the rig actually used for? If you insist on sandybridge and state a budget people will spec away till the budget is gone.

This reminds me of thread I was on yesterday. The OP wanted Intel but in truth going with an AMD build made more sense. My mate sk82jack knows what im refering to as he agreed with me in the end.

What does "Light gaming" mean exactly? This always confuses me! The user wants to play solitare? Or might just game the occasional weekend. Just because he/she won't be gaming all day everyday doesn't mean you have to compromise on the quality of the gfx card.

I hope you post back with a more definate use. I'm not saying the spec's that have been offered will make poor rigs just that the money could be divided out better possibly. Having seen your original spec, I'm glad you have asked for a second opinion. You're choice of HDD was worrying......I mean no offence, just trying to help.

cammy5477 · 29 May 2011 at 18:41

honosuseri said:
This reminds me of thread I was on yesterday. The OP wanted Intel but in truth going with an AMD build made more sense. My mate sk82jack knows what im refering to as he agreed with me in the end.

if the guy wants intel then just spec him intel....i dont know why anyone would want to go amd when intel sandybridge cpu's are so good and pretty cheap.... people on this forum can be over opinionated at times....hears a novel idea! why not just spec what the OP asks for :eek:

or is that just to much of a crazy idea?

honosuseri · 29 May 2011 at 19:10

No the guy who is paying for it clearly doesn't know what he wants in terms of spec. He is being advised by sayso. £800 isn't a lot of money to play with. Over a quarter of that is gone with the monitor and OS alone, no-one has spec'd speakers and peripherals that have been hinted at being needed.

I wasn't trying to be a complete douche. Just want the guy who is coughing up to get good value for his money. I will laugh my head off if an i5 is being spec'd for general web browsing and watching movies.....it's overkill and wasting money.

Let sayso tell us what the rig is for EXACTLY and what parts are needed. He may well be right but his first post is so amazingly vague it's not much to go on.

cammy5477 · 29 May 2011 at 19:23

if you sayso....

an i5 2500k is like £150....thats not a lot of money to be future proof as possible....
thats good value for money best bang for buck there is..

honosuseri · 29 May 2011 at 19:36

It's not just the cpu is it? The mobos suggested are around the £100 mark. I'm fully aware that the AM3 socket is at the end of it's life but a phenom II X4 and a discrete mobo would shave £100 off minimum, which could get a better gfx card or SSD as you suggested.

For the record you have spec'd F all either. So don't troll at me for trying to be sensible with someone elses money. If the user needs an i5 he needs it, these are our opinions sayso may well be wrong and yes I could be too. Till we know what it's for who can say?

cammy5477 · 29 May 2011 at 20:56

honosuseri said:
It's not just the cpu is it? The mobos suggested are around the £100 mark. I'm fully aware that the AM3 socket is at the end of it's life but a phenom II X4 and a discrete mobo would shave £100 off minimum, which could get a better gfx card or SSD as you suggested.

For the record you have spec'd F all either. So don't troll at me for trying to be sensible with someone elses money. If the user needs an i5 he needs it, these are our opinions sayso may well be wrong and yes I could be too. Till we know what it's for who can say?

thats your preferance though....personnaly i would rather have the best basic system parts as poss then add a better card later on which is my pref....potato potata....all im saying is if someone wants intel spec it...if someone wants amd spec it.....i got dogs abuse on a previuos thread for saying i didnt want amd....maybe that will change when BD comes out but just now sandy's rule...anyway no offence ment mate

honosuseri · 29 May 2011 at 21:29

I do agree to an extent but this is getting way off topic us bickering.

I like oliver's spec. He did a much better job than sayso (sorry fella but it's true). He came in under the £800 but if speakers and other parts are needed it's going to go over.

If £800 is for an all in system the spec will need a rethink. The only thing he can drop is the bluray (also i know the drive is retail but does that include software for playback?) to a dvd-rw which isn't a massive saving or drop the cpu spec, possibly both.

I posted a link to compare benchmarks of cpus amd vs intel or to compare i3 vs i5 on that thread i mentioned. An AMD 965BE is on par with a i3 2100 and can work out cheaper. Hell I can get the 965BE (up the mulitplier of the 955) and the mobo for the cost of that i5 cpu then the mobo budget left goes towards speakers and keyboard,wifi etc.

Like I keep saying let sayso come back with what the guy who holds the purse strings says. If he can splash a bit more cash olivers suggested rig is excellent!