Hi
I realise this is my first post but go easy on me guys because it's also my first ever build and i decided to do my research myself rather than bother you lot too much.
But now the time has come where i seem to have amassed so much information that i can't make the final decisions. This is where i hope the community's experience can come in and i can get started on my xmas build.
So here's my situation:
Primary use will be for the latest graphically demanding games like cyrsis, fallout, CoD etc but also want football manager 09 to whiz along nicely with as many small African nations selected as I so desire.
It will have to last me about a year to a year 1/2. Hopefully by that time the ridiculous price of building an i7 would have come down or amd's phenom 2 might be leading the benchmarks.
I will be overclocking the cpu and might push the ram a bit too.
I will not be using crossfire or ddr3
I have £900 to spend on the following parts. This is what i've come up with after scouring the forums for days on end:
Intel core 2 duo E8400 3.00ghz £137 (want to clock upto 3.5ghz, on offer, should have the edge over a quad in the short lifetime of the comp)
Gigabyte GA-EP45-Extreme Intel P45 £135 (on offer, great cooling, good reports in their dedicated thread in the mobo section, reliable?) I was originally looking at boards from the Asus pq5 line but i've found a number of threads mentioning repeat RMA's and how picky they are with ram, even on their qvl.
Gainward ATI Radeon HD 4850 golden sample 512mb £152 (supposedly best 4850) i will be gaming at 1360 x 768 on a 32" lcd tv
Corsair 2GB DDR2 XMS2 DHX PC2-6400C4DHX TwinX (2x1GB) x2 £80 This is where i really have no idea. The qvl for the gigabyte board is incredibly sparse to say the least and i came up with the corsair stuff due to the brand name and then using the memory configurator on their website. Overclockers don't sell the 2 x 2gb version but should this still be okay? Gigabyte qvl: http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/FileList/MemorySupport/motherboard_memory_ga-ep45-extreme.pdf
Samsung SpinPoint F1 500GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD502IJ) £45
Antec 900 Nine Hundred Ultimate Gaming Case £76
Corsair HX 520W ATX2.2 Modular SLI Compliant PSU £73
Thermalright TRUE Black 120 CPU Cooler (Socket AM2/LGA775) £40 ( loads of recommendations but i have no idea if this will fit on my board past all the copper)
Noctua NF-P12 120mm Silent Case Fan - 3 Pinm x2 £30
Sony NEC Optiarc AD-7201S 20x DVD±RW SATA Dual Layer Lightscribe ReWriter £18
Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium SP1 32-Bit - OEM (66I-02059) £90 (i dont want to start a war over 32 vs 64bit computing but until my next build i want to stay 32 bit for my own reasons.)
Logitech MX518 Gaming-Grade Optical Mouse (910-000616) £20
Total:£897
Any changes you would make, potential problems or things i've missed? All help is very much apreciated as im going to go insane if i dont bite the bullet and order this thing soon.
I know thats quite a big spec me post but if i expect help i think i should at least let you know where im at.
I realise this is my first post but go easy on me guys because it's also my first ever build and i decided to do my research myself rather than bother you lot too much.
But now the time has come where i seem to have amassed so much information that i can't make the final decisions. This is where i hope the community's experience can come in and i can get started on my xmas build.
So here's my situation:
Primary use will be for the latest graphically demanding games like cyrsis, fallout, CoD etc but also want football manager 09 to whiz along nicely with as many small African nations selected as I so desire.
It will have to last me about a year to a year 1/2. Hopefully by that time the ridiculous price of building an i7 would have come down or amd's phenom 2 might be leading the benchmarks.
I will be overclocking the cpu and might push the ram a bit too.
I will not be using crossfire or ddr3
I have £900 to spend on the following parts. This is what i've come up with after scouring the forums for days on end:
Intel core 2 duo E8400 3.00ghz £137 (want to clock upto 3.5ghz, on offer, should have the edge over a quad in the short lifetime of the comp)
Gigabyte GA-EP45-Extreme Intel P45 £135 (on offer, great cooling, good reports in their dedicated thread in the mobo section, reliable?) I was originally looking at boards from the Asus pq5 line but i've found a number of threads mentioning repeat RMA's and how picky they are with ram, even on their qvl.
Gainward ATI Radeon HD 4850 golden sample 512mb £152 (supposedly best 4850) i will be gaming at 1360 x 768 on a 32" lcd tv
Corsair 2GB DDR2 XMS2 DHX PC2-6400C4DHX TwinX (2x1GB) x2 £80 This is where i really have no idea. The qvl for the gigabyte board is incredibly sparse to say the least and i came up with the corsair stuff due to the brand name and then using the memory configurator on their website. Overclockers don't sell the 2 x 2gb version but should this still be okay? Gigabyte qvl: http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/FileList/MemorySupport/motherboard_memory_ga-ep45-extreme.pdf
Samsung SpinPoint F1 500GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD502IJ) £45
Antec 900 Nine Hundred Ultimate Gaming Case £76
Corsair HX 520W ATX2.2 Modular SLI Compliant PSU £73
Thermalright TRUE Black 120 CPU Cooler (Socket AM2/LGA775) £40 ( loads of recommendations but i have no idea if this will fit on my board past all the copper)
Noctua NF-P12 120mm Silent Case Fan - 3 Pinm x2 £30
Sony NEC Optiarc AD-7201S 20x DVD±RW SATA Dual Layer Lightscribe ReWriter £18
Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium SP1 32-Bit - OEM (66I-02059) £90 (i dont want to start a war over 32 vs 64bit computing but until my next build i want to stay 32 bit for my own reasons.)
Logitech MX518 Gaming-Grade Optical Mouse (910-000616) £20
Total:£897
Any changes you would make, potential problems or things i've missed? All help is very much apreciated as im going to go insane if i dont bite the bullet and order this thing soon.
I know thats quite a big spec me post but if i expect help i think i should at least let you know where im at.
