Advice on my existing build...?

Stains · 8 Sep 2011 at 21:52

I have always been into computers and wanted to give my own build a go summer of last year. I had a little stash of money to give it a bash so I done a bit of research and what have you and went for it. Thing is, reading various threads on here has made me wonder if 1) I found this place too late, and 2) Am I bottle necking my system or is there any major flaws in it that with a few tweaks I could improve it...? Obviously any system can be improved but I hope you get the jist of what i'm saying. As I said, this was my first attempt, so go easy...

What I ended up going for;
MB - Asus Crosshair III Formula 790FX
AMD Phenom II X4 Quad 955 Core 3.2GHz Processor
Radeon HD5450 1GB
4 x 2GB Corsair XMS3 DDR3 Memory
Samsung F3 HD103SJ 1TB HDD
Samsung SH-S223L Internal 22x DVD Writer Drive

Running Windows 7 64-Bit.

Very basic graphics card I know but I only really play Footy Manager although eventually want to be playing HD Media through here and that is capable, how well, I know not. Maybe a bit of feedback on that too.

Basically, i'm here to learn or find out where to learn more about all this. Any help would be appreciated.

Stains

CinderzFTW · 8 Sep 2011 at 22:23

Hi and welcome to OCUK Forums for a starters xD

You have a good motherboard and excellent am3 quad core with the 6mb l3 cache. That's the one I wish I got, but I ended up going for a Athlon instead because of my budget at the time.

Your memory is good and will do you for a good year or so before having to upgrade.

With the specs you have, your rig is very capable but their is one thing letting you down and maybe another.

The obvious bottle neck in your system is the lousy ATI Radeon HD5450. Them cards are £35 and will not play anything, plus most of them are passive cooling with no fans on them, so they run very hot and if you don't have a good case for cooling or have no extra air cooling i.e. fans it is dumping hot air all around your case which will be heating up the inside of your case and in time destroying your hardware and limiting their life span thanks to the heat.

For the bottleneck, the perfect graphics card to go with your rig has to be the brilliantly lovely and sexy GTX460. This card will last a good 2 years giving very playable frame rates at HD levels and higher resolutions with AA and VSYNC enabled.

The other possible bottleneck, especially with the GTX460 if you did get one if your PSU/Power Supply Unit. What make is yours at the moment, how many watts/amps.

If you do get a better GPU, it will require at minimum one PCI-E 6 pin adapter to get more power to run, especially under full load. So that is another possibility.

Thanks

Cinderz

Stains · 8 Sep 2011 at 22:57

Cheers for your response. To be honest, I was running out of money on the build and decided to scrimp on the GPU with the plan of saving up for one. I done the first part, but not the second. I shall look into your recommendation though.

My PSU - OCZ ModXStream-Pro 700w. It was on offer at the time and I thought it would leave me a bit of room for expansion... Is that right?

Buchanan0204 · 8 Sep 2011 at 23:43

Just to confirm. What exactly do you do with the computer? Is football manager the only game you play... or plan on playing?

What is the resolution of your monitor?

P.S. Your PSU is fine!

CinderzFTW · 9 Sep 2011 at 00:48

Yea the PSU is fine. Pretty good one tbh.

If you are only playing Football Manager then there is no need upgrade, but if you do decide to and want to play other games in the future, the GTX460 is the best option on the market and it's pretty cheap.

Stains · 9 Sep 2011 at 06:33

Buchanan0204 said:
Just to confirm. What exactly do you do with the computer? Is football manager the only game you play... or plan on playing?

What is the resolution of your monitor?

P.S. Your PSU is fine!

Samsung Syncmaster B2230H 21.5" Widescreen. Full HD. I'd like to end up running a Blu-Ray optical drive which is why I ask about the GPU. I'm also just getting into Photography and learning the basics for CS5 aswell. When I said "only Footy manager" I didn't mean that's all I do, but that tends to be the only game as I play COD and FIFA etc on the 360. Browsing/Basic
editing/FM/Movies etc.