Advice on p.c specs - 1st time builder.

AlSukhon · 17 Apr 2007 at 16:24

Hi folks,
I've never built a p.c before and have selected some specs. would like to know your opinions on what i've chosen & any advice you have would be greatly appreciated!.... i'm gonna use it to play games like counter-strike, total-war, battle field...etc. (nothing too state of the art)
my budget is about 600, i've tried to squeeze the most out of it while having a 22" monitor.
specs:
-AMD Athlon 64 X2 4600+ Windsor Skt AM2 1mb £75
-Asus M2N-SLi Deluxe (Socket AM2) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £70
-GeIL 1GB (2x512MB) PC5300 667MHz Value DDR2 Dual Channel Kit £40
-BFG GeForce 7600 GT OC 256MB GDDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express)£90
-Hitachi Deskstar T7K500 NCQ 250GB SATA-II 8MB Cache – OEM £45
-Sony AW-G170AB2 18x DVD±RW x12 Ram Dual Layer DVD-Writer – OEM £18
-Arctic Cooling T1 Pro Case (PSU 500W) £50
-FUJITSU SIEMENS Scaleoview L22W-3 22" TFT Screen (5 ms) £200
Total £600 (approx)

Cheers!

wellibob · 17 Apr 2007 at 16:39

I would change it to a core 2 duo system for starters. DS3 - 6300 cpu, and 2 gig 6400 ram.

steve258 · 17 Apr 2007 at 17:34

To play the games you specified at native resolution of a 22" TFT I'd at least get a x1950pro tbh, which is only about £15 more and performs a lot better than the 7600GT.

Do you got to have 22" monitor?

Would get:

C2D E4300
Gigabyte 945P-S3 from clearance section for £41
OCUK Value 2Gb PC6400 kit for £75
Sapphire X1950pro for £105
WD Cavier Special Edition 250Gb 16Mb cache for £38 from B-grade
Samsung SATA DVD-RW for the same price

t31os · 17 Apr 2007 at 18:57

Doesnt help that you're listing parts from a site other then OcUK to....

All the same, as said that card isnt suited to that size monitor, so it might be wise to go with something smaller or increase the budget.

I'd personally spend less on the screen and put the cash saved on a better system, such as the Core2Duo, quite frankly you won't fit it all in that budget without sacrifcing something.

Doesnt the current system have anything you could carry over?....

semi-pro waster · 17 Apr 2007 at 19:07

Welcome to the forums. About £40 over the budget but superior CPU and graphics card along with all other required parts.

OcUK 1GB (2x512MB) PC2-6400 800MHz DDR2 Dual Channel Kit £34.99
(£41.11) £34.99
(£41.11)
Antec NSK4400 Mini Tower Case - 380W SmartPower PSU £39.99
(£46.99) £39.99
(£46.99)
**B Grade** Western Digital Caviar Special Edition 250GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM £32.99
(£38.76) £32.99
(£38.76)
Sapphire ATI Radeon X1950 Pro 256MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail £89.99
(£105.74) £89.99
(£105.74)
Belinea 2225S1W 22" Widescreen LCD Monitor - Black/Silver £169.99
(£199.74) £169.99
(£199.74)
Gigabyte GA_965P_S3 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £59.99
(£70.49) £59.99
(£70.49)
Liteon DVD-8900 16x DVD±RW/RAM (Black) - OEM £13.99
(£16.44) £13.99
(£16.44)
Intel Core 2 Duo E4300 "LGA775 Allendale" 1.80GHz (800FSB) - Retail £92.99
(£109.26) £92.99
(£109.26)
Sub Total : £534.92
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £12.95
Vat : £95.88
Total : £643.75

buachille · 17 Apr 2007 at 22:17

good luck. was not long ago i did my first one i was worried, but it went fine and posted first time.

have done another 2 since then and no probs.

post back once you've got it built. you'll be chuffed with yourself

AlSukhon · 18 Apr 2007 at 09:12

Cheers guys,
been asking ppl and they tell me to stick to one site for purchases.....will do.
if i could stretch to a BFG 7900GS would that solve my monitor probs?
fixed on a 22"er cos i plan to put in a t.v card later and want a decent sized screen.
are you all saying that the E4300 (1.8GHz) is better than a 4600 (2.4GHz)?
don't get it.....!? whats the score with Intel vs AMD?

Thanks!

semi-pro waster · 18 Apr 2007 at 10:19

The E4300 is about on a par with a X2 4400 before overclocking and once overclocked (which is very easy) demolishes it.

A 7900GS would probably do it for a 22" screen although you may have to turn down details slightly from an X1950pro.

AlSukhon · 18 Apr 2007 at 10:49

thanx!
what if i overclocked the 4600? is this also easy? i take it that i'd need to buy a good cpu cooler.....
I'm not against inetl, but do admit i like AMD.
would the ATI gcard work with an SLI mother board, or would I have to change to a crossfire one?
and what's the value of a "lifetime guarantee" on gcards? cos i guess it's just as good to have a 3yr one as things become obsolete.......

Richdog · 18 Apr 2007 at 10:54

semi-pro waster said:
Welcome to the forums. About £40 over the budget but superior CPU and graphics card along with all other required parts.

OcUK 1GB (2x512MB) PC2-6400 800MHz DDR2 Dual Channel Kit £34.99
(£41.11) £34.99
(£41.11)

It's pointless speccing a gaming system with 1GB RAM nowadays, 2GB needs to be an absolute minimum for any gamer regardless of whether it takes them a bit over budget or not. If need be rejiggle the money spent on other things to allow for it. It's essential.

AlSukhon said:
thanx!
what if i overclocked the 4600? is this also easy? i take it that i'd need to buy a good cpu cooler.....
I'm not against inetl, but do admit i like AMD.
would the ATI gcard work with an SLI mother board, or would I have to change to a crossfire one?
and what's the value of a "lifetime guarantee" on gcards? cos i guess it's just as good to have a 3yr one as things become obsolete.......

It's not about whether you prefer Intel or AMD, it's the fact that you want the best performance for your money, and that is simply a Core2 at the moment. Going with AMD just because you "like them" would be quite frankly silly. The ATI card will work fine on an SLI board unless you want to run two together, in which case you'll need a crossfire board.

mishima · 18 Apr 2007 at 11:03

Richdog said:
It's pointless speccing a gaming system with 1GB RAM nowadays, 2GB needs to be an absolute minimum for any gamer regardless of whether it takes them a bit over budget or not. If need be rejiggle the money spent on other things to allow for it. It's essential.

I have to agree and you can probably guess what I'm going to say next. Swap the case for an Akasa Zen to save some cash for the extra on the 2GB kit. The Zen is a better case anyhow.

steve258 · 18 Apr 2007 at 11:08

AlSukhon said:
thanx!
what if i overclocked the 4600? is this also easy? i take it that i'd need to buy a good cpu cooler.....
I'm not against inetl, but do admit i like AMD.
would the ATI gcard work with an SLI mother board, or would I have to change to a crossfire one?
and what's the value of a "lifetime guarantee" on gcards? cos i guess it's just as good to have a 3yr one as things become obsolete.......

I think 2.6-2.8Ghz seems to be the average overclocks for X2 4600+, whereas a lot more people get over 3Ghz with the E4300, a few lucky ones managed to get 100% overclocks (3.6Ghz) out of it with expensive gears and cooling solutions.

You can still run 2 ATI cards on an SLI mobo I think you just won't be able to run both in crossfire mode.

semi-pro waster · 18 Apr 2007 at 11:09

mishima said:
I have to agree and you can probably guess what I'm going to say next. Swap the case for an Akasa Zen to save some cash for the extra on the 2GB kit. The Zen is a better case anyhow.

But it doesn't include a PSU so you don't actually save any money at all unfortunately.

And I would also prefer to put 2gb Ram into the system but the budget doesn't allow it, the system is already £40 over budget with nowhere to really cut back any further unless you want a poor overclocking motherboard (kindof defeats the purpose of a Core2Duo) or a poorer graphics card which won't support the monitor well and is more difficult and expensive to upgrade later than the Ram. Ram is simply the easiest component to upgrade later and it isn't as if socket 775 minds running 4 sticks of Ram.

mishima · 18 Apr 2007 at 11:14

semi-pro waster said:
But it doesn't include a PSU so you don't actually save any money at all unfortunately.

Well spotted, hadn't seen that. You're right.

Richdog · 18 Apr 2007 at 11:33

semi-pro waster said:
But it doesn't include a PSU so you don't actually save any money at all unfortunately.

And I would also prefer to put 2gb Ram into the system but the budget doesn't allow it, the system is already £40 over budget with nowhere to really cut back any further unless you want a poor overclocking motherboard (kindof defeats the purpose of a Core2Duo) or a poorer graphics card which won't support the monitor well and is more difficult and expensive to upgrade later than the Ram. Ram is simply the easiest component to upgrade later and it isn't as if socket 775 minds running 4 sticks of Ram.

He says his budget is "about" £600 so i'm sure he can stretch a little if it means making a system that will last.

OP, stretch the budget a wee bit or you'll regret it later!

AlSukhon · 18 Apr 2007 at 11:55

i take it to overclock the e4300 to 3Ghz+ i will need to get a different cpu cooler than supplied......(£15-£20)
absolute max budget is £700.
obviously intel is better, but the motherboards seem to have less options, and grow steeply in price.
is the Gigabyte GA_965P_S3 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard -£70 incl.VAT" upto overclocking 3GHz+?? it is lower end......
also, what's the lifespan on these things? ATI dont give more than 1yr warranty where BFG give lifetime....is that a sign?

Richdog · 18 Apr 2007 at 12:11

AlSukhon said:
i take it to overclock the e4300 to 3Ghz+ i will need to get a different cpu cooler than supplied......(£15-£20)
absolute max budget is £700.
obviously intel is better, but the motherboards seem to have less options, and grow steeply in price.
is the Gigabyte GA_965P_S3 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard -£70 incl.VAT" upto overclocking 3GHz+?? it is lower end......
also, what's the lifespan on these things? ATI dont give more than 1yr warranty where BFG give lifetime....is that a sign?

Get the Gigabyte DS3 instead... I have one and it's fantastic. Costs only a little more too. With regards to CPU cooler, you can get 3ghz with the stock cooler, it's when you start shooting for 3.2ghz or more that something a little beefier is needed to maintain acceptable temps.

AlSukhon said:
also, what's the lifespan on these things? ATI dont give more than 1yr warranty where BFG give lifetime....is that a sign?

Of course not that's just silly.

semi-pro waster · 18 Apr 2007 at 12:11

Richdog said:
He says his budget is "about" £600 so i'm sure he can stretch a little if it means making a system that will last.

Since it is now to a max of £700 then I agree absolutely.

AlSukhon, the S3 as specified is exactly the same as the DS3 but without the solid capacitors which is noted as one of the best overclocking motherboards on the socket 775 platform. The solid capacitors are meant to last indefinitely but the non-solid ones still last a very long time, I've got PCs from about 10 years ago that still work fine although obviously not all last anywhere near that long.

The changes I'd make to the original specification then given the revised budget are 2gb of OcUK PC6400 Ram and probably an Arctic Freezer 7 for the cooler.

I can't guarantee the lifespan of the graphics card but Sapphire are a major ATI partner if memory serves so they are good quality.

Richdog · 18 Apr 2007 at 12:34

Woo-hoo, check this beauty!

Damn just realised I forgot the DVD drive but I guess you could take away one of the HD's (the smallest) if you weren't bothered about data loss and swap that for a SATA DVD-RW drive... I reccommend the Samsung, I have two and they're fantastic. Could possibly upgrade the 250GB to a 320GB drive too.

AlSukhon · 18 Apr 2007 at 13:10

nice.....
painful as it is, i can see a sacrifice has to be made on the monitor - for the greater good.....
swapping the case & psu for the arctic cooling one (psu 500w incl.) and the smaller HD for DVD, Cooler & compound brings me to £678 (no shipping).