Guys and gals,
I’m looking to update my machine that’s been running nicely enough since March 2009, but is now starting to feel a bit tardy. For your amusement, below is what I bought from OC many moons ago:
BFG GeForce GTX 260 OC2 896MB GDDR3 PCI-Express Graphics Card
£171.99 1 £171.99
Gigabyte GA-MA790XT-UD4P (Socket AM3) PCI-Express DDR3 Motherboard
£101.73 1 £101.73
AMD Phenom II X3 Tri Core 720 Black Edition 2.80GHz (Socket AM3) - Retail
£99.99 1 £99.99
Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium SP1 64-Bit - OEM (66I-01939)
£79.99 1 £79.99
Coolermaster Real Power 520w Modular Power Supply
£59.12 1 £59.12
Corsair XMS3 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-10666C9 1333MHz TwinX Dual Channel (TW3X4G1333C9)
£46.99 1 £46.99
Antec 300 Three Hundred Ultimate Gaming Case - Black
£43.99 1 £43.99
Hitachi Deskstar P7K500 500GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (0A35415)
£39.99 1 £39.99
Mirrors Edge Game
£0.00 1 £0.00
As you can see, it is not something that particularly holds up these days. I did think about chucking some extra memory and an SSD in there, but then decided to hold off until I can rebuild properly. So, I have had a tinker around the site and come up with the following:
Intel Core i7-4790 3.60GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail - £259.99
Crucial BX100 500GB SSD SATA 6Gbps 7mm Solid State Drive (CT500BX100SSD1) - £149.99
Gigabyte Z97X-SOC Intel Z97 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ATX Motherboard - £134.99
Crucial Ballistix Sport 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (BLS2CP8G3D1609DS1S00CEU) - £89.99
Silverstone Strider Essential Bronze - 600W (SST-ST60F-ESB) - £44.99
In terms of OS, monitor, keyboard and mouse, I’m all good. I’ve got extra SATA drives pouring over my desk for extra storage. My main questions are:
• Does the above kit all actually piece together? My last build was vetted here first, and I would be grateful is someone more expert than me could give it the once over
• Is there a decent case to go with it all? I don’t care for something looking like it was fabricated in the same place they create the T-800 terminators, but ultimately I don’t care what it looks like overall either if there is a payoff. This thing is going on the floor, under my desk after all. Is there a decent enough bargain case I could throw my current PC guts into, and reuse the Antec 300 for the new stuff?
• How foolish is it to retain the GTX 260 in this new build? I don’t do intensive gaming (Football Manager, Civ 5, and very little interest in buying the latest greatest games). Would the on board stuff with the motherboard be better than what I have already? I do plan to reuse my current rig for tinkering, and as a backup PC as I work from home, and would otherwise need to buy a cheapo GFX card for that.
If there are any recommended changes, I would ideally like to keep it all below £750 (not including GFX card).
I’m looking to update my machine that’s been running nicely enough since March 2009, but is now starting to feel a bit tardy. For your amusement, below is what I bought from OC many moons ago:
BFG GeForce GTX 260 OC2 896MB GDDR3 PCI-Express Graphics Card
£171.99 1 £171.99
Gigabyte GA-MA790XT-UD4P (Socket AM3) PCI-Express DDR3 Motherboard
£101.73 1 £101.73
AMD Phenom II X3 Tri Core 720 Black Edition 2.80GHz (Socket AM3) - Retail
£99.99 1 £99.99
Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium SP1 64-Bit - OEM (66I-01939)
£79.99 1 £79.99
Coolermaster Real Power 520w Modular Power Supply
£59.12 1 £59.12
Corsair XMS3 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-10666C9 1333MHz TwinX Dual Channel (TW3X4G1333C9)
£46.99 1 £46.99
Antec 300 Three Hundred Ultimate Gaming Case - Black
£43.99 1 £43.99
Hitachi Deskstar P7K500 500GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (0A35415)
£39.99 1 £39.99
Mirrors Edge Game
£0.00 1 £0.00
As you can see, it is not something that particularly holds up these days. I did think about chucking some extra memory and an SSD in there, but then decided to hold off until I can rebuild properly. So, I have had a tinker around the site and come up with the following:
Intel Core i7-4790 3.60GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail - £259.99
Crucial BX100 500GB SSD SATA 6Gbps 7mm Solid State Drive (CT500BX100SSD1) - £149.99
Gigabyte Z97X-SOC Intel Z97 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ATX Motherboard - £134.99
Crucial Ballistix Sport 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (BLS2CP8G3D1609DS1S00CEU) - £89.99
Silverstone Strider Essential Bronze - 600W (SST-ST60F-ESB) - £44.99
In terms of OS, monitor, keyboard and mouse, I’m all good. I’ve got extra SATA drives pouring over my desk for extra storage. My main questions are:
• Does the above kit all actually piece together? My last build was vetted here first, and I would be grateful is someone more expert than me could give it the once over
• Is there a decent case to go with it all? I don’t care for something looking like it was fabricated in the same place they create the T-800 terminators, but ultimately I don’t care what it looks like overall either if there is a payoff. This thing is going on the floor, under my desk after all. Is there a decent enough bargain case I could throw my current PC guts into, and reuse the Antec 300 for the new stuff?
• How foolish is it to retain the GTX 260 in this new build? I don’t do intensive gaming (Football Manager, Civ 5, and very little interest in buying the latest greatest games). Would the on board stuff with the motherboard be better than what I have already? I do plan to reuse my current rig for tinkering, and as a backup PC as I work from home, and would otherwise need to buy a cheapo GFX card for that.
If there are any recommended changes, I would ideally like to keep it all below £750 (not including GFX card).
