Advice Sought

Mounthooly

Mounthooly

Mounthooly

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Joined
13 Mar 2010
Posts
13
Location
Aberdeen
Greetings

This is my first time back here since March 2010. Alas, my build from back then has been sent for recycling. Now I am looking for advice on what to build. Salvaged from my previous rig is the case (CMStacker 830 SE), 750w PSU, monitor mouse and keyboard, win 7 64 bit. Also Thermalright Ultra-120 Extreme Rev.C (Socket 1366 / 775 / AM2 / AM2+ / AM3), but maybe this no longer is of use.

So I'm looking for CPU, mobo, graphics card, ssd and ram and perhaps a cooler.. Rig to be used for photo editing (Adobe) and gaming.

Max £800

If you have the time and inclination compare AMD v Intel. In the past I have preferred AMD, have Intel improved any?

For the record my retired set-up was P5N-E SLI mobo, Q6600, ATI 5850 1Gb graphics, 4G DDR2, did me proud till a few weeks ago.

Links to OC products and/or bundles appreciated.

Thanks

ps Case running without the 4 door fans
 
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Greetings Mounthooly,

The emphasis in the basket below is on SSD size/quality and CPU. You could drop to an i5-4670K, or a 120GB SSD, and get an even better video card, or 16GB of memory, for example. But this is how I would start, personally, then add more memory in future (if needed). If you game at 1080p, then the 280X will be more than enough, and the Gigabyte is a good and fast one. Swap it for a similar-priced GTX 770, if you prefer Nvidia.


YOUR BASKET
1 x Gigabyte Radeon R9 280X Rev2.0 WindForce 3X OC 3072MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £251.99
1 x Intel Core i7-4770K 3.50GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £239.99
1 x Samsung 250GB SSD 840 EVO SATA 6Gb/s Basic - (MZ-7TE250BW) £119.99
1 x Gigabyte Z87-HD3 Intel Z87 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ATX Motherboard £82.99
1 x GeIL EVO Potenza 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-19200C11 2400MHz Dual Channel Kit - White (GPW38GB2400C11BDC) £61.99
1 x Thermalright True Spirit 140 BW Cooler £34.99
Total : £801.54 (includes shipping : £8.00).




The info for the cooler states it won't interfere with RAM slots or tall memory. You would need to check the height clearance (CPU socket to side panel) for the cooler, though, as it's 170mm.

Did check manufacturer info on your present Thermalright cooler and didn't find any indication of support for the 1150 socket.

You may require a 2.5" to 3.5" adaptor plate for the SSD, if your case does not have 2.5" mounts/bays. There is a Samsung 250 desktop kit with an adapter but just buying one of these will be a lot cheaper at the moment:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/search_results.php?keywords=ssd&sortby=priceAsc

Or you can always find some other way to fasten it, like many do.

If you reckon you might add a second video card in future, spend a few more quid (around £20 extra) on a better motherboard with dual x8 PCI-E slots.
 
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The HD3 will do its best, but ideally you'll want a beefier motherboard for overclocking.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Gigabyte Radeon R9 280X Rev2.0 WindForce 3X OC 3072MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £239.99
1 x Intel Core i5-4670K 3.40GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £167.99
1 x TeamGroup Vulcan RED 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 PC3-17100C11 2133MHz Dual Channel Kit (TLD316G2133HC11ADC01) £129.95
1 x Gigabyte G1.Sniper Z87 Intel Z87 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ATX Motherboard £109.99
1 x Kingston HyperX 3K SSD 120GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Drive (SH103S3/120G) £65.99
1 x Alpenföhn K2 Mount Doom CPU Cooler £49.99
Total : £773.50 (includes shipping : £8.00).



Based on this 4770k-4670k photoshop comparison, I'd say the difference in price between the two would be better spent on an extra 8gb RAM. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, though.

http://uk.hardware.info/reviews/443...well-test-benchmarks-igpu-adobe-photoshop-cs6

And make sure the cooler will fit your case - I don't seem to be able to find any info on maximum heatsink height.
 
Quite - it really depends on the chip. Another thing to consider is that the HD3 will only run Crossfire at x16/x4, and won't do SLI.
 
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