any advice? (new build)

trif

trif

trif

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Joined
13 Nov 2009
Posts
35
Casecom 6788 Black Mid Tower Case
Akasa Venom cooler
OCZ Stealth Xstream II 600W PSU
Gigabyte GA-MA770T-UD3 AMD 770
AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition
Sapphire HD 6970 2GB GDDR5
G-Skill 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 1600mhz Ripjaws Memory Kit CL9
Samsung SpinPoint F3 500GB

any glaring fails?

budget is basically the cost of the above (i've already pushed this up, its roughly £600)

could i get away with an i3-540 and stock cooler? or would that bottleneck the 6970?
 
Asus ATI Radeon HD 6950 DirectCU II 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £173.99

Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor £161.99

Asrock Z68 PRO3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £105.98

XFX Pro 650W Core Edition '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £64.98

Kingston HyperX Genesis Grey 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1600C9D3X2K2/4GX) £39.98

Cooler Master Elite 430 Windowed Case - Black Cooler Master Elite 430 Windowed Case - Black £33.98

Samsung SpinPoint F1 750GB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (HD753LJ) £30.98

OcUK 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £16.99

TOTAL: £641.48


This would be a much better system if you can increase your budget a little more.
 
Looks pretty good. I would suggest going for one of the AM3+ compatible boards if you possibly can - so you can use the upcoming Bulldozer CPUs in the future.

As for the i3 540 - I wouldn't go down this road as it is only a dual core and will bottleneck your performance in many modern games (especially with a 6970 graphics card).

As an alternative, I would suggest going for the amazing sandy bridge i5 2500K CPU and drop down the GPU to a HD 6950 1GB to help afford it (here is how the performance compares to a HD 6970).

sb641.png


This system has the benefit of using a much more powerful CPU that can overclock very well and a motherboard that is very good for overclocking and supports SLI, Crossfire, USB3 and SATA 6G.
 
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Yep Andi's recomendation above looks good, if its slightly too much you could drop the PSU back to the BeQuiet 530W (saves 20 quid) which is still good make and enough for that set up, and change the mobo for the cheap Z68 one (save a tenner) that brings you nearer your £600 limit
 
id deffo change the PSU, its a good PSU but very pricey for what your getting.
Can get 750 modular units for that price that will perform just the same!

dont forget thermal paste if needed ;)
 
trif said:
Casecom 6788 Black Mid Tower Case
Akasa Venom cooler
OCZ Stealth Xstream II 600W PSU
Gigabyte GA-MA770T-UD3 AMD 770
AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition
Sapphire HD 6970 2GB GDDR5
G-Skill 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 1600mhz Ripjaws Memory Kit CL9
Samsung SpinPoint F3 500GB

any glaring fails?

budget is basically the cost of the above (i've already pushed this up, its roughly £600)

could i get away with an i3-540 and stock cooler? or would that bottleneck the 6970?
Click to expand...
It's a bad idea to go Phenom II X4 now, considering the SandyBridge 2100 (dual-core) deliver the same frame rate in gaming as Phenom II X4 at 3.7GHz in games that use Quad-cores fully, better frame rate in ANY games that use less than all 4 cores, AND consume only roughly half the power. Also that AM3 board is a deadend...can't upgrade to Bulldozer; where as if you get the Z68 board such as Gigabyte Z68A-D3, you will still have the option to upgrade to SandyBridge i5 2500K in the future.

You can have a look at the comparison between the i3 2100 and the Phenom II X4 980 (3.7GHz) here:
http://techreport.com/articles.x/20873/2
And yea for the i3 2100, you can get away with using stock cooler on the i3 2100 since it is only a dual-core which only got a TDP of 65W, comparing to Phenom II X4's TDP of 125W.
 
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thanks for the awesome advice as always guys, much appreciated (sweet deal on the 6950!) -

i talked to my two mates who were looking and they both want to upgrade down the line so i went for:

£33.98 Cooler Master Elite 430 Windowed Case
(+ case fans)
£64.10 XFX Pro 650W Core Edition PSU
£99.10 Asrock Z68 PRO3 Socket 1155
£89.99 Intel Core i3 2100 3.10GHz Socket 1155
£173.99 Asus ATI Radeon HD 6950 DirectCU II 1024MB
£33.92 G-Skill 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 1600mhz Ripjaws Memory Kit CL9
£32.99 Samsung SpinPoint F3 500GB
£11.64 cheap dvd rom

total was under £550 - job done - they went for it straight away at this price :)

n they have the option for like - i7- 2600k or whatever 8 core CPUs we get and whatever the next two generations of gfx card are :)
 
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