Any comments on this budget system?

World

World

World

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27 Jul 2010
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Does the 500W power supply manage the system ? Will try to unlock to 4 cores & do some OC aswell. Or should get 600W ?

 
Your basketProduct Name Qty Price Line Total
Asus GeForce GTX 480 1536MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card with Far Cry 2 £199.98
(£166.65) £199.98
(£166.65)
AMD Phenom II X4 Quad Core 840 "95W Edition" 3.20GHz (Socket AM3) - Retail £79.99
(£66.66) £79.99
(£66.66)
Asus M4A78LT-M 760G (Socket AM3) DDR3 Motherboard £49.99
(£41.66) £49.99
(£41.66)
BeQuiet Pure Power L7 530W Power Supply £42.98
(£35.82) £42.98
(£35.82)
Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM 1yr Warranty (ST31000528AS) £37.99
(£31.66) £37.99
(£31.66)
OCZ Platinum 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Ultra Low Voltage Dual Channel Kit (OCZ3P1600C9ELV4GK) £36.98
(£30.82) £36.98
(£30.82)
Coolermaster Elite 370 Case - Black £33.70
(£28.08) £33.70
(£28.08)
Sony Optiarc AD-5260S 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £14.98
(£12.48) £14.98
(£12.48)
Sub Total : £413.83
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £10.50
VAT is being charged at 20.00% VAT : £84.87
Total : £509.20

The bequiet PSU above is a superior unit, it also has the right number of PCI-E connectors for the GTX480, the OCZ 500w only has a single 6pin.
 
The 840 seems more like Athlon without L3, ill rather buy X2 555 or then X4 955.

As would be gameing...

And still cant decide wheter to buy PC or PS3 :D
 
id rather have a 650w psu.
ive always gone 300w 450w 650w so as to give myself plenty of headroom at each step.
It will give you reassurance that the psu wont be a problem when you try to OC.
 
I would, on a 500W psu, with a p2 at 4Ghz(my x555be unlocks to quad core and hits 4Ghz with ease but can't really go beyond it stably) that uses a decent amount of power, consider a 6950 instead. If you can find a good deal on one that unlocks, if it overclocks well, they are great cards, getting faster, will use less power at stock, by a large amount, even overclocked will not use "loads" of power in anything but Furmark.

If you're set on Nvidia, no problem but I'd still either go for the cheapest 560gtx ti you can find, or move up to a 570gtx maybe, or spend the extra on a slightly higher capacity PSU.

Personally as you said, i'd go with the unlockable chip, sure you might not get one that unlocks, I'm not up to date with if AMD are locking more chips properly these days. In reality I'd expect(without measures by AMD to stop it) increased unlocking rate as yields increase. My x555be has been by FAR the best value cpu I've ever bought, 4Ghz quad, for £64 a good while ago, fantastic.

Been talking myself between, psu should be fine and, it could be borderline :p I really would go with a slightly better psu, or a 6950. With a better psu, or higher capacity one, running a less extreme load you'd likely have less heat, more efficiency and most likely, lower fan noise with the psu less loaded. A lot of even top end PSU's can get really really loud at or near max load. Even the Seasonic/corsair AX's, while silent to 50% load and quiet to quite a bit higher, at 85-100% load can get pretty loud.
 
stulid said:
Stick with the GTX480, its significantly faster than a GTX560 - http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/309?vs=330 has more Vram too.

Its neck and neck with a GTX570 - http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/309?vs=306 the cheapest GTX570 is still £51 more
Click to expand...

Doesn't matter if its faster if he can't run it.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4137/...-6950-1gb-xfxs-radeon-hd-6870-black-edition/6

479 in furmark, yes, I've said avoid furmark, I've been saying it for two years, its worthless. However 421W will be 80% + load on the psu, in general gaming, if he overclocks, that goes higher. I don't actually know what stock voltage/stock clocks and general power consumption of a 480gtx SE is, but I'd expect that to be a little higher, and thats with a VERY mild overclock on a i7, a P2 x555 overclocked and unlocked can use a lot more power than they were using with a mild overclock(if at all, thats probably at or near stock speed). So throw in another 100W for the CPU and a 500W psu is shutting down due to protection, or right on the limit with 100% fan speed.

Like I said, IF he can afford to increase his budget, a 480gtx + a better psu, , he might not be able to do that, in which case a 6950 unlocked to 6970 is 80W less in games, 120W less in furmark, thats a BIG difference for the SAME cost. Thats, quieter psu, no price increase, great card that will potentially get even faster over time. The 560gtx ti, again might be slower and is noticeable slower than a 6970, but around the same power, so fits that build much better.

If he can afford another £30 for a psu, great, if not, theres safer/better options than the 480gtx.

I'm not altogether sure why so many people push the 480gtx se, its great value compared to where it was, but the 6950 for all intents and purposes can give you the same performance, more overclocking headroom, much lower power usage, heck, even cheaper though I suspect the cheaper ones aren't unlockable.

The 570gtx again uses less power, so it might be better to go for a 570gtx and same psu than 480gtx and spend more on a psu.

If we have to use anandtech, http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/309?vs=292

6970 neck a neck with a 480gtx, uses significantly less power, is more future proof, is set for several performance drivers so we've been told, and you can get a 6950 unlockable to a 6970 for £200 on the dot from OCUK. A "normal" 6950 you can get even cheaper, won't unlock but will use less power again than a 6970, still very fast, even safer in a cheaper system, spend the extra £15 on a bigger hdd or a better cpu heatsink.
 
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Well, my budget is not only 500£ , i just want to get the best bang for a pound as thats more important, if you say ill get the best bang for lets say 600-700£ then ill strech that much out, but if i get same results then its useless waste of money.

Ill think ill stick with GTX 480, as its quite good (yes checked the vs 560Ti ect), and the 480 gets better fps in full hd resolutions (guru3d).

I am even thinking of getting a 600W+ PSU, as mybe the system want to eat more power when OC-ing.

What to think of the motherboard? I have used Asus & Gigabyte & MSI before, but i liked Asus the most.

Dumbass question but ill ask anyway, lets say ill buy the X2 555, and it doesnt unlock to 4 cores, can i return the processor within xx days and add money and buy X4 955, or i should save myself more trouble and just go with the X4 955?
 
World said:
can i return the processor within xx days and add money and buy X4 955, or i should save myself more trouble and just go with the X4 955?
Click to expand...

You could try the unlocking, and if its no good, then send it back under the DSR regulations, just say you changed your mind, which you are entitled to do.
 
I read around the forum and more and more people are getting a Sandybridge I5 2500K ?

How much more i should spend if i wanted to go with I5 setup instead of AMD ?

And how much more power (games) i could gain if compared to amd X4 955?
 
Your basketProduct Name Qty Price Line Total
Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - OEM £161.99
(£134.99) £161.99
(£134.99)
XFX ATI Radeon HD 5870 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £149.99
(£124.99) £149.99
(£124.99)
Gigabyte P67A-UD3-B3 Intel P67 Chipset (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard - (Sandybridge) ** B3 REVISION ** £104.98
(£87.48) £104.98
(£87.48)
OCZ StealthXStream 2 600W Power Supply £50.99
(£42.49) £50.99
(£42.49)
Coolermaster Elite 430 Windowed Case - Black £38.80
(£32.33) £38.80
(£32.33)
OCZ Platinum 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Ultra Low Voltage Dual Channel Kit (OCZ3P1600C9ELV4GK) £36.98
(£30.82) £36.98
(£30.82)
Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA 6Gb/s 16MB Cache - OEM (ST3500413AS) £30.98
(£25.82) £30.98
(£25.82)
Corsair A50 High-Performance CPU Cooler (Socket AM2/AM3/LGA775/LGA1155/LGA1156/LGA1366) £27.98
(£23.32) £27.98
(£23.32)
Sony Optiarc AD-5260S 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £14.98
(£12.48) £14.98
(£12.48)
Sub Total : £514.72
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £11.25
VAT is being charged at 20.00% VAT : £105.19
Total : £631.16

Look how much faster a i5 2500 is against even the AMD Phenom 975BE - http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/core-i5-2500-2400-2300_7.html#sect0

Put a cheaper 5870 in the above, its great performance for its price, this review of the GTX480 includes 5870 performance in the graphs - http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2010/03/27/nvidia-geforce-gtx-480-1-5gb-review/5

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Even the 2400 cpu is a fast CPU,

Your basketProduct Name Qty Price Line Total
Intel Core i5-2400 3.10GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £154.99
(£129.16) £154.99
(£129.16)
XFX ATI Radeon HD 5870 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £149.99
(£124.99) £149.99
(£124.99)
MSI H67MA-E35 Intel H67 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Micro-ATX Motherboard - (Sandybridge) **B3 REVISION** £62.99
(£52.49) £62.99
(£52.49)
BeQuiet Pure Power L7 530W Power Supply £42.98
(£35.82) £42.98
(£35.82)
Coolermaster Elite 430 Windowed Case - Black £38.80
(£32.33) £38.80
(£32.33)
OCZ Platinum 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Ultra Low Voltage Dual Channel Kit (OCZ3P1600C9ELV4GK) £36.98
(£30.82) £36.98
(£30.82)
Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA 6Gb/s 16MB Cache - OEM (ST3500413AS) £30.98
(£25.82) £30.98
(£25.82)
Sony Optiarc AD-5260S 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £14.98
(£12.48) £14.98
(£12.48)
Sub Total : £443.91
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £10.50
VAT is being charged at 20.00% VAT : £90.88
Total : £545.29

because its not a "K" CPU you cant manually overclock it, so use a cheaper H67 motherboard, it also includes a retail heatsink which the 2500K OEM CPU does not have, so thats more money saved.
 
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Ill think ill stay with GTX480, gets better fps at higher resolutions + it has the thing (cant remember at the moment) , that the Radeon dosent have....
 
Now i got something like this made up :D

system.png



Cheapest SLI/Crossfire board i think... mybe in future would get another GTX480 ect into SLI or something from AMD...
 
Last edited:
World said:
Now i got something like this made up :D

system.png



Cheapest SLI/Crossfire board i think... mybe in future would get another GTX480 ect into SLI or something from AMD...
Click to expand...

Thats good, the ram is potentially a little tall for the heatsink, and you would need a bigger(850w+) psu for SLI GTX480.
 
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