Best Deal?

MathewS

MathewS

MathewS

Associate
Joined
1 Dec 2003
Posts
246
Location
High Wycombe
Hi there folks,

Ive been looking at getting a new PC for a while now and have seen the offers on the site, Ive been looking at the "Sabre" and "Hawk", now which one would be the better deal to get.
I was thinking about getting the Sabre just because ive always used ATI, never had geForce, but ive been out of the loop in hardware for a few years now and don't know as much as I used to. Can anyone offer any tips?

Or would I be better buying it seperate, I have a budget of about £600.
Just to know it will be my main PC, which will be used for lite gaming, since im into more of the developer scene now, so it's going to be mainly used for programming (graphics, physics ect)

Thats what im after, im also getting a bulid for my girlfriend, she's a casual ish gamer so she doesn't need much, mainly for her uni work and probably the sims 3, so i was going with one of the above or either the "Odin" or "Theo" again im just after opinions for both of them.

Thanks Guys,
 
Well depending on the price of the parts i would build your rig from scratch. Mainly because it's sometimes cheaper and you can choose exactly what you want. I'd go for something along these lines:

Intel quad Q950 Processor
4 Gig of RAM
ATI Radeon 4870 HD GPU

That's basically my rig in a nutshell and it runs smooth as butter after i tweaked all the BIOS settings.

But if you can't be assed to fit the parts, or not sure what to buy then go with the Hawk.

The sabre's Processor wont last as long, plus you would hardly ever use the full 3.30GHz in your case

Nvidia and ATI are the best graphics card developers out so there's no real difference there.

You have better (not more) memory and motherboard than the sabre.

Your paying a little extra but it will last longer and you wont have to upgrade parts for a very long time.

Hope this helps mate.
 
The missus probably wants a laptop. Doesnt seem to matter how little sense it makes, all the women I know at uni want laptops. Don't seem to care how quick they are either.

I'd also suggest assembling it yourself, but will let someone else specify. Intended use will love an i7, but £600 may hobble this idea and leave you with an amd. Which is still fast, just not as fast. Those who tell you they are the same will be thinking purely in terms of frames per second in gpu bottlenecked games and may be safely disregarded.

Waiting for i5 probably makes the most sense if you have some time. Otherwise a good dual core intel is the way forward, e8400 / P5Q board / 4gb of 1066mhz ram and clocked gently to 3.8 or so. Overclocking a dual core on a P5Q board is comedy in its simplicity and makes a big difference. Pick whichever board from the asus p5q range looks good to you, I don't like the ones with atx power dead centre.
 
I'm still a novice in this field but is there much pont in overclocking a quadcore?

And what benefits do you get with a dual over a quad?

Plus will it make a difference and how drastically will it reduce it's life?
 
Duals seem the choice when it comes to gaming (or atleast it was) but with the new i5's coming soon then you may as well use those. They should be suitable for gaming as well as encoding/heavy multitasking etc, and at the rumored prices IMO its the only way to go.

As long as the heat doesnt get too high then overclocking does not shorten the life by much, if any.
 
That's good to know. I use my build for basically music production, Bluray, the odd game if my ******* xbox doesn't work :( and general computer use.

Overclocking GFX cards? any point?
 
kimps_07 said:
I use my build for basically music production
Click to expand...


I7 it is so i have come up with this :

Intel Core i7 920 D0 Stepping (SLBEJ) 2.66Ghz (Nehalem) (Socket

Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD3R Intel X58 (Socket 1366) PCI-Express DDR3

Motherboard Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD3R Intel X58 (Socket 1366)

Corsair XMS3 6GB (3x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 (1600MHz) Tri-Channel

HIS ATI Radeon HD 4850 1024MB GDDR3 PCI-Express Graphics Card

OCZ ModXStream Pro 700w Silent SLI Ready Modular Power Supply

Coolermaster Elite 335 Case - Black (No PSU) Coolermaster Elite 335 Case - Black (No PSU)

Total £602.93 inc VAT

Now you are missing a HDD & an opitcal but everyone has a few laying around ( dont they :D)

But if not :

Samsung SpinPoint F1 320GB SATA-II &
Sony Optiarc AD-7241S 24x DVD±RW SATA Lightscribe Optical Drive

That brings you up to £656.91 inc VAT


Now ofc its slighty unbalanced but if its a work rig frist & a gaming rig second it will be fine, If not wait for i5 but if I were you I would strecth myself to I7 you can always get new gfx later
 
kimps_07 said:
*snip*
Click to expand...

thanks, will look at the prices of building it and then decide

PwnDirect said:
please provide link to systeams most of us are lazy
Click to expand...

ODIN
THEO
SABRE
HAWK


JonJ678 said:
The missus probably wants a laptop. Doesnt seem to matter how little sense it makes, all the women I know at uni want laptops. Don't seem to care how quick they are either.
Click to expand...
nah, ive convinced her to get a desktop as she already has a laptop.

PwnDirect said:
Now ofc its slighty unbalanced but if its a work rig frist & a gaming rig second it will be fine, If not wait for i5 but if I were you I would strecth myself to I7 you can always get new gfx later
Click to expand...

mine, will be used for a mix of gaming and developing, so don't know if thats going to make any difference.
is the i5 the newer model, and which is generally the better out of the two?

are intel's the better option to go for now then?
and I would have thought a quad core would be better than the dual?
 
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for developing you want a quad & the best quad for develeoping is the i7920do

I5 is the poor mans i7

& for editing yes intel is the better choice

but for your gf rig consider amd as they offer better bang for buck.

As for gaming what res you play at & what games you play
 
She wants two computers? You've got a rare one there then :)

Overclocking graphics cards. I don't think the ati ones tend to go much above stock, and the nvidia ones do rather better. Thats generalising. It's a case of its so easy to do that it's rude not to, you move a slider until it isn't stable then put it back a notch.

Id rather a 4ghz c2d to a 2.66ghz i7 personally. But yes, overclocking a quad is entirely worth doing. If your application doesn't benefit from an overclocked quad, you almost certainly shouldn't have a quad core in the first place
 
Definitely worth overclocking a quad, i had a q6600 at 3.8ghz on air cooling, awesome cpu, switched to a q9550 at the same speed, quads are dfinitely the way forward.
 
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