Biting the proverbial bullet!

Associate
Joined
4 Sep 2009
Posts
107
Periodically over the last few months I have been visiting good online component retailers, including this one, and filling my basket with lots of juicy electronic goodness. When the time came to pay I would bail out. Mainly because I could not justify, both to myself and my better half, spending £700+ on a new gaming rig. However, in the coming weeks I have managed to free up some extra cash and plan on biting the proverbial bullet by saying goodbye to my long serving and trusty E8400, 8800GTX, Corsair Dominator 4GB and Asus P5Q Pro.

Now, to my question: with a budget of £750 in your hand, if you were a gaming enthusiast in need of a new motherboard, CPU, memory and GPU what would you be spending your cash on? In terms of the future is i7 the way to go? I have pretty much made up my mind on the ATI 5870, but which brand? What speed DDR3 memory would I need? Do I really need an extreme motherboard?

Ok, so that really is a barrage of questions but let me tell you what I want out of my system so that you can answer them more effectively. I am an enthusiast, but not to the point of ridiculous overclocks. I did overclock my E8400 for example, but only as far as it would go with the stock heatsink. I would like to tinker with the processor a little but it isn't a necessity. Essentially, all I would like is a gaming rig that isn't going to need upgrading for a few years. My current rig has lasted me that length of time, I would like to repeat that fortune with my new set up. I will be using Windows 7 64bit, and Windows XP 32bit on a dual boot. Hope you can help!

Regards,

Danny
 

RJC

RJC

Don
Joined
29 May 2005
Posts
29,008
Location
Kent
Done the spec below, put a lower spec gpu in 5850 which will be more than enough for your res.

GX-148-XF_60.jpg
XFX ATI Radeon HD 5850 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £198.98
(£173.03) £198.98
(£173.03)
CP-299-IN_60.jpg
Intel Core i5 750 2.66Ghz (Lynnfield) (Socket LGA1156) - Retail + Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising Game £159.99
(£139.12) £159.99
(£139.12)
MB-206-GI_60.jpg
Gigabyte GA-P55-UD3 Intel P55 (Socket 1156) DDR3 Motherboard £106.98
(£93.03) £106.98
(£93.03)
MY-042-GS_60.jpg
G.Skill Ripjaw 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C8 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (F3-12800CL8D-4GBRM) £67.99
(£59.12) £67.99
(£59.12)
CA-026-BQ_60.jpg
Be Quiet! Straight Power 650W ATX2.2 SLi Compliant Power Supply £66.99
(£58.25) £66.99
(£58.25)
HD-081-SA_60.jpg
Samsung SpinPoint F3 500GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD502HJ) £41.99
(£36.51) £41.99
(£36.51)
CA-160-CM_60.jpg
Coolermaster Elite 335 Case - Black (No PSU) £32.99
(£28.69) £32.99
(£28.69)
CD-038-OT_60.jpg
Sony Optiarc AD-7240S 24x DVD±RW SATA Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM £18.99
(£16.51) £18.99
(£16.51) Sub Total : £604.26 Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £11.75 VAT is being charged at 15% VAT : £92.40 Total : £708.41
 
Associate
OP
Joined
4 Sep 2009
Posts
107
The case, PSU, HDD and DVD drive I already have. With exception to the DVD drive I wouldn't really need to upgrade those components. So with that in mind would you still go for i5 over i7? If so, how come?
 

RJC

RJC

Don
Joined
29 May 2005
Posts
29,008
Location
Kent
Performance difference between the 2 is very small when gaming, if your going to do a lot of multithreading work then the I7 may be better suited.
 
Back
Top Bottom