Building a Decent Gaming rig (although i might have over cooked it)

As I was saying, if there is a budget then putting his money towards a better gpu would be preferable than a cpu for gaming. There is obviously a ballpark figure hes looking at or wed be looking at 4xsli gtx 480s or something ridiculous. There is a limit and if its within getting a i7 and a great gpu then its all good, if the i7 is limiting him getting a better gpu then its not worth it.

I never said gpus havnt become more powerful but the point was with games becoming more advanced. Which apart from bonus features with the flavours of the month (physx etc) taking away framerates for small extras then games are not looking majorly better than 2 or so years ago. My point being that crysis is still regarded by many as being the best looking game around so although devs have tacked on extras, the base engines have not developped majorly since then and wont till the next gen of consoles. we will see small gains and more extras being tacked on but thats it.

Edit: notice im not saying games havnt developped at all. They are getting some improvements, its going along the same lines as what happened when we had the ps2 was around. Great new shiny graphics to try when it came out but as it was unable to change then the advancements slowed down to a crawl and then the next gen came out and we got unreal 3.0 etc and now were not exactly leaps and bounds away from that tech and its been quite a few years - they can only streamline that hardware. Consoles are where the money is at so thats where the developers aim for.
 
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My 2 cents then :p

EVGA GeForce GTX 480 1536MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card with MAFIA 2 £389.99 (£331.91)
Crucial RealSSD C300 128GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive (CTFDDAC128MAG-1G1) £239.99 (£204.25)
Intel Core i5 760 2.80GHz (Lynnfield) (Socket LGA1156) - Retail £158.99 (£135.31)
Antec 1200 Twelve Hundred Ultimate Gaming Case - Black £124.98 (£106.37)
Asus P7P55D-E LX Intel P55 (Socket 1156) DDR3 Motherboard £104.99 (£89.35)
G.Skill Ripjaw 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C8 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (F3-12800CL8D-4GBRM) £88.11 (£74.99)
Corsair TX 650W ATX SLi Compliant Power Supply (CMPSU-650TXUK) £79.99 (£68.08)
Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (WD1002FAEX) £74.99 (£63.82)
LG CH10LS20 10x BluRay-ROM / 16x DVD±RW Drive - Black (Retail) £59.98 (£51.05)
Titan Fenrir Evo CPU Cooler (Socket LGA775/LGA1156/LGA1366/AMD K8/AM2/AM2+/AM3) £35.99 (£30.63)
Sub Total : £1,155.76
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £14.75
VAT is being charged at 17.50% VAT : £204.84
Total : £1,375.35
 
[Off Topic]

Hey jakesnake :)

just thought I'd pop in and see how your doing after one month hanging out with the "crazies" :p

jakesnake said:
DONT go AMD! or i5
Click to expand...
Crikey! . . . that's quite a statement! :confused:

jakesnake said:
if you plan to keep your GPUs well in the highend sector and eventually crossfire or SLI then the AMD cpus will be the bottleneck.
Click to expand...
When you mention the "highend sector" I assume you are talking about £700-£800 pounds of GPU right?

jakesnake said:
I read a review that an AMD 1055T (yes 6core cpu) Overclocked @ 4.0Ghz with SLI 480s
COULD NOT keep up with an i7 930 and 470s (not massive but lesser GPU)
the 1055T even @ 4ghz was Holding the 480s back
Click to expand...
Oh I see where your coming from now! :D . . . you read one single review and that has somehow "enlightened" you to the knowledge that someone who wants to sit back and relax playing games on their computer needs to spends thousands of pounds £££££ :eek: . . . . hehe I tried to warn you a few weeks ago about an industry hellbent of separating you from your hard earned cash but as fully expected you appear to have "succumbed" to some very high grade propaganda! ;)

I do not think any less of you for convincing yourself to go totally OTT on hardware you don't need . . . I do not think any less of you to attempt to convince other people to go totally OTT on hardware they don't need. . . the problem is you don't actually have any knowledge of what you are talking about and you are "Trusting" other people to tell you how it is . . . who are these other people and do you really think they are experts?

I know the one single review you are talking about on Tom's Hardware written by Thomas Soderstrom . . . the conclusion was very telling! ;)


"Trust me . . . . I'm an expert"

Now I'm long enough in the tooth to know that it's a fruitless pursuit to attack an individual and not the argument but the "AMD Faithfull" line was unprofessional . . . if you case you didn't know most leading hardware review sites get paid a great deal of cold hard cash $$$$ in advertising revenues to promote hardware . . . nobody and I mean nobody can compete with Intel and the ridiculous amount of money they spend on marketing and advertising . . . their budget is "HUGE!!!!!!!" :eek:

Regardless of that fact this does not mean that any website can publish pure blatent "Falsehoods" otherwise those of us from a technical background will expose them! ;) and they will lose their credibility . . .

In the case of that article you have "Totally" made your mind up on something you don't actually know much about, you have allowed yourself to be sucked in, hook line and sinker without really questioning certain details delivered to you by someone you consider an "expert" :confused:

There are two main problems I can see with that review

  1. The AMD System hasn't been clocked properly (Stock CPU-NB?)
  2. They are using an nVidia chipset

flawed.gif


If you read this review that came out "after" you will see there is quite a bit of extra performance can come from clocking the AMD platform properly . . . and I would also like to point out that running an nVidia chipset was not the greatest idea alongside an AMD processor . . . if that had been an AMD chipset and some high end radeons alongside an AMD processor that had been clocked by someone who knew what they was doing the results would have been quite different I'm sure! :D

jakesnake said:
been hunting out info and reviews for the last month to help me build a Beast to destroy games for the next few years at least.
Click to expand...
Oh jakesnake! . . . I would say you have wasted a lot of precious "Fraggin" time trying to work out how to spend waaaay more money that you need to! :(

Games do not require anywhere near as much power as you seem to think to run well and look amazing? . . . . you just need at least a decent TripleCore and a "single" GPU powerful enough to render at your choosen screen res . . . all these MultiGPU stuff is really not needed unless your a benchmarker . . . all this "Max Max Max 64x AA" culture is nothing more than an effort to get people to spends mucho muchas money on a "PipeDream" ;)

jakesnake said:
i7 is defo the way to go its NOT overkill, because the 1055T proved it
Click to expand...
This is "flawed" reasoning based on one single review? . . . the Intel® Core™ i7 is probably the worst choice for anyone who likes to play computer games and has any notion of an old overclockers mantra "Bang-for-Buck" :(

There is a never ending supply of "latest & greatest" hardware pumping out from the manufacturers . . . their is really no need to spend top money now if the hardware you buy today is "outmoded" by something costing a lot less money next year . . . . buy what you need mate . . . keep your money in your pocket pleasssseeee! :p

jakesnake said:
wots going to happen in 18months wen ppl can afford SLI 480s like they can now with 460s
there not going to get the full shabang!! out of them because of ther lesser cpu bottlenecking.
Click to expand...
in 18 months we will have a completly new set of hardware costing much less money and performing a lot better . . . anyone spending £1500 today instead of spending £700 and keeping £700 will learn a very hard lesson . . .

jakesnake said:
its your choice. ive made mine (sig)
Click to expand...
Oh goodness me! :D

I told you that with little effort you will be convinced to spend more and more and more and more . . . they just want your money mate! ;)

jakesnake said:
You get wot you pay for.
Click to expand...
No you don't . . . you will only pay heaps more than you need to and not be able to tell the slightest difference when you play a game . . . wven though you will pretend you can . . . . don't do it! :cool:

jakesnake said:
i currently have an AMD Athlon 64 dual core with a 8800GT
Click to expand...
 
Podmonkey said:
As I was saying, if there is a budget then putting his money towards a better gpu would be preferable than a cpu for gaming. There is obviously a ballpark figure hes looking at or wed be looking at 4xsli gtx 480s or something ridiculous. There is a limit and if its within getting a i7 and a great gpu then its all good, if the i7 is limiting him getting a better gpu then its not worth it.

I never said gpus havnt become more powerful but the point was with games becoming more advanced. Which apart from bonus features with the flavours of the month (physx etc) taking away framerates for small extras then games are not looking majorly better than 2 or so years ago. My point being that crysis is still regarded by many as being the best looking game around so although devs have tacked on extras, the base engines have not developped majorly since then and wont till the next gen of consoles. we will see small gains and more extras being tacked on but thats it.

Edit: notice im not saying games havnt developped at all. They are getting some improvements, its going along the same lines as what happened when we had the ps2 was around. Great new shiny graphics to try when it came out but as it was unable to change then the advancements slowed down to a crawl and then the next gen came out and we got unreal 3.0 etc and now were not exactly leaps and bounds away from that tech and its been quite a few years - they can only streamline that hardware. Consoles are where the money is at so thats where the developers aim for.
Click to expand...

well 4 480s is just a silly thing to say. and if ther was no limit
i still dont think we would be talking 4 480s. i mean your talking about
games not using hyperthread yet and then ur talking the above ^^ lol
wen is anything gonna need 4 480s??
for the sake of a few £s he speced a £1500 rig so i think we pretty
much have free rain here with regards to a BEAST gaming rig.
so dont try and be funny.

putting the game specs aside for a second.
GPUs r getting very powerful these days and its going to
increase so weather the games make use of the full load is a side note.
in the end you need the cpu to keep up with the moving gpu's

wen i first came on here i was showed the amd route and though it was
a no brainer as it was a "little" cheaper and the potential of a six core
for a 1/3 of the price of an intel 6core was happy days.
im basically entering the GPU market again with SLi 470s on the hitlist
and the review showing a 1055T @ 4Ghz bottling it with sli480s
doesnt give AM3 any hope in my eyes.

1 way or another you will be upgrading from an i5 path before an i7 path
i7 is the latest version so in theory it will be the last to go.

:cool:
 
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so jakesnake whats you response to Big.Wayne's post
youve been replying on Podmonkeys post throughout the thread i wanna see how you reply to Big.Wayne's post
 
jakesnake said:
well 4 480s is just a silly thing to say. and if ther was no limit
i still dont think we would be talking 4 480s. i mean your talking about
games not using hyperthread yet and then ur talking the above ^^ lol
wen is anything gonna need 4 480s??
for the sake of a few £s he speced a £1500 rig so i think we pretty
much have free rain here with regards to a BEAST gaming rig.
so dont try and be funny.

putting the game specs aside for a second.
GPUs r getting very powerful these days and its going to
increase so weather the games make use of the full load is a side note.
in the end you need the cpu to keep up with the moving gpu's

wen i first came on here i was showed the amd route and though it was
a no brainer as it was a "little" cheaper and the potential of a six core
for a 1/3 of the price of an intel 6core was happy days.
im basically entering the GPU market again with SLi 470s on the hitlist
and the review showing a 1055T @ 4Ghz bottling it with sli480s
doesnt give AM3 any hope in my eyes.

1 way or another you will be upgrading from an i5 path before an i7 path
i7 is the latest version so in theory it will be the last to go.

:cool:
Click to expand...

I used the 4x 480s purely as an example of why there is budget and we need to know what it is. If your telling him to spnd more on a cpu that wont give any benefits for his chosen role (gaming) then whats the point and unless hes benchmarking he wont be able to tell the difference between the 2 anyway.

the i5 is just as capable as an i7 in keeping up with graphics and as has been pointed out, outdoes it in most games so why would the i7 be able to handle future games better? Hyperthreading is the only thing ive seen as the reason and ive suggested that it wont become mainstream in games for a while yet do to amd and console limitations so it kicked that into touch for the next few years, by which time both cpus will be old hat for top end gaming and its use of hyperthreading will be of little use.


Hex core amds arent good gaming sets and perform below that of their 4 core counterparts so its not really a good comparison from the off. More cores =/= better. There are always scenarios where a certain number of cores will give benefits and more use to some but to just assume more cores is better for everything is a bit naive.
 
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Lol - I go away for 5 minutes and this happens :).

To clarify - my i5 spec was all about bang-for-buck (a concept mr jakesnake doesn't seem to understand:)) right here and now, as that is my personal way of evaluating PC purchases. 17 odd years of building and upgrading has shown me that with all the best intentions in the world, basing your purchases on upgradeability years in the future is next to pointless. When the time comes you will sell and switch to the current systems. In dozens of builds I've upgraded a CPU on the same mobo once or twice and never sli'd/xfired (oh but I was so intending to with my Voodoo 2, and my Geforce 4 and my Radeon 9800, and my Geforce 6800... never happened. How many people wanting high end performance are pairing up their Radeon 3xxx series or their Geforce 9xxx series rather than selling and going for current cards? Not many. Longterm thinking is good in some areas of life, but PC hardware? Forget it - live for the moment. Other people's experience may vary.

So I was going purely gaming bang-for-buck with the i5 and tring to make the point that if the OP has a limited budget he should not compromise GPU by going i7 because bang-for-buck will seriously suffer. If the OP has a flexible budget and the benefits of i7 are compelling enough to him (they shouldn't be ;)) that he justs spends the extra but doesn't compromise the GPU, then fine. Most people though have a fixed budget, so there is always a best bang-for-buck solution, and that is not i7.

All I'd say regarding some of the latest spec suggestions is why on earth the 480?? For exactly the same price two 460s will spank it hard. And dont say so there's a free slot for later SLI with another 480!! As above it aint gonna happen! Dont make a bad decision now in preparation for a future upgrade. Choosing to have two power sucking, room heating 480s in a few years time when ati 6xxx or 7xxx or whatever is available will be simply ridiculous.

And lastly jakesnake, stop whining about the SSD. It was in my spec (and everyone elses) because the OP put it in his. Yep they're expensive but they also make a stunning performance difference, so well worth having if the OP can afford it. I'd just reiterate the need to also have a decent size HDD for storage as a little SSD will fill up fast.

Whatever you do OP enjoy the build and enjoy using it.
 
@Jony r u hanging on the edge of ur seat? lol

@Bigwayne glad you finaly showed up your posts r the best. ;)

well to start things off big wayne is specing the OP in line with wot
he asked for "to last me a couple of years"

I personally dont want to spend £725 for "a couple of years"
id rather pump an extra few hundred into it and triple the years he wants,
which is wot ive done before and i intend to do again.

i spent a little over 1k on a rig wen the AMD 64 duals and the 8800gts
wer the dogs danglies and that has lasted me up until now
because i went the extra bit then. that was nearly 6 years ago.

this is wer im getting my logic from and its my own personal experience
from a gaming point of view.

not every1 can afford to do this, but the fact that the OP posted
his own spec touching the £1500 puts him in the area im looking to operate at.
im a bit less around the 1300 mark but its close.

so my goal is to try and help spec him the best rig in the £££ hes working at
to get him on the 6year path that i achieved which i though was well worth
the extra back then.

Im not an AMD hater because i own an AMD cpu now and its done
me top service, the only reason im suggesting not to go amd road now
is just because the cpus available to me now from them, wont get me
the 5/6years im looking to get again. it justs at this particular time wen im
reentering the market the i7 has more chance of getting me another
long time without upgrade.

Im sorry but that review convinced me AMD wasent for me this time around.
im looking at SLI 470 off the bat here and the 1055T @ 4GHz struggled
with SLI480s which is 1 up from wer ill be entering.

ive already said my bit on the i5 so theres no need to say all that again.

Look i may have only built 1 custom rig pior to this. but i think i spent well
and made a good choice back then, im sticking to my guns and my way
of doing it.

ill be the first to put my hands up and say i got it wrong
if im upgrading any part within a couple of years.
but i cant see it

:cool:
 
@OP

at the end of the day m8 it all comes down to wen u enter the
market for a new rig. you will get haters that will dislike because
your going to get a better rig than wot they currently have
for less money than wot they paid at the time ther rig was ontop.

some ppl have busted ther danglies to dual up gpus just before ther
peak and now that they r over the hill theres probably rage ther
because thy cant bare to hand out more cash to get that "ontop"
feel again.

for a gamer like u and me i think now is a smashing time to build a new rig.
with sandy bridge and bulldozer on the scene very soon and the ATI6000 series
down the street we r going to get all the JUICE we will need for a fraction
of the price from i7 and fairly new gpus

haha happy days :)
 
Liampope said:
All I'd say regarding some of the latest spec suggestions is why on earth the 480??
Click to expand...

I onyl specced that as it seemed OP is intent on spending the sum of money and as previously pointed out an i5 system works best with a single gfx card rather than dual, which is where i7 comes into its own. I agree should look at around £700 mark for a decent build that maximises price/performance ratio, however if he's intent on spending £1300 this is another option, with the decent SSD it would be a very fast system, plus single card set ups do have advantages over dual card set ups (no microstutter, higher min frame rates)

Persojally Id go i5 760 with either a 460 or maybe a 470, but meh
 
jakesnake said:
and the review showing a 1055T @ 4Ghz bottling it with sli480s
:cool:
Click to expand...

Sorry if I've missed something but could you please post a link to that review?
Not that you'll need a 2 480s anyways within the next 2yrs unless you game with 3x 24" with 24xAA but I'd like to see it anyways.
-------------

Ah and regarding PC that's gonna last 6yrs, it's probably the worst thing you can ever do ;-).
Sure, your 1500 PC wil last 4-5yrs, but my my 700PC with 2x400 upgrades will last double that.

The key is to get the best price / performance ratio for the needs, which for high quality (1920x1200) gaming rig is around 900-1000 for the first rig and then it's just small upgrades and trades on the way.

Just buying fastest you can is a total waste of money because a game that plays at 60FPS on a 460 isn't going to look or play any better on a 480 and by the time the 480 will be used to it's full potential over the 460, it will be another year, and by that time, there'll be probably another GPU that will cost less or same as the difference between 460 and 480 AND be better than the 480.

The only parts that I'd spend more cash than usual on are good watercooling, case, PSU, mouse, kb, monitor and depending on the upgrade possibilities maybe motherboard if it offers better upgrade path.
 
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