Building a Gaming Rig for my 21st :)

GtScotty said:
imo,

save some £££ in some places like cpu and go for a watercooled overclocked e8500 solution,

as for the gfx , an awkward time to decide to buy a gx2 , all that cash, i know it will be hard, but just hold out for the gtx 260/280, will open up options and probally alter prices of previous gen cards.

I would personally wait for a gtx 280 , i've read all the reviews of them and i am pretty much in awe of them especially the HD encoding speeds. you could with that budget prehaps sli 2 gtx 280's and that would be a killer gaming rig. hense why you should save money on the cpu's to spend more on gpus, overclocked 8500's still own.

hope this helps a little
Click to expand...

2 GTX280's in SLi would cost about a grand and you would need a £150 power supply to power the thing. Utterly pointless, as is the E8500 which is a fair few bob more than the E8400 and all you get is a few extra MHz
 
I agree. I'm going to opt for the E8400 (and overclock it as much as possible) and then see what happens with the graphics card prices when ATI release their newest stuff.

GtScotty makes an interesting point regarding the watercooled solution for the CPU/GPU though I think I'm going to stick to my guns and just air cool the thing.

I found a decent guide to overclocking the E8400 to 4.3 on just air so will do some more reading into this.

I'm still hoping for some decent feedback regarding the choice of RAM and MOBO for overclocking said processor. Does anyone know of any particularly good choices?

I will of course continue to read around this before I make any final decisions.

Thanks again :)
 
BFG GeForce GTX 260 OC 896MB GDDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail BFG GeForce GTX 260 OC 896MB GDDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail £249.99
(£293.74) £249.99
(£293.74)
Thermalright Ultra-120 Extreme CPU Cooler (Socket AM2/LGA775) Thermalright Ultra-120 Extreme CPU Cooler (Socket AM2/LGA775) £27.99
(£32.89) £27.99
(£32.89)
Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound (3.5g) Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound (3.5g) £3.99
(£4.69) £3.99
(£4.69)
Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 LGA775 'Wolfdale' 3.00GHz (1333FSB) - Retail Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 LGA775 'Wolfdale' 3.00GHz (1333FSB) - Retail £112.99
(£132.76) £112.99
(£132.76)
Abit IP35 Pro (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard Abit IP35 Pro (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £89.99
(£105.74) £89.99
(£105.74)
OCZ 4GB (2x2GB) PC2-8000C5 1000MHz ReaperX HPC Enhanced Bandwidth Edition Dual Channel DDR2 (OCZ2RPX10004GK) OCZ 4GB (2x2GB) PC2-8000C5 1000MHz ReaperX HPC Enhanced Bandwidth Edition Dual Channel DDR2 (OCZ2RPX10004GK) £74.99
(£88.11) £74.99
(£88.11)
Samsung SpinPoint F1 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (HD103UJ) Samsung SpinPoint F1 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (HD103UJ) £94.99
(£111.61) £94.99
(£111.61)
Samsung SH-S223F/BEBE 22x DVD±RW SATA Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM Samsung SH-S223F/BEBE 22x DVD±RW SATA Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM £13.99
(£16.44) £13.99
(£16.44)
Corsair HX 620W ATX2.2 Modular SLI Compliant PSU (CMPSU-620HXUK) Corsair HX 620W ATX2.2 Modular SLI Compliant PSU (CMPSU-620HXUK) £74.99
(£88.11) £74.99
(£88.11)
Arctic Cooling Arctic Fan 12025PWM 120mm Fan - 4-Pin PWM Arctic Cooling Arctic Fan 12025PWM 120mm Fan - 4-Pin PWM £6.99
(£8.21) £6.99
(£8.21)
Dell TrueColour E248WFP 24" Widescreen LCD Monitor - Midnight Grey Dell TrueColour E248WFP 24" Widescreen LCD Monitor - Midnight Grey £207.99
(£244.39) £207.99
(£244.39)
Sub Total : £958.89
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £12.95
VAT is being charged at 17.5% VAT : £170.07
Total : £1,141.91

Just pick your case, keyboard and mouse.
 
Fantastic! Just what I was after. :D

I'll knock up the list on Overclockers' shopping basket now and have a look at the reviews of the individual components then report back here.

Thanks again. :)
 
Np.

A few things to bear in mind and to research:

See what the performance difference is between the 9800 GX2 and the card I specified and determine if it is worth waiting for.
Invest in a better monitor, especially if you're gaming. There are a few decent 20-22" out there, but if you want a 24", you've got a splash out a bit more.
And there's no point in spending £150-£200 in a water-cooling solution. Just spent half of that on a very decent HSF and a slightly better CPU. Unless you want water. :)
And make sure the case you pick will accommodate the HSF. :)
 
just my 2 pence

id personally go for a q6600 for futureproofing (my opinion ofc) and they clock to 3.2gig at least.

4gig ram should b enough

what about the abit P35 pro mobo? i hear it a stonking OC'er

with the money you could save you could get a better monitor, ive read that the dell ultrasharp range of monitors are really good aswell as certain models of benq.

mebe for now get a 8800gt and wait for g280 prices to come down (they seem on paper to b the dogs bollux)

id stick to good 8500 ddr2 ram with tight timings - you can always OC it if memory bandwidth becomes an issue later.

hope this helps lol :) as i say its just my opinion.
 
Er... apparantly not :p

price2.jpg


price.jpg
 
Still prices are awfully similar though (suprised myself). Could save you the hassle if you're not confident in building a PC and then just learn by upgrading it in the future. One thing though, the PC will have 1 years warranty, but some of the components will have warranty longer than that (CPU, motherboard, HD) so theoreticly if one of those parts breaks after the years warranty is up woud you be able to replace them with the manufacturer by producing the receipt (that is if it will list invidual components rather than the whole system)?
 
told you guys, gonna have to make a quick decision before they realise their mistake ;)

the guarantee of the CPU + the 1yr Onsite Collect & Return Warranty swings it really.

any components you'd switch out? In all honesty I'd probably prefer a modular PSU like the 620 corsair...

saying that though, I'm very tempted to get this pre-built one. saves me some hassle at least.
 
Primarily gaming, but I wouldn't want to be upgrading again in the near future.... the crazy amount of reading I've been doing concerning overclocking the q6600 and e8400 and their respective (scarily similar in some cases) performance in games has swung me over to the quad. :D
 
Monitor make sure it is hdcp compliant.
hard drives, personally on a budget like this, I would get a 200ish Gb drive for windows and os and at least 1TB drive for media, music/films etc.
mobo wise I would go p45 ddr2 ( I would go asus)
Gfx card I would probably drop to a 8800GTX or buy a second hand 9800 GX2 as people upgrade to the new cards. The gX2 is a huge part of your budget. over £300
cpu get a 6600 and overclock
your spending 1500 you could easily get a blue ray drive in the budget for high def films.
 
Finally

After doing a bit more reading and waiting for the time to come for the new graphics card ranges I've finally made a decision.

Current proposed set-up can be found below:-

finalspec2lj6.png


Does it look ok to you guys?

Any suggested improvements or personal changes you'd make?

Your comments are very welcome. :)

Thanks.

Neil
 
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