Building a PC - have I forgotten anything??

dirtychinchilla

dirtychinchilla

dirtychinchilla

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Joined
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Woking
Hi everyone,

My terrible terrible terrible laptop conked out on me this morning and won't turn on! So it's time to bite the bullet and build a PC. I can't afford high spec atm so I'm limiting certain areas of the build. Can you tell me whether I've missed anything out? And also, do all the cables and such that you need come with the parts?

Radon AMD Phenom II X6 1055T 95W Edition 2.80GHz @ 3.80GHz Overclocked Bundle
MSI ATI Radeon HD 5450 1024MB GDDR3 PCI-Express Graphics Card
OCUK EZCool NA-705 Case - Black (500w PSU)
**B Grade** Western Digital Caviar Blue 500GB SATA 6Gb/s 16MB Cache - OEM
Cooler Master Elite Power 500W Power Supply
Samsung SH-S222AB/BEBE 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM

I'm looking to play games on it and do 3d modelling for my uni course. Would this set up be suitable? Once I can afford it I think I'll upgrade the GPU, the case and get some more HD space.

Cheers in advance,

Jono
 
There's only 1 PSU with 6 cores. The bundle includes ram, sorry I should have made that clearer.

My budget is about £450. I've got an OS already

Another question, is this at all futureproof or would I have to upgrade the PSU, Mb and Ram fairly soon?
 
You guys are unbelievably helpful! Thanks a lot.

All these things look good, they don't necessarily mean that much to me.

One thing is that I am unwilling to spend anything more than the minimum possible on the case because I can't afford the case I want right now (Fractal F3 Pearl [I think]), so the Cooler Master is unnecessary unless it's thrown in there for the sake of getting it with a decent power supply.

I'd also definitely rather have a better graphics card than the one I stated at the beginning, as long as it's in budget.

Jono
 
Those are great, thanks man. I'll have a look at these benchmarks if anyone manages to find them and then make a better decision in that respect.

What I'm taking from what you've said though is that I need to be more careful about the cpu, mb and the gpu...right? The other parts I can get away with being strongly budget on.

I'm glad I came to you guys, I would have order that first set up without thinking otherwise
 
@xNytramx I'm completely new to overclocking; is that system likely to overclock well as it's definitely something I'd be looking at doing, with added water cooling in the future.

Regarding the sandybridge, could someone tell me what's so important about it?? It's quite apparent that it's very popular with you guys.

I'm NOT looking for a monitor btw, I've got one already. And I'll definitely be buying a PSU, don't want to skimp on that.
 
That's great to know, thank you. I'll watch out for the Ks.

Maximum budget is still £450 could push it to 460, 470 I expect.

I should swiftly be able to upgrade the GPU though so that's not critical. Because my laptop broke this morning I'm looking to quickly replace it but I can't spend too much right now. I may have to wait but I'm not sure currently.

I don't need any peripherals, an OS or anything else you've mentioned there. Just the tower and hardware.

Thanks!
 
@xNtramx That's looks brilliant and very powerful, definitely what I'm looking for with the option of upgrading the GPU! Good plan man, that processor would overclock to about 4.4GHz right? Thanks a lot! I'd like to hear what other people think of it too though.

@Buchanan0204 I was going to buy it because it's the cheapest case, and then replace the PSU. I'm not sure if I really checked for good value there though haha!
 
Hey guys,

What I'm thinking is that I'll salvage and old case and dvd RW drive to save some money, and get all the other stuff you've recommended.

So I think this is the final purchase list:

Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - OEM £167.99
(£139.99) £167.99
(£139.99)
Asrock Z68 Extreme4 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard Asrock Z68 Extreme4 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £144.98
(£120.82) £144.98
(£120.82)
Lepa W-Series 500W '80 Plus' Power Supply Lepa W-Series 500W '80 Plus' Power Supply £49.99
(£41.66) £49.99
(£41.66)
Corsair XMS3 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMX4GX3M2A1600C9) Corsair XMS3 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMX4GX3M2A1600C9) £34.99
(£29.16) £34.99
(£29.16)
Samsung SpinPoint F3 500GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD502HJ) Samsung SpinPoint F3 500GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD502HJ) £32.98
(£27.48) £32.98
(£27.48)
Sub Total : £359.11

I'm just hoping the samsung galaxy s2 i've put on another site is going to sell!

Thanks for your help,
Jono
 
So I don't actually need that expensive motherboard? There's no chance of me putting in 2 graphics card. And the retail processor would be much better, I agree. I need to collect this information together a bit better haha!

My plan is, indeed, to use the onboard graphics for a little while until I can afford a graphics card - having a working computer is much more important to me right now than playing games.

The laptop is balls, it won't turn on! It's only 2 years old. I don't think I can sell it on though so I don't know whether it's worth me paying for someone to fix it...I hate the laptop with a passion. The number of times is closely avoided being smashed...
 
With those changes, this is what I've got:

Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor £173.99
(£144.99) £173.99
(£144.99)
Asrock Z68 PRO3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard Asrock Z68 PRO3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £105.98
(£88.32) £105.98
(£88.32)
BeQuiet Pure Power L7 530W '80 Plus' Power Supply BeQuiet Pure Power L7 530W '80 Plus' Power Supply £44.99
(£37.49) £44.99
(£37.49)
Corsair XMS3 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMX4GX3M2A1600C9) Corsair XMS3 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMX4GX3M2A1600C9) £34.99
(£29.16) £34.99
(£29.16)
Samsung SpinPoint F3 500GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD502HJ) Samsung SpinPoint F3 500GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD502HJ) £32.98
(£27.48) £32.98
(£27.48)
Sub Total : £327.44
 
That's true but I'm not looking to buy the GPU yet, I'll probably just spend the £10 for the sake of it.

Very annoyingly, I can no longer salvage a case so it looks like I'll have to add one to the bill.
 
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