Building my first PC, need help...

mentalmarriott

mentalmarriott

mentalmarriott

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Joined
18 May 2011
Posts
17
Hi all I'm pretty new at this so any mistakes I apologize in advance. I am looking at building my first custom PC as my current one is well pretty bad and will not do for uni. I am looking to spend around the £300 pound mark, I am not a heavy gamer although I do play a few and I dare say I will probably play m,ore in the future, most intensive game I run atm is portal 2 and only lags on cut scenes. I have looked at parts and believe I have found a reasonable PC in my price range. All I ask of you is if you could let me know if everything fits together encase I have missed anything out, I know me I will probably be missing a cable. Also if you have any suggestions for upgrades/changes that will still be in/around my price boundary I would be happy to hear them.
Please find list of Items im looking at getting below;
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CP-280-AM
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-043-OP
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-042-BQ
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-102-MS
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-028-AK
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-050-GS

I will be using my own Hdd, keyboard & Mouse and Monitor's.
 
do you need a DVD drive, or are you using your old one?

also, for any games, a good graphics card is an absolute must so something in the £70-90 range is what your really going to want if you want to play portal 2 at any sort of decent graphics

i would go for something like this:


YOUR BASKET
1 x XFX ATI Radeon HD 5770 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £79.99
1 x AMD Athlon II X3 Tri Core 450 3.20GHz (Socket AM3) - Retail £59.99
1 x "Primo Elevation" AMD DDR3 Ready Barebones (Socket AM2+/AM3) £59.99
1 x BeQuiet Pure Power L7 530W Power Supply £42.98
1 x Kingston HyperX Genesis Grey 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1600C9D3X2K2/4GX) £37.99
Total : £299.54 (includes shipping : £15.50).
 
Everything looks good, But a ATI 5450 isnt really capable of Even Source games like Portal 2 at good settings and resoloution. maybe bump that up to a 5570 which will run the likes of Portal 2 and most other games at 720p very nicely.

Maybe it would also be good to consider the Coolermaster Elite 430 with Bundled Cooler master 500W Power Supply, which is more than capable of running the system you suggested, and Coolermaster is a reliable brand.

Also, the OCZ Platinum 4GB Kit is on for just shy of £30. Ordered two loads my self this morning :D Save you £10.

Of which saving that £10 could bring you up to the Phenom 955.

I am also assuming you do not need a Optical Drive?

 
Last edited:
Thank you all for such speedy replies. I will be using my own dvd drives, sorry I forgot to mention that. Looking at what you have said I am thinking of getting a cheep case and putting my old one in that and using current one for new PC as its a nice case. Reaper 392 kit suggested but with TheGedi's ram suggestion and the Phenom 955 and possibly http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-123-HT.
So all together would be:
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CP-244-AM
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-095-KS
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-123-HT
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=FS-266-OK
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-042-BQ
Totaling: 274.94 Without P&P
What are your Thoughts?
 
mentalmarriott said:
Thank you all for such speedy replies. I will be using my own dvd drives, sorry I forgot to mention that. Looking at what you have said I am thinking of getting a cheep case and putting my old one in that and using current one for new PC as its a nice case. Reaper 392 kit suggested but with TheGedi's ram suggestion and the Phenom 955 and possibly http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-123-HT.
So all together would be:
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CP-244-AM
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-095-KS
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-123-HT
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=FS-266-OK
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-042-BQ
Totaling: 274.94 Without P&P
What are your Thoughts?
Click to expand...

Just remember, the AM2+ only has 2 sockets for DDR3 RAM, of which you cannot mix and match with DDR2, With the AM3 board the Possibility of Adding 4 Modules is possible, especially with RAM being so cheap nowadays. The 955 is a very good Games Orientated Processor, especially if you play CPU heavy games like Source based games (Portal 1 & 2 Half Life's Counter Strike: Source etc). If i could have fitted it into my budget at the time i would have :P
 
I finally took the dive and went with;

AMD Phenom II X4 Quad Core 955 Black Edition "125W Edition" 3.20GHz (Socket AM3) - Retail £69.99 1 £69.99

HIS ATI Radeon HD 5570 1024MB GDDR3 SILENT PCI-Express Graphics Card (H557HO1G) £41.66 1 £41.66

OCZ StealthXStream 2 500W Power Supply £34.16 1 £34.16

OCZ Gold 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-10666C9 1333MHz Low-Voltage Dual Channel Kit (OCZ3G1333LV4GK) £31.66 1 £31.66

ASRock N68C-S UCC GeForce 7025 (Socket AM3/AM2+) DDR2/DDR3 microATX Motherboard £28.32 1 £28.32

Xigmatek Asgard Midi Tower Case - Black £24.67 1 £24.67

Akasa AK-455 Thermal Compound £1.99 1 £1.99

DPD Next Day Parcel: £11.75
VAT: £48.84
Order Total: £293.04
 
I'm back and need some help, turns out my motherboard, n68c-s ucc doesn't support 125w cpu's so when started new PC up it was running at 800Hz per core. Let's just say I was not happy to see this. I managed to overclock to 3.3Mhz each core and it working ok now, 42 degrees idle and 56 under load. I was just wondering if you could help me find a motherboard that supports 125w cpu, mine is amd 955 BE, also would like to have 4 ram slots any feedback would be a great help.
 
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