Building PC

stevenazari1 · 22 Oct 2007 at 13:27

hello there

Im a multimedia designer and its now time to upgrade my pc... but I think Im just going to start from scratch as I have an old mobo, an even older processor and an agp slot with card

. I have £1300 to spend on the upgrade and I was hoping to get the most for my money. I will have this money christmas time so is there any point in planning now? I was hoping to find a site that has a "coming soon" section but alas nothing to be found. so should I plan on whats currently available? would be nice if oc had a "coming soon" section so people know whether to buy now or save for christmas

many thanks
steve

semi-pro waster · 22 Oct 2007 at 13:31

Welcome to the forums. What do you need for the PC, just the system itself or system + monitor, keyboard, mouse and software or some variation on the above? It isn't hard to specify you something now but many of the prices could change by a fair amount.

stevenazari1 · 22 Oct 2007 at 13:58

I got a samsung 40' lcd and logitech mx5000 keyboard and mouse, also have creative gigaworks 7.1 speakers and soundblaster x-fi sound card (its pci slot card), and I have a tsunami dream case (black)... but it sounds really loud!

I also have a wirless card to connect to my wireless router which I will prob take over too....(thats also pci dependant) but if need be I'll buy pci express cards - mobo is the focus >.<

Im just looking for the hardware at the moment of the system itself (Graphics card, processor, mobo, memory) I would say a water cooler too but I really dont know how to install one nor do I know how to overclock (I just stick to software

) so I dunno if I should include a new case too.... I mean it is really loud... which isnt nice...

**Edit**
I just been drafting a basket and this is what I got so far:

OCZ 2GB DDR3 PC3-14400C8 1800MHz Platinum (2x1GB) Dual Channel DDR3 (OCZ3P18002GK) £411.24
Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 500GB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (ST3500320AS) £89.29
Intel Core 2 Quad Pro Q6600 "Energy Efficient SLACR 95W Edition" 2.40GHz (1066FSB) - Retail £176.24
BFG GeForce 8800 GTX OC Extreme WaterCooled 768MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail £469.99
Asus Arctic Square CPU Cooler (Socket 754/939/940/AM2/LGA775) £38.76
Asus P5K64 WS Intel P35 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR3 Motherboard £155.09

Total (Inc VAT)= 1,351.12

I didnt put down what motherboard I want to get because tbh I really dont know which to get.... its the most important piece so I want the best one but got no idea.... any advice? I mean I found the Asus P5E3 WS PRO looks really good on spec but it uses ati technology and I'd rather use nvidia due to their current cards being better (the GTX's are better right?)...
any help appreciated lol

tomanders91 · 22 Oct 2007 at 15:35

if you can afford that then go for it, but a lot of people on here think the ultra is a waste, the GTX is more than enough, plus DDR3, not really sure if thats worth it yet... But at christmas time things will probably be a lot difference.

stevenazari1 · 22 Oct 2007 at 15:46

well I really dont know what mobo and gcard to get - I seen the asus P5E3 WS PRO and from what I see that is the best board at the moment? :S or is that far from the truth? I really dont know what is the best mobo atm to build around....

SGWills · 22 Oct 2007 at 15:49

any reason for picking DDR3 over DDR2 ? with the prices as they are DDR2 is dirt cheap

as said before a GTX would be more wise than a ultra.

i would choose a P35 motherboard to go along with the Q6600, as for watercooling, if your not going to overclock then it might not be worth spending the extra over a nice aftermarket air cooler

a quick think about the parts i would choose

BFG GeForce 8800 GTX OC2 768MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail
Abit IP35 Pro (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard
Intel Core 2 Quad Pro Q6600 "Energy Efficient SLACR 95W Edition" 2.40GHz (1066FSB) - OEM
OCZ 4GB (2 x 2GB) PC2-6400C4 800MHz Reaper HPC Enhanced Bandwidth Edition Dual Channel DDR2 (OCZ2RPR800C44GK)

could even go nuts and get 8 gig

might not be a lot of point in doing it but with the prices as they are, its great value

where you from aswel? got a feeling i know you

tomanders91 · 22 Oct 2007 at 15:50

atm theres quite a lot of P35 boards around which are said to be very good, reliable and good clockers, better off asking in the motherboard section, but if you are building at christmas, X38 boards might be a better buy by then

stevenazari1 · 22 Oct 2007 at 16:27

lol Im from swansea too so you may know me

wanted ddr 3 because of the higher fsb and frequencies as well as it being a newer technology meaning it will rapidly improved compared to the already established ddr 2 standard.

I've never done any over clocking but Im wanting to push the processor past 3ghz which could mean water cooling too (but Im a total newb to that area).

I could get a ddr 2 mobo that also supports ddr 3 (I heard they exist? :S) but I dunno how compatible they are with ddr 3 (which Im going to guess will be more common in future

)

I'll edit the gcards then

out of curiosity Im looking at the OcUK ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT and that has (from what I see) a better spec than all of them :S but is much cheaper... things like that baffle me :S

I think its now more of a mobo with ddr2/3 decision now as I dont know where ddr3 is going to be in about 4 or 5 months

tomanders91 · 22 Oct 2007 at 16:39

the 2900xt is similar to the 8800gts, some games its better, otheres about the same, the 8800gtx is better than both.

There are P35 boards which support both ddr2 and ddr3, a very cheap gigabyte one being one of them. Also you will only need watercooling if you want to push te quad core way past 3ghz, maybe at 3.5+

stevenazari1 · 22 Oct 2007 at 16:43

well I just want to get the max out of my system.

ok cool which p35 board do you suggest? I cant really tell from oc which does ddr2/3 as I only ever see 1 variation of the boards listed

only on the forums I found out that some boards can do both :S I'd rather spend more on the mobo and less on say the hard drive. I can upgrade the less important things at a later date...

cheers for the advice

SGWills · 22 Oct 2007 at 16:45

if your doing a BSC multimedia then i know you

2900 will struggle with AA on games other than that they not bad cards i suppose, but i would stick with nvidia for both games and photoshop etc

i would go for a P35 board that supports ddr2/ddr3 and get 2/4/8 gig of ddr2 because the prices are cheap compared to the price of new DDR3 which will be sky high in price.

could get a good aftermarket air cooler and get 3ghz on your cpu, like said if your looking at higher (3.5+) then watercooling will help

stevenazari1 · 22 Oct 2007 at 16:57

rofl yeah I am haha who is this?

yeah - I think the p35 boards will be better for me (although I dont know WHICH board to get)

out of curiosity - having a mobo that has ati's crossfire - does that mean I'd need to get an ati gpu too? :S because I was thinking of the Asus P5K64

semi-pro waster · 22 Oct 2007 at 18:27

stevenazari1 said:
out of curiosity - having a mobo that has ati's crossfire - does that mean I'd need to get an ati gpu too? :S because I was thinking of the Asus P5K64

No, you can use either Nvidia or ATI GPUs with the other manufacturers chipset.

You could purchase the Gigabyte P35C DS3R which is compatible with both DDR2 (4 sticks) and DDR3 (2 sticks) but obviously not both at the same time. Currently DDR3 is stupidly expensive for what it is, you could get 8gb DDR2 for less than that 2gb kit and from what I know DDR3 doesn't offer any major advantages at the moment except perhaps in synthetic benchmarks. You would be best with a 64bit OS for 4gb Ram and above, a 32bit OS such as ordinary XP will only address somewhere around 3.5gb (varies slightly but rough figures).