Check my build before purchase?

monkeyman151 · 25 Nov 2010 at 12:30

Hi, please come I get a few opinions on this build? Could anything be improved without compromising the budget too much? The budget is ~£800. I was trying to build a quiet(ish) gaming machine.

Thanks for your help!

monkeyman151 · 25 Nov 2010 at 12:32

I was planning on installing the OS (Windows 7), and other applications/games, on the SSD and use the HDD for media. Thanks again.

hybrid572 · 25 Nov 2010 at 12:42

Since you're unlikely to be going SLI or overclocking in future (I assume so anyway due to noise issues), I'd consider dropping to a ~£60 motherboard (you won't miss any features you lose). The 6870 is also a very powerful card- not necessarily overkill, but if you needed to pinch a few pennies, you could easily afford to drop to the 6850 without too much loss in performance.

The reason I'd recommend these pricecuts is that 60GB is going to run out very quickly- after installing Windows and the SSD filesystem, you won't have room for many games. I'd get an SSD as big as you can afford.

monkeyman151 · 25 Nov 2010 at 13:06

Would you recommend getting an SSD at all? Is the permormance going to make all that much difference when playing games? What if I was just to install the OD on the SDD and everything else on the HDD?

hybrid572 · 25 Nov 2010 at 13:39

There's a massive difference with the OS, but with games, the only real difference is in loading times. Windows caches games into the RAM quite aggressively, so once a level has loaded, it won't make much difference.

Of course, SSDs do make a lot of difference when the hard drive is under load noise-wise, but the SSD you have there for your OS and one or two games, plus a decent hard drive like the Spinpoint F3 1TB should be fine for gaming.

angela · 25 Nov 2010 at 13:46

^^ agree, something like WD black will be more thn enough for gaming!

skylineboy · 25 Nov 2010 at 14:55

I agree you can drop the board a fair whack and not scrimp on features. The 6870 is a great card and you should keep it.

SSD in game will effect load speeds of the games and locations (in RPGs) so for gaming there is little real need but for other uses an SSD will be awesome.

Most people install just OS onto a 40GB or 60GB SSD then add favourite games on to it then everything else onto a HDD. Other wise looks good.

I am a big fan of the samsung F3 HDD. This is the only other real change I would make.

Liampope · 25 Nov 2010 at 15:41

I dunno - I wouldn't like to put a 760 on a cheap H55 mobo personally. Anyone thinking of not overclocking an i5 760 on a gaming rig needs correctional therapy

. With a good air cooler, overclocking is not an increase in noise. So imho, the OP's spec is perfect with a proper air cooler added to take up the remaining budget, and that WD blue swapped for a Sammy F3. Good job OP.

hybrid572 · 25 Nov 2010 at 15:58

Liampope said:
I dunno - I wouldn't like to put a 760 on a cheap H55 mobo personally. Anyone thinking of not overclocking an i5 760 on a gaming rig needs correctional therapy . With a good air cooler, overclocking is not an increase in noise. So imho, the OP's spec is perfect with a proper air cooler added to take up the remaining budget, and that WD blue swapped for a Sammy F3. Good job OP.

Come on, I admit the i5's a fantastic overclocker, but when are you going to use that extra power, gaming wise?

cmndr_andi · 25 Nov 2010 at 15:58

I probably should just take this opportunity to mention that Intel "Sandy Bridge" is coming out in early January. Not that you have to wait, but at least you are informed that the next generation Intel CPUs will be arriving about a month after you build your PC.

If you do go with the i5 760 spec then please go for this motherboard - the one you picked can only do x16x4 crossfire/SLI.

Liampope · 25 Nov 2010 at 16:18

hybrid572 said:
Come on, I admit the i5's a fantastic overclocker, but when are you going to use that extra power, gaming wise?

I'm using it now! Some of it. Sometimes

. Many games, even if they can bother all four cores, have a heavy main thread on one core which eats most of the GHz you can throw at it. If I run at stock 2.66GHz I do indeed get less FPS in Crysis, as just one example. Perhaps not a drop in FPS commensurate with the drop in GHz, and it is fair to say I could probably give my poor chip a break and not run it at 4GHz all the time, and not notice a huge drop in performance in most stuff. But the drop is there in some stuff and that situation is only going to get worse in the future. I still wouldn't recommend the OP gets all these tasty components and puts them all on a cheap H55 mobo that will fry if you try to overclock a quad on it (e.g. the little UD2H) for the sake of a £40 saving (just 5% of budget). All imho.