Final check before ordering.

danclivo

danclivo

danclivo

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4 Jun 2010
Posts
658
Location
Aberystwyth
Final check before ordering + Build Log!

Hello :) The time has finally come to upgrade from a 6/7 year old P4 Prescott rig that has been really struggling for the past couple of years.

Saved up for a decent rig (wanted an i5-2500k), although I'd like to not go over the price of the build below if possible.

Basically I need a decent all rounder. I'm a media student so photo and particularly video editing are important. I will be playing some games as well, mostly CoD, Total War games, Halo 2 and Football Manager. I only have a 22" monitor so I doubt I'd need one of the very top end cards (chose the 6870 as it is currently on offer). Also for general usage: office work, email, video playback etc.

I already have a copy of Windows 7 and peripherals. I like the look of the Fractal XL as i might reuse it in future higher end builds.

I am not interested in SLI or Crossfire.

The build:
Gigabyte GeForce GTX 560Ti OC 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £179.99

Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor £173.99

MSI P67A-C45 Intel P67 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard - (Sandybridge) ** B3 REVISION ** £89.98

Fractal Design Define XL Full Tower Case - Titanium Grey £84.98

Corsair XMS3 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMX8GX3M2A1600C9) £65.99

Antec High Current Gamer 620W Power Supply £49.99

Samsung SpinPoint F3 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (HD103SJ) £43.99

Corsair A50 High-Performance CPU Cooler (Socket AM2/AM3/LGA775/LGA1155/LGA1156/LGA1366) £27.98

Sony Optiarc AD-5260S 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £15.98

Akasa 8-Pin 30cm PSU Extension Cable £4.79

Sub Total : £614.72
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £14.75
VAT is being charged at 20.00% VAT : £125.89
Total : £755.36
 
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Mr. May said:
change the gpu to either off these as there the same price and faster

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-147-XF&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=1711

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-032-ZT&groupid=701&catid=1914&subcat=1810

personally i would go for the 470 as it has more ram (which well help a lot with new shogan total war game as) and when over cloked will be faster that the 5870 with higher levels off AA and nvida cuda tech is more freindly with video editing programs

apart from that the rest off the build looks fine mate

might be worth looking at this thread http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18255161
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Thanks for the quick reply mate.

Didn't know the 470 had dropped to as low a price as that, but looking at reviews it seems to get a bit hot under load. Although I probably won't be pushing it that hard, it still has me worried over its longevity. Someone else verify?

I won't be gaming at 1920x1200, so the video memory shouldn't be an issue. Thanks for the link though, very handy in planning future upgrades should I ever need them :)


sk82jack said:
Antec High Current Gamer 620w PSU on offer at £49.99 which is a Seasonic designed unit, as the XFX is but a lot cheaper :) but price goes up once stocks run out (by 20-25 quid) so grab it while you can :p
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Had a look at that as well, but the deal seemed too good to be true. Will it run an OC'ed i5-2500k as well as a 470 if I do decide to get that instead of the 6870?
 
Cookeh said:
470 is on a par - on a good day, with the HD6870 and will not compare with an OC example.

On top of that it runs silly hot, very noisy and draws enough power to run a HTPC or two off.

I would try and strectch for a GTX560 (even a Ti version if you can) as they're better than the HD6870 (to my annoyance) and the HD6950 - unless flashed.

The XL case gets worse reviews than it's smaller brother - swapping it out for the little bro or indeed a different case will fund the difference for a GTX560 :)

EDIT: Can easily save some more pennies by swapping the cooler for the A50 - or even a Hyper 212 Plus, as both will cool it more than adequately.

Put it this way, you can get 4.4GHz on the stock cooler with acceptable temps ;)
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Well that's given me quite a lot to think about! :p

Kinda drifting off the 470 idea to be honest, having looked around. A 470 plus a cooler for it for would take me close to 560Ti prices anyway.

I suppose it wasn't the brightest idea in speccing the XL when I'm only planning on using one graphics card. I knew the XL isn't renowned for cooling, but I liked the cable management (especially since I'm going non-modular) and the noise dampening. The XL and the R3 are the same price (on here anyway). The CoolerMaster 690-II Advanced which I've also looked at isn't in stock either :(

Good call on the cooler, especially since I probably won't go much further than 4.4GHz.

After all those changes I'm at £750 and I really don't want to go any higher. Thanks to everyone for their help so far :)
 
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Mr May - 1680x1050 or possibly 1920x1080. Depends how it looks, 1680x1050 seems good at the moment.

Blue160 - Those are the exact reasons why I've chosen the XL. Thanks for reminding me about cable length! I knew I'd forgotten to ask something :rolleyes:
 
logi-cat - I picked 8GB primarily for the editing, but if the difference is not worth the extra £30 I'd happily bump it down to 4GB.

Cookeh - I think OcUK removed it from the listings recently due to a problem with suppliers. Won't be in stock for another month apparently :(

CM-690 Lite looks interesting, but like I said I'd be hoping to reuse things like the case in future builds. If I someday decide to go for a higher end spec it would be nice to know I already had a case which could house everything. Looking to the future I am :)
 
sk82jack said:
At the price of DDR3 at the moment if you can afford exta RAM, why not? But that's just my opinion. Obviously it's a bit silly going for 16GB just for gaming but 8GB just gives you that extra headroom:) Obviously if you on a tight budget then it's not a necessity, and 4GB will be just fine.
Click to expand...

8GB of 1600MHz DDR3 for £66 - bit of a steal if you ask me. I've heard that it helps a lot with encoding and rendering so happy days :)
 
Cookeh said:
Can put more rads in a CM690 than you can in a 800D ;)

Fits all the current longest cards with ease.

Personally I think it will certainly cope for a few years :)

EDIT: Failed to read rest of thread, this is all irrelevant now xD
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You are the voice of reason, trying to save me money :D

Truth is I'd already eyed up the Fractal long before speccing. Even though I've had to get the Titanium Grey version, I'm still very happy :)
 
Blue160 said:
I've got the titanium one too. It looks great in the metal/plastic. The sides and top are still black, it's just the brushed metal effect door at the front that is titanium.

Be aware that when it arrives, the bracket the PSU attaches to will be the wrong way up. You need to unscrew this, attach it to the PSU, then reattach it the other way up.
Click to expand...

That's good to know, since the Black Pearl one came back in stock shortly after I'd ordered!

Cheers for the heads up on the bracket, I'll get to it as soon as I've unpacked everything :).
 
All is well so far!

Ordered at around 11:00am on Thursday. DPD Website stated a 3:25pm-4:25pm delivery time for yesterday. The parcels arrived just before 4:00pm, with everything safe and sound and very well packaged. Great service from both OcUK and DPD.

Spent much of last night on the build. So glad I bought the Fractal! Build quality is immense, looks great and even my usual spaghetti junction of cables doesn't look half as bad! Only slight gripe is that the front panel LED doesn't seem to be working. Will have a look at it later but if that's all it is then it doesn't really bother me. Made a rookie mistake while fitting the A50 and as a result had to reapply the supplied thermal paste :rolleyes:. Fans seem a bit noisy at the moment but it isn't something a bit or tinkering won't fix. Having both side panels off probably doesn't help either :D

All in all, for my first full build, things look very good so far. All drivers installed. Took around 5 minutes to install Windows 7 (:eek:), and acheived a 5.9 Windows rating which is promising.

Been running Prime95 for the past hour having overclocked to 4.4GHz at just under 1.30V, no problems thus far.

Sorry for the lack of pics, all I currently have is the camera on my phone, which is worse than bad. I might as well draw the rig in Paint and show that instead. Hoping to borrow mum's camera later :)

Here is the spec once more.:

Gigabyte GeForce GTX 560Ti OC 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card
Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor
MSI P67A-C45 Intel P67 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard - (Sandybridge) ** B3 REVISION **
Fractal Design Define XL Full Tower Case - Titanium Grey
Corsair XMS3 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMX8GX3M2A1600C9)
Antec High Current Gamer 620W Power Supply
Samsung SpinPoint F3 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (HD103SJ)
Corsair A50 High-Performance CPU Cooler (Socket AM2/AM3/LGA775/LGA1155/LGA1156/LGA1366)
Sony Optiarc AD-5260S 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM
Akasa 8-Pin 30cm PSU Extension Cable
 
andy_mk3 said:
Very nice spec PC, get some pics up :)
Click to expand...
Cheers, I'll do my best :)

Cookeh said:
What was the rookie mistake?
Click to expand...

I was concentrating so much on lining up the pins I didn't notice that the cooler was facing down instead of sideways :o

DJmartin said:
Glad that it all worked out as it's your first build. Gives me a little confidence for what will be mine in a couple of weeks. :D
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Much easier than I'd expected. I've done jigsaws that were more difficult. This website and youtube practically build it for you :D

Good luck on the build, you'll enjoy it. Just a bit of a warning though - time absolutely FLIES while you're building it!
 
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