Final Spec Check please

Mr Doovde

Mr Doovde

Mr Doovde

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Joined
25 Jan 2009
Posts
506
Does this seem reasonable?

1) AMD Phenom II X4 Quad Core 955 Black Edition 3.2GHz

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CP-244-AM

2) MSI 790FX-GD70 AMD 790FX

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-110-MS

3) OCZ Platinum Enhanced Bandwidth Edition 4GB (2x2GB) 1600MHz DDR3
- CL 7-7-6-24, 1.9 Volts

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-169-OC

4) Gainward GeForce GTX 260 Golden Sample 896MB. I will be gaming on a 24" screen and figure that this should be fine. I don't really want to shell out too much as there are DX11 cards around the corner.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-104-GW

5) Western Digital Caviar Green 750GB SATA-II 32MB Cache. Although it is slower than the WD Caviar Blacks, I aim to use it until I buy a solid state drive (when the prices come down). That way I can use the solid state drive for OS and games and the WD Green for storage. Does that seem reasonable?

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-274-WD

6) Thermalright Ultra-120 Extreme CPU Cooler

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HS-061-TR&groupid=701&catid=57&subcat=1395

7) Noctua NF-P12 Vortex-Control 120mm Quiet Case Fan

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=FG-004-NC&groupid=701&catid=57&subcat=4

8) Arctic Cooling MX-2 Thermal Compound. Is this a good compund?

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=TH-001-AR

9) Seasonic M12D 850w Quad GFX Enabled ATX Power Supply. It is overkill, but I managed to source it for £120, which is a bargain and should help in terms of future-proofing?

10) Sony BDU-X10S 2x Blu-ray Disc ROM Internal. It was the cheapest I could find. I manged to find it selling for £50 and think it should suffice.
 
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Solid spec. Buying the green drive in the hopes of eventually getting an ssd is foolish as the black drive will far outperform it until then, and will then proceed to outperform it as a storage drive. Get the black drive now, the hard drive is the bottleneck in your system anyway. Why chose to make the slowest component even slower?

50 quid for a sony blue ray drive is probably good. I don't use blue ray, so don't really know. Seasonic make good psus. Linking to a competitor isn't a good call, I recommend removing that. The mods wont like it.

You seem to have forgotten a case and any peripherals, as long as that was intentional I'd say its all good beyond the hard drive.
 
It looks a nice spec but you might want to consider spending £16 more for the Asus GTX275 though if not the current is well enough for 24 inch anyway.
 
Thanks for the advice and for telling me about the competitor's link :eek:. I think the early hours have got to me, as I only intended to post a link to OcUK's Seasonic PSU. I will now go for the WD Black, whilst the case and peripherals are already taken care of. Thanks again JonJ6778.
 
Sycho said:
It looks a nice spec but you might want to consider spending £16 more for the Asus GTX275 though if not the current is well enough for 24 inch anyway.
Click to expand...


Thanks Sycho, I might just do that. I only thought of the Gainward GTX 260 as everyone seems to rave about how quiet it is, but as you say, there is only a small price difference.
 
I went ahead and ordered the Gigabyte 275 with the rest of the components. Apparently, the revised PCB board should help with temperatures. Reviews suggested that, whilst being good at reducing temperatures, the Gainward pushes a lot of the hot air out the sides as well. I'm guessing that this should be ok in a well ventilated case, but I thought I would play it safe.

Anyway, first time build here we come :eek:. I'm pooing my pants at the prospect, but hopefully things will turn out ok.
 
Looks a very nice spec. Glad you went for the 275 instead of the 260 with such a little price difference. Having said that, the 4890 was an even cheaper upgrade ;).

Make sure you post some pics of your build.
 
I'm glad too. I was a little bit worried about the high load temperatures of the GTX 275, but I'm hoping the Gigabyte's PCB design will help a bit with that. However, there did seem to be mixed reviews as to how effective this actually was.

The better acoustics of the 275 over the 4890 was probably the deciding factor for me. However, if I overclock, I'm guessing I might have to increase the fan speed anyway and therefore noise, to avoid even more ridiculous load temperatures.
 
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