[First Build] ATI or nVidia?

opethdisciple · 24 Aug 2010 at 14:32

As for monitor, I can recommend you one from the Dell Ultra sharp series.

Beautiful looking monitors, and good quality!

LeftRight92 · 24 Aug 2010 at 14:33

mind you , guess i could go for LG E2240T 22" Widescreen LED Monitor - Black

But my know whats on monitors is easily my weakest area

reflux · 24 Aug 2010 at 14:33

I wouldn't buy a 480 for 1680x1050... a lesser card would do fine at that res... e.g. 5850 or GTX 460.

HW91 · 24 Aug 2010 at 14:33

in that case

LeftRight92 · 24 Aug 2010 at 14:35

thanks again HW91, looks sweet as

why the microATX?

HW91 · 24 Aug 2010 at 14:37

LeftRight92 said:
thanks again HW91, looks sweet as

why the microATX?

it was the cheapest board there

with mobo's you just go with the lowest priced ASUS or gigabyte board that fits the bill

LeftRight92 · 24 Aug 2010 at 14:42

ill take onboard what everyone has said, im keeping a subscription open to this thread, so feel free to leave anything, thanks every1

Mr Krugga · 24 Aug 2010 at 14:44

HW91 said:
GTX 480 for less than £5 over budget

edit: as we've learnt multiple GPU's aren't always worth it, and minimum fps is more important now where nvidia comes ahead, a mod had 2x 5970's and switched to a single GTX 480 and in games he said it was smoother

This is incorrect, if you mean rjk, he went from owning two 5870s to a single GTX 480. Also, minimums appear to be a lot better than we he claimed in writing. A lot of people with Xfire/SLI setups are happy with them, if you ever owned one of multiGPU rigs before, you'd know what you have to deal with and what the pros are.

HW91 said:
CMT does not equal HT, it's actually the complete opposite being 2 cores can equal 1 thread instead of 1 core can equal 2 threada

This is correct, an interesting technology soon to come.

As for the OP, HW91's suggested build will cost you over £1100 with delivery. I'll paste you a basket with a rig that I would suggest under £1000.

admoo · 24 Aug 2010 at 14:44

reflux said:
the 480 is a bit faster it sounds like a waterfall running in my PC on load and gets hotter than the sun.

This made me laugh. Quite a lot

HW91 · 24 Aug 2010 at 14:48

Mr Krugga said:
As for the OP, HW91's suggested build will cost you over £1100 with delivery. I'll paste you a basket with a rig that I would suggest under £1000.

you need to read back a bit, he lives in Jersey which means no VAT and a 3% GST instead so £921.71 x 1.03 = £949.36 + shipping which will be about £15 so he's still £35 under budget

LeftRight92 · 24 Aug 2010 at 14:49

TIA mr Krugga, should be worth a read

Mr Krugga · 24 Aug 2010 at 14:58

HW91 said:
you need to read back a bit, he lives in Jersey which means no VAT and a 3% GST instead so £921.71 x 1.03 = £949.36 + shipping which will be about £15 so he's still £35 under budget

Sorry, I missed that part. Read a few posts and the OP only.

In that case you fit under budget well, I'd suggest getting something of this proportion:

Radeon 5850s are back at £200 and are really good graphics. You can get one now and another on a later date.

Benq is a good monitor although if you are looking for a quality monitor, I would have a look at Dell U2311H reviews. It costs £80 more but may be worth it in a long run.

OCZ Gold memory has gained some bad reputation in these forums but mind you, most if not all complains come from Triple Channel owners. I've yet to see dual-channel memory that causes troubles. This one is cheap as chips and will be fine with overclocking the Phenom II as it's an unlocked multiplier edition anyway. You can always replace the memory with faster G.Skill kits if you want.

The board will do symmetrical Crossfire, won't do SLI though. Cards run relatively cool and quiet even after overclocking.

PSU will be enough for an overclocked rig.

You can always change the CPU cooling, it's just a suggestion.

LG optical drives have the least complains and RMAs.

LeftRight92 · 24 Aug 2010 at 15:24

thanks, lots to look at here

but looks pretty good

Guardsmon · 24 Aug 2010 at 15:33

I've been keeping an eye on this this afternoon. I'm liking Mr Krugga's build, my suggestion was going to be look at the Dell U2311H but he has already suggested. (One thing to note though, is although the IPS panels are better for colour than the TN panels, they don't have as fast a response time as the TNs for gaming, but this is minimal and I think the pros far out weigh that.)

I know you said before that you didn't want a 1TB drive and would upgrade later, but the prices are so similar now, why not?

My only other suggestion would be get a nicer case (personal oppinion totally) Maybe the Fractal R2?

Freddie1980 · 24 Aug 2010 at 16:15

LeftRight92 said:
Jibber55, probs 1366x768, as for games the most demanding i currently own is ETW, this is seriously pushing my current PC and any other stuff i want is just beyond my current

ETW is the most demanding DX9 game in the world, yes even more demanding the Crysis however if its the number of units on the screen that's coursing the lag then it's your CPU that's bottlenecking the game. As the game is an RTS you don’t need that higher frame rate for smooth battles, I found using FRAPS on a custom battle in M2TW was playable at 12 to 15 FPS and I couldn’t notice any lag at all.

If your building this rig for gaming there is no reason not to get an AMD build, 8/10 games are dependant on the video card to do the work and if a game is CPU bound frame rates are generally high anyway. As for a video card it depends on what screen you plan to get to replace your old one and when, if your going to replace at the same time as your PC and it’s going to be a 1080p monitor your not really going to need anything more powerful then a HD5850. Once you start going beyond cards like the HD5850 or GTX460 the performance returns on investment will make you cry especially when overclocking closes the gap in some games (overclocking the GPU doesn’t mean better performance, some game just don’t respond to increased clockrates and I believe TW is one of them based on previous experience in RTW and M2TW).

LeftRight92 · 24 Aug 2010 at 16:32

ETW is the most demanding i own, but i play FPS too a lot

Guardsmon · 24 Aug 2010 at 17:03

*hugs Freddie* Pretty much sums it up.

Sorry, total waste of a post.

Harvey616 · 24 Aug 2010 at 17:47

I think Mr Krugga's post would be your best option.
You also have a lot of scope to upgrade in the future, if needs be

Final8y · 24 Aug 2010 at 20:17

Mr Krugga said:
Sorry, I missed that part. Read a few posts and the OP only.

In that case you fit under budget well, I'd suggest getting something of this proportion:

Radeon 5850s are back at £200 and are really good graphics. You can get one now and another on a later date.

Benq is a good monitor although if you are looking for a quality monitor, I would have a look at Dell U2311H reviews. It costs £80 more but may be worth it in a long run.

OCZ Gold memory has gained some bad reputation in these forums but mind you, most if not all complains come from Triple Channel owners. I've yet to see dual-channel memory that causes troubles. This one is cheap as chips and will be fine with overclocking the Phenom II as it's an unlocked multiplier edition anyway. You can always replace the memory with faster G.Skill kits if you want.

The board will do symmetrical Crossfire, won't do SLI though. Cards run relatively cool and quiet even after overclocking.

PSU will be enough for an overclocked rig.

You can always change the CPU cooling, it's just a suggestion.

LG optical drives have the least complains and RMAs.

That exact Ram is a real problem with AMD systems.

Tested on 790XTA-UD4, GA-MA790XFT-UD5P, M4A79XTD Evo.