First computer build - looking for some help

sk82jack

sk82jack

sk82jack

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First of all, I've never built a computer before but there's a first time for everything right ? :) I've been looking over the forum for a couple of days now looking at all your recommendations and criticisms of certain products and I've come up with my first draft. I don't need a monitor, dvd drive, operating system, keyboard or mouse, but I need everything else. OK here's how it's looking so far:

Case - Elite 334 Midi Case - Black £33.68

PSU - OcUK Battle 550W £43.91

Processor - Intel Core i5-2500K £179.99

Mobo - Gigabyte P67A-UD3-B3 £114.98

Graphics Card - XFX ATI Radeon HD 5770 £94.99

RAM - Corsair XMS3 4GB (2x2GB) £43.99

HD - Seagate Barracuda 1TB £37.99

CPU Cooler - Thermaltake Frio £42.98

Which comes to a total of £592.51 without shipping.

Basically what I would like to know is if everything here will work with each other? Is the case big enough to take all of these? If there are any revisions to the list which would keep the overall cost around the £600 mark?

Also, the prices quoted don't include "this week only" prices as this will end up being a combined family and friends birthday present for me (as I'm a student and don't have the funds myself :p ). My birthday is beginning of June, so also wondering if there are any alternatives coming out between now and then which would be worth waiting for, or for the price tags I'm looking at, whether this will be as good as it gets?
 
philtorrens said:
Hi and welcome to the forums :)
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Thanks lol

philtorrens said:
Looks a decent spec but I would advise you to invest in a better PSU such as this one which is only an extra few quid. Never scrimp on the PSU ;)
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Geek. said:
your set up looks ok but change the PSU to this one it is a lot better http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-042-BQ&groupid=701&catid=123&subcat=1083 never skimp on the psu it will save you money in the long run:)
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Are these PSUs easy enough to set up? I thought I read somewhere that modular ones are quite a bit easier to install, so that's one of the reasons why I chose the one I did. If these are easy enough so set up I think I'd go for the Corsair over BeQuiet.
 
sk82jack said:
If these are easy enough so set up I think I'd go for the Corsair over BeQuiet.
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OK scratch that, I just read in another thread that the new range of Corsair PSUs seem to off lower quality than the units they replaced, so the BeQuiet it is then :)

Lemin said:
Much better card...

Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 5850 Extreme 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card **OcUK Exclusive** [11162-15-20G]
£107.99 inc VAT
£89.99 ex VAT

Pre-order
ETA: 04/04/11
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-259-SP&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=1711
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Cheers for the heads up! For an extra tenner the quality seems worth-it.
 
John101 said:
I would change the CPU cooler to a cheaper but equally good one. Something like >

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HS-001-CS

or even cheaper but still good....

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HS-029-CM

The 2500k is not a hot chip even when overclocked so the HS above should be able to do just a good job as the one u chose + saves u an extra £20 or £12 for something else...
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Thanks for the reply, this is the sort of thing I wanted, cheaper but just as good alternatives :p lol

I checked both of them out and looking at the reviews for the coolermaster, a few people had a bit of trouble fitting it. Seeing as this is my first build, I think I'll stay away from this as I don't wanna damage anything, not at these prices anyway.

I think I'll go with the Corsair A50, looks like a lot of people are using it successfully with the 2500k, so looks like a good shout to me. Thanks.
 
olivier renault said:
Yup, go with the A50. Really good performance, maybe noisy at high speed.
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not too fussed about noise to be honest, at the moment I'm usually either on my laptop (which is pretty loud) or my xbox 360 (also very loud) so as long as its not bursting my ear drums or something, it should be OK lol

OK here's the revised list so far:

Case - Zalman Z9 £44.99

PSU - BeQuiet Pure Power L7 530w £42.98

Processor - Intel Core i5-2500K £179.99

Mobo - Gigabyte P67A-UD3-B3 £114.98

Graphics Card - Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 5850 £107.99

RAM - G.Skill RipJawsX 4GB (2x2GB) £39.98

HD - Seagate Barracuda 1TB £37.99

CPU Cooler - Corsair A50 £29.99

Which comes to a total of £598.89 without shipping.

Looking good so far, managed to improve the graphics card, PSU and CPU cooler for only an extra £6 or so :D
 
J-FRO said:
Product Name Qty Price Line Total
OcUK Motherboard Bundle - Intel Core i5 2500K & Asus P8P67 Intel P67 Mainboard **B3 Revision** OcUK Motherboard Bundle - Intel Core i5 2500K & Asus P8P67 Intel P67 Mainboard **B3 Revision** £267.98
(£223.32) £267.98
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I was gonna go for this bundle but I read some bad things about the Asus P8P67 and that some people have had problems with it, which is why I chose the Gigabyte mobo instead.
 
It just worries me when I see stuff like that when I'm spending so much money on it, and it's my first time, so I'm trying to limit possibilities of something going wrong lol I saw something about it not working after a power cut, and the exact same thing happened to someone else, then I'm thinking power cuts don't happen often but its not like they never do, so what if it happens to me a couple of months down the line? or am I just being too paranoid? lol
 
No I would never go ebay for something like this lol you don't know who you can trust out there. Yeah I have been looking around and have seen some better prices (but your not allowed to link to competitors right) but generally Overclockers have been one of the cheapest out there.

I doubt I can afford to spend £60-odd on a PSU without cutting down with the combo, but I'll definitely keep it in mind should I be able to get my hands on some extra cash :p lol
 
olivier renault said:
If I could afford both, I would take the MSI board as it's better.
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When you say the MSI board, which version do you mean? C45, GD55 or GD65? or any? lol

I did some looking around on other sites and i managed to get this list for £601.23

Zalman Z9
XFX pro 650w
i5-2500k
MSI P67A-C45
ATI Radeon HD 5850
G.Skill RipJawsX 4GB
Seagate Barracuda 1TB
Corsair A50

But if you was talking about the GD55 then that adds an extra £30 and the GD65 adds £35 which may be stretching it a bit too far.

EDIT: that price includes shipping too.
 
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Yeah I could buy the A50 later as I've never overclocked before so I'd need some time to research that and everything so the stock cooler should be fine for that right?

I've also seen now the GD45, which I missed yesterday. Here is the differences as far as I can tell.

G45 offers an extra PCI-Express 16 slot and one less PCI (£15 on top on C45)

GD55 is the same as G45 except doesn't have any eSATA ports but supports crossfire and SLI (£15 on top of G45)

GD65 is the same as GD55 except it has 2 eSATA ports, 4 SATA III ports (instead of 2 on the rest of the cards) and has dual bios (£5 on top of GD55)

If I go for the GD55 it seems silly not to pay the extra £5 and go for the GD65, but I don't know :confused: lol
 
What so the Gigabyte over the MSI and the BeQuiet over the XFX? Any reasons why? Not that I'm questioning it, I just wanna get as much info as possible before I decide :)
 
OK so I'm trying to decide between the XFX 650W XXX and the XFX Pro 650W Core Edition

There's only £10 difference but just wondering if that's just because the XXX is modular or is it actually better?

Also, are modular PSUs easier to install or is it just that they look better because cable management is easier?
 
XFX 650W XXX sounds good then, managed to find it a bit cheaper elsewhere too :D lol

Regarding the mobo, I think I would like to have the choice of crossfire/SLI for in the future and to be honest the £5 jump from the GD55 to the GD65 seems so insignificant to the whole cost I might as well just go for the GD65 I'm thinking.
 
So now that I've decided on the GD65, is it worth me upping the HD to a SATA III version, seeing as I'm gonna have 4 SATA III ports? Or will it not make too much difference?
 
John101 said:
Sorry my bad, dident realized :o however i would still stick with the original HD as it seems the better choice.

Read this >>> http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/266785-14-sata-replacement-current-sata-hard-drive

Say if you run into problems with the original HD, it will be easier to find help as it more popular than the sata III. That's my opinion anyway :D
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OK so basically, if I could find the money, it would a lot more beneficial to get a SSD to boot from or something and keep the SATA II drive?

Here is the set-up so far:

Case - Zalman Z9
PSU - XFX 650W XXX
CPU - i5-2500k
Mobo- MSI p67a-GD65
Graphics card - ATI Radeon HD 5850
RAM - G.Skill RipJawsX 4GB
HD - Seagate Barracuda
CPU Cooler - Corsair A50

Which is £616.71 including shipping
 
olivier renault said:
Keep the SSD in mind if you want to have windows and applications more responsive. If you can live with it, then no SSD is fine.

Similarly, if you feel you need more horsepower in the graphics department in the future, another HD5850 will give you another cheap option. The PSU will handle that no problem. That gives you a performance around a GTX 580.
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I heard that SSDs have a very short lifespan, so I'm not too sure. Well, I definitely won't get one now, but I think I'll research it a bit and then think about it. Although I read somewhere that if you get like 2 or 3 HDDs and set them on RAID 0 it can be just as fast as a SSD in responsiveness. Or is it just not worth the extra cost?
 
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