Gaming build - only the essentials

PNE

PNE

PNE

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10 Dec 2008
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11
Yeah, so I've had enough of my ageing Athlon build, and have decided to upgrade.

I have a budget of £400-£500 (preferably lower), and need only the bare essentials (CPU, GPU, Motherboard, RAM).

I'm wanting a Quad as I am at uni at if I blow this money on a PC there is no way I'm buying any PC parts for another 2-3 years, so I wuld like to have it kinda future-proofed.

Games I am playing at the moment include Fallout 3, GTA 4, FarCry 2, Crysis, COD4 and DiRT. Most of these are unplayable on my rig, and as I will be playing games at 1920 x 1200 (28" monitor)

I also want a GPU with as much memory as possible as GTA is rather heavy on it.

So, what suggestions?

Oh, forgot to add that I would like 4GB or more of RAM
 
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Exactly in the same boat as you PNE, hope you don't mind me jumping in for advice also :)

Not sure about quad CPU though, a duo will do me if it means big savings(?)

Cheers!


PS my current old trusty PC specs are:
Opty 146 @2.7 (1.4 Vcore/on air)
OCZ 2GB (2 x 1GB) PC4000 Dual Channel Platinum Series EB-DDR CAS3
Asus A8V Deluxe mobo (AGP)
OCZ PowerStream 520w Power Supply
Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 10 NCQ 250GB 6V250F0 SATA-II 16MB Cache
Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 10 250GB SATA 16MB Cache
Radeon X1950 Pro (AGP)
Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Elite Pro Sound card
Dell 24" LCD (1920x1200)
Coolermaster ATC-110 Case
Windows XP Pro
 
No problem mate.

Just been doing a bit of research, here is what I have come up with:

Q6600
Asus P5QL IP43 S
2x2GB Corsiar TwinX XMS2 PC6400C4 800Mhz
1GB Sapphire HD4850

Comes to a total of £404.56 (off a different site). Result!

Any other suggestions welcome. Have about £50 or so to play with there.
 
Your basket
Product Name Qty Price Line Total
Intel Core 2 Quad Pro Q6600 "Energy Efficient SLACR 95W Edition" 2.40GHz (1066FSB) - Retail Intel Core 2 Quad Pro Q6600 "Energy Efficient SLACR 95W Edition" 2.40GHz (1066FSB) - Retail £139.99
(£160.99) £139.99
(£160.99)
Asus ATI Radeon HD 4850 512MB GDDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI/HDMI (PCI-Express) - Retail Asus ATI Radeon HD 4850 512MB GDDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI/HDMI (PCI-Express) - Retail £106.99
(£123.04) £106.99
(£123.04)
Gigabyte GA-EP45-DS3 Intel P45 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard Gigabyte GA-EP45-DS3 Intel P45 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £81.99
(£94.29) £81.99
(£94.29)
Corsair 4GB DDR2 XMS2 PC2-6400C5 TwinX (2x2GB) Corsair 4GB DDR2 XMS2 PC2-6400C5 TwinX (2x2GB) £31.99
(£36.79) £31.99
(£36.79)
Sub Total : £360.96
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DHL @ Home Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £8.49
VAT is being charged at 15% VAT : £54.14
Total : £415.10


If your buying and want it to last, make sure you get a p45 mainboard which supports 1x16 or 2x 8 PCI-E.

Also I don't see the point in more than 512MB for a 4850, the ram is slow and you'd only need it for AA at high res which you won't really be using with a 4850.

The x45 crossfire board will allow you to drop a second card in at some point for more graphics goodness

AD
 
hi,

i'd have a look at the following:

Powercolor ATI Radeon HD 4870 PCS Extreme 512MB GDDR5 TV-Out/Dual DVI/HDMI (PCI-Express) - Retail £164.99 (£189.74)

Intel Core 2 Quad Pro Q6600 "Energy Efficient SLACR 95W Edition" 2.40GHz (1066FSB) - Retail £139.99 (£160.99)

Gigabyte GA-EP45-DS3 Intel P45 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £81.99 (£94.29)
Corsair 4GB DDR2 XMS2 PC2-6400C5 TwinX (2x2GB) £31.99 (£36.79)

Sub Total : £418.96
Shipping : £8.49
VAT : £62.84
Total : £481.80
 
Thanks chaps, been out of the loop for a while (upgrade once every 2 years) and looking to finally let lose the shackles of AGP-ness...It's quite amazing really what you can get for your bang-for-buck these days... I reckon January is the time to splash the cash for me.

Many thanks for heads up!
 
how about this.? 1024mb of graphic ram...

Intel Core 2 Quad Pro Q6600 "Energy Efficient SLACR 95W Edition" 2.40GHz (1066FSB) - Retail Intel Core 2 Quad Pro Q6600 "Energy Efficient SLACR 95W Edition" 2.40GHz (1066FSB) - Retail £139.99
(£160.99)

Asus GeForce 9800 GT HybridPower 1024MB GDDR3 HDTV/DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail Asus GeForce 9800 GT HybridPower 1024MB GDDR3 HDTV/DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail £114.99
(£132.24)

Asus P5Q Pro Intel P45 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard Asus P5Q Pro Intel P45 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £91.99
(£105.79)

Corsair 4GB DDR2 XMS2 PC2-6400C5 TwinX (2x2GB) Corsair 4GB DDR2 XMS2 PC2-6400C5 TwinX (2x2GB) £34.99
(£40.24)

Sub Total : £381.96
Shipping : £8.49
VAT : £57.29

Total : £439.25
 
Thanks all, still saving and waiting patiently...My budget has gone up to £550/600. What do you dons advise? Can hang out a little longer no problem. Cheers
 
I'd take this route....should get a higher overclock out of the 9550 over the 6600 which should mean longer before you have to upgrade again. also better for gta 4. could shave the price down to under 600 if you go with 800mhz memory. probably dont need the 1066 unless you're really going to push the overclock. should really be going with a 4870 1gb or a gtx260 at this price. both will play those games perfectly well. I chose the 260 for you just because it's my preference out of the two but they're pretty evenly matched.

could even make a bit of cash back flogging your two free copies of farcry 2!

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The Q9550 (IMO) isn't worth the price over the Q6600.
I recently had this choice and I'm glad I saved the £100~ and went for the Q6600.

They both clock to the same speeds (anything over 3.4GHz doesn't show much improvement in games anyway).


Definately go for the 4870 1GB. So much better than the 9800GT mentioned.
 
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Like the guy above mentions, you could save some money and get the Q6600 and just overclock it. I've put in a CPU cooler so you can get the most out of it, so you only need the oem version of the Q6600.

The GTX 260 should do you well at 1900*1200.

Biostar have recently released new boards and going by previous mobo's they've released, it should be really good.
 
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