Going for new build trying to keep to around £700

[wildman]

Ok after a bit of reading I went to OCUK store and tried to rustle up a build for as close to £700 as possible. From my current rig there is currently nothing that is actually salvagable as it is close to 5 years old. I could possibly slavage the optical drive but its got no blu ray, so the only bits I salavage are monitor, mouse and keyboard.

I need to include windows 7 in the build price

My first try


Case Coolermaster Elite 335 Black 33.7
Fans Antec Tri-Cool 3 speed 120mmFan 2.99
Cooler Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro Rev 2 CPU Cooler
Thermal Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound (3.5g) 6.73
PSU OcUK Crusade 650W Dual-Rail High Efficiency Power Supply 44.99
CPU AMD Phenom II X6 Six Core 1090T Black Edition 3.20GHz 179.99
Motherboard Asus M4A79XTD Evo (Socket AM3) DDR3 Motherboard 81.98
RAM OCZ Intel Extreme XMP 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 10666C7 1333MHz Low Voltage Dual-Channel Kit* 29.99 x 2 for total of 8gb
GFX MSI ATI Radeon HD 6850 Cyclone Power Edition 1024MB GDDR5 149.99
Optical drive LiteOn iHOS104-37 4x BD-ROM Drive / 8x DVD-ROM (Black) 41.99
HDD Seagate Barracuda Green 2TB SATA 6Gb/s Hard Drive 79.99
OS Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-Bit - OEM 81.98
Total 727.62

Could i do better for the cash I am spending ?

 

[wildman]

forgot to add main uses will be gaming, WoW, Eve, FPS, Strategy games like C&C etc, also use it for photoshop work and the usual playing music, videos.

 

[wildman]

One of the reason I went with the pheno black edition is becasue it is unlocked. I didn;t think the i5-2400 sandy's were unlocked ?

I tried putting another build together using some of the componets shown in the build by Stulid and Redmint, except I am using a 955BE instead

Asus ATI Radeon HD 6870 OC 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £165.59
(£137.99) £165.59
(£137.99)
AMD Phenom II X4 Quad Core 955 Black Edition "125W Edition" 3.20GHz (Socket AM3) - Retail £109.99
(£91.66) £109.99
(£91.66)
Coolermaster CM-690 II Nvidia Edition Advanced Dominator Case - Black/Green £89.99
(£74.99) £89.99
(£74.99)
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-Bit - OEM (GFC-00599) £79.99
(£66.66) £79.99
(£66.66)
Gigabyte GA-MA770T-UD3 MA770 (Socket AM3) DDR3 Motherboard £59.99
(£49.99) £59.99
(£49.99)
Corsair Hydro H50-1 High-Performance CPU Watercooler (Socket LGA775/1155/1156/1366/AM2/AM3) £51.98
(£43.32) £51.98
(£43.32)
Samsung SH-B123L/BSBP 12x BluRay ROM DVDRW DL & RAM Lightscribe SATAII Optical Drive - OEM Black £44.39
(£36.99) £44.39
(£36.99)
Samsung SpinPoint F3 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (HD103SJ) £42.98
(£35.82) £42.98
(£35.82)
BeQuiet Pure Power L7 530W Power Supply £41.99
(£34.99) £41.99
(£34.99)
GeIL 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz VALUE PLUS Dual Channel (GVP34GB1600C9DC)

Total = 722.88

 

[wildman]

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-424-AS&groupid=701&catid=1903&subcat=1481

will save £15, unless you really need all the extra expansion slots a full ATX motherboard has?

Apart from that, good stuff!!!


The reason Redmint and I specced the same cpu, is not just that we are both super intelligent. But the 2400 cpu even at stock beats all AMD cpus at gaming, and you would need to overclock a AMD 955BE to nearly 3.8GHZ to match it.

With a H50 cooler would getting it to 3.8 be reachable or should I just give up on the AMD idea and go straight for the 2400 ? The only thing holding me back though is that if I go for the 2400 when I look at my basket at checkout, I will just go in for a penny in for a pound and change it over for a 2500K and a board like Gigabyte P67A-UD3.

I am trying to keep to the 700ish range as I need to keep myself in check I have a tendency to go wild on purchases and my missus will have a fair few things to say about that

My downfall is i like to tinker and if I get a new CPU and MoBo I am going to want to start seeing how far I can push it. I am a sucker for running benchmarks

 

[wildman]

did a bit more reading on forums, looked at a few options, have now filled my basket with the following

MSI ATI Radeon HD 5850 Twin FrozR II 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £134.39
(£111.99) £134.39
(£111.99)
AMD Phenom II X4 Quad Core 955 Black Edition "125W Edition" 3.20GHz (Socket AM3) - Retail £101.99
(£84.99) £101.99
(£84.99)
Asus M4A88TD-V EVO/USB3 AMD 880G (Socket AM3) DDR3 Motherboard £91.99
(£76.66) £91.99
(£76.66)
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-Bit - OEM (GFC-00599) £79.99
(£66.66) £79.99
(£66.66)
Coolermaster CM-690 II Advanced Dominator Case - All White £69.98
(£58.32) £69.98
(£58.32)
OcUK Battle 850W Dual Rail High Efficiency Modular Power Supply £59.99
(£49.99) £59.99
(£49.99)
Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.5TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (ST31500341AS) £51.98
(£43.32) £51.98
(£43.32)
Corsair Hydro H50-1 High-Performance CPU Watercooler (Socket LGA775/1155/1156/1366/AM2/AM3) £51.98
(£43.32) £51.98
(£43.32)
OCZ Platinum 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Ultra Low Voltage Dual Channel Kit (OCZ3P1600C9ELV4GK) £29.99
(£24.99) £29.99
(£24.99)
OcUK 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £11.99
(£9.99) £11.99
(£9.99)
Sub Total : £570.23
Shipping cost based on delivery
FREE SHIPPING (DPD Next Day)
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : FREE
VAT is being charged at 20.00% VAT : £114.05
Total : £684.28

Opted for an 850W PSU because I am thinking of maybe going crossfire with another twinfrozr later in the year.

Changed motherboard to one that has proper 16x 16x crossfire support ( I think this board does it, I looked at specs and it had 16x listed on both PCIe slots)

Hovering over the buy button, but want to see if this can be improved anymore in the same price range.