Going to university soon and building a computer. Please check my spec

ordinaryjoe

ordinaryjoe

ordinaryjoe

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23 Feb 2008
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970
Hi

I am going to University at the end of September and have been looking to buy a computer. I don't really want to spend too much more than in this spec. Any opinions on any changes would be gratefully received.

Thanks

36969202.jpg
 
if u want to stay in the same budget, then the case will prolly be ok without extra fans.

so u can use the money from the fans to get a GTX460, which would be £8 more than the one u have, and a lot better
 
Definitely go for a 1gb gtx 460 if you can stretch the extra £30 or so. Seems to be the best value for money card at the moment and overclocks well too
 
I have no idea what those add up to, so i guessed it was around £500?

Product Name Qty Price Line Total
OcUK Value GeForce GTX 460 768MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £143.98
(£122.54) £143.98
(£122.54)
AMD Athlon II X4 Quad Core 635 2.90GHz (Socket AM3) - Retail £82.24
(£69.99) £82.24
(£69.99)
OCZ Gold 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-10666C9 1333MHz Low-Voltage Dual Channel (OCZ3G1333LV4GK) £58.74
(£49.99) £58.74
(£49.99)
ASRock M3A770DE AMD 770 (Socket AM3) DDR3 Motherboard £51.99
(£44.25) £51.99
(£44.25)
Coolermaster Elite 430 Case - Black £41.99
(£35.74) £41.99
(£35.74)
Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (ST3500418AS) £29.99
(£25.52) £29.99
(£25.52)
Corsair CX 400W ATX Power Supply (CMPSU-400CXUK) £29.99
(£25.52) £29.99
(£25.52)
Gelid Tranquillo CPU Cooler (Socket 754/939/940/AM2/AM2+/AM3/LGA775/LGA1156/LGA1366) £24.99
(£21.27) £24.99
(£21.27)
Pioneer DVR-S18L 22x DVD±RW SATA Labelflash ReWriter - Black (Retail) £17.99
(£15.31) £17.99
(£15.31)
Sub Total : £410.13
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £10.50
VAT is being charged at 17.50% VAT : £73.61
Total : £494.24
 
I'd upgrade to a GTX460 1gb and a Phenom II quad, other than that your spec seems good to me OP.
 
I am looking at the 460s... Does the maker of the graphics card matter much? I've never heard of Palit and 'OcUK value' doesn't exactly fill me with confidence, but will it affect the quality of the card much? And what kind of difference will the 1GB version make in terms of framerate? The monitor I will probably get is 1920x1080 if that makes any difference?

And how reliable are BeQuiet PSUs? I've had good experience with Corsair PSUs which is why I chose it, but if the BeQuiet PSU is as good, I will get it.
 
ordinaryjoe said:
I am looking at the 460s... Does the maker of the graphics card matter much? I've never heard of Palit and 'OcUK value' doesn't exactly fill me with confidence, but will it affect the quality of the card much? And what kind of difference will the 1GB version make in terms of framerate? The monitor I will probably get is 1920x1080 if that makes any difference?

And how reliable are BeQuiet PSUs? I've had good experience with Corsair PSUs which is why I chose it, but if the BeQuiet PSU is as good, I will get it.
Click to expand...

OCUK Value just means that's the card they could get for that price, it's still a branded package - i think they're made by Sparkle at the minute? BeQuiet make great PSUs too :)
 
why dont you get a 750w PSU, so in the furute if you would like to go SLI you have the option, and 2 GTX 460 outperform the GTX 480!!!!!!
 
Might I also suggest an aftermarket cpu cooler. The 460 is definately the best bang for buck atm, but if it's too much for your budget the 5770 is still a great card.
 
@ FPS Addict

Because 8** chipset boards don't do SLi :).

if he stayed with a 5770, he could go Xfire if he upgraded the specced mobo to a 8**GX board. But that's more hassle, and involves taking a performance hit in his original spec.

460s are the card of choice at this price point.
 
I think that I am going to go for the OcUK value 460 1GB. I will probably not upgrade the computer with another graphics card as I will be skint at Uni and will probably just turn graphics down on newer games :p I am not going to overclock the CPU so I hopefully won't need another CPU cooler... The cheapest is £24 which is enough to buy a nice new game :p
 
FPS Addict said:
why dont you get a 750w PSU, so in the furute if you would like to go SLI you have the option, and 2 GTX 460 outperform the GTX 480!!!!!!
Click to expand...

not much point on a limited budget, adding extra expensive for no additional performance, jsut to have the chance of doing SLI in the future is pointless tbh.

most ppl doing budget builds wont be interested in SLI anyways
 
Also, consider picking a Phenom II black edition triple core, usually for about the same price as the athlon you have listed, but better performance most of the time (outside of the very few apps that can make worthwhile use of the 4th core), and easily over-clockable.
 
Right, here's my attempt which comes to £510. But I need someone to confirm that this PSU will give enough juice to run this build as i calculated it to JUST do it as a minimum.

Now, I've gone with a more powerful Dual Core CPU which will make games run better than the 4x athlon. Another thing is that this CPU is easy to overclock has you can just go into bio and all you have to do is up the multiplier (Well its not as simple as tht but there are plenty of guides to help) Also if thats not enough juice for you it is possible to unlock some extra cores to get a 4 core CPU but ill let you do some research on that.

Theres an artic freezer CPU cooler and some MX3 which is must have when building a custom build.

460 is the best bang for buck GFX card.

Ive also quoted some OCZ ram tht ppl have had problems with (including me) but as its near £20 cheaper than anythin else its a good buy (apparently it was just a bad batch so it mybe a new batch)



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Ok I won't get an aftermarket cooler... I wasn't really planning to anyway. I am undecided about the ram... OCZ seems to have a lot of complaints and issues generally... Any other opinions on it? If I get the 700 chipset (which I probably will), I can use faster ram... Is there any point? Does it make much difference? I was looking at the G.Skill Ripjaw 2x2GB 1600Mhz ram but it's £82. The Corsair 4x1GB 1333 Mhz is £75 and the OCZ £59

w1llyg, is there any reason why you picked the Samsung hard drive over the Seagate Barracuda I originally had?

And I will get the OCUK 1GB 460


As for monitors, I will probably get one of these:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MO-002-DG&groupid=17&catid=949&subcat=

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MO-002-OP&groupid=17&catid=949&subcat=

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MO-087-LG&groupid=17&catid=949&subcat=

My brother suggested this but I am not keen on spending so much extra for no obvious advantage... Anyone have any opinions?
 
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