help a macboy spec a (pc) beast!

jonhuz

jonhuz

jonhuz

Associate
Joined
17 Oct 2003
Posts
168
Location
York
I've not owned a pc for years (having switched to mac/osx for a design job).

Bit peed about the lack of gaming prowess and i'd like a solid gaming system at home. It will be my first complete build, so any advice would be great.

I've tended to opt for branded items for the warranty. Anyhoos, here goes:

edit: removed initial spec image

Total cost £1956.
 
Last edited:
You're spending much too much. Will you be overclocking? I think we can cut your costs by a significant amount whilst delivering near-identical performance.
 
any reason for the 8800GTX when the 9800 are expected sometime this year?
pc2-8500 ram is not needed unless you want very tight timings as pc2-6400 ram is enough for a q6600 oced up to 3.6GHz
check do you really need vista ultimate before buying it
unless you have a use for bluray, do you need it or can you wait before getting a bluray drive?
 
vista home premium is pretty much the same as ultimate, but gives the sam perfomance

ditch the 8500 RAM in favour of some 6400 as stated

for the GFX, get an 8800GT/GTS and upgrade to a 9 series in march or whenever

£260 is as obsene amount of money to be spending on a case, get something cheaper and just as good, maybe an Antec P182.

ditch the tuniq in favour of a thermalight 120 extreme, that much better (but you may need to lap it)

for the mobo, get an abit IP35 pro.

Dell TrueColour E248WFP 24" Widescreen LCD Monitor - £115 cheaper than the ultrasharp, and doesn't look much different from the specs.

enjoy.
 
Last edited:
overclockersukyourbaskeqx4.gif

This is what I'd get.

As Ben said above, this graphics card is good for now and will still fetch a pretty penny when you sell it when the 9800s come out.

I prefer the Tuniq to the Thermalright merely because it doesn't have the irritating manufacturing problems dogging it. Both will cool just as well.

This mobo will allow for mild overclocking without hassles. If you want to push it further the Abit IP-35 Pro would be a good choice.

This RAM will perform just as well despite the fact it costs half as much.

I'd stay away from the Dell 24" panels for now. They've been having manufacturing troubles. This Samsung should give better performance than either of the Dells anyway.

Two of these Seagate disks will spank a single Raptor in sustained transfer when in RAID 0 mode. You also get much more storage space. The 500 GiB disk here is faster than the one you had.
 
if bluray is still desired, hows this
Your basket
Product Name Qty Price Line Total
Western Digital Caviar SE16 500GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (WD5000AAKS) £55.99
(£65.79) £111.98
(£131.58)
Corsair HX 620W ATX2.2 Modular SLI Compliant PSU (CMPSU-620HXUK) £68.99
(£81.06) £68.99
(£81.06)
LG GGW-H20L Blu-Ray Rewriter & HD-DVD ROM Serial ATA Retail Kit £151.99
(£178.59) £151.99
(£178.59)
OCZ 4GB (2x2GB) PC2-6400C5 Dual Channel Vista Gold Series DDR2 (OCZ2G8004GK) £69.99
(£82.24) £69.99
(£82.24)
Intel Core 2 Quad Pro Q6600 "Energy Efficient SLACR 95W Edition" 2.40GHz (1066FSB) - Retail £136.99
(£160.96) £136.99
(£160.96)
OcUK GeForce 8800 GTX 768MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - OEM £214.99
(£252.61) £214.99
(£252.61)
OcUK Value L2442W 24" Widescreen LCD Monitor - Glossy Black £219.99
(£258.49) £219.99
(£258.49)
Abit IP35 Pro (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £104.99
(£123.36) £104.99
(£123.36)
Antec Nine Hundred Ultimate Gaming Case £61.99
(£72.84) £61.99
(£72.84)
Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound (3.5g) £5.99
(£7.04) £5.99
(£7.04)
Thermalright Ultra-120 Extreme CPU Cooler (Socket AM2/LGA775) £34.99
(£41.11) £34.99
(£41.11)
Sharkoon Silent Eagle 2000 120mm Fan - 3/4 Pin £6.99
(£8.21) £6.99
(£8.21)
Zalman ZM-MFC1 Plus Black Multi Fan Controller £21.99
(£25.84) £21.99
(£25.84)
Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium 64-Bit Edition DVD - OEM - 1Pk (66I-00788) £59.99
(£70.49) £59.99
(£70.49)
Sub Total : £1,271.85
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : FREE
VAT is being charged at 17.5% VAT : £222.57
Total : £1,494.42

antec 900 seems popular here, personally i think its ugly. change if wanted
i put a bluray/hddvd combo drive in to give you both options, personally i would just have a DVD rewriter
2x2gb ram incase you want 8gb
8800GTX over the 8800GT/GTS for better AA at higher resolutions
vista home premium over ultimate as ben m pointed out.
ocuk 24" as it also seems a bit popular here ,change if you want
 
BillytheImpaler said:
http://img80.imageshack.us/img80/2452/overclockersukyourbaskeqx4.gif

snip'n'stuff
[/QUOTE]

why two seagates and a western digital? I know that raptors are overpriced and not worth it, but why not two seagates and another bigger seagate?

And is the abit IP35 pro not worth the extra pennies, for its overclocking abilities?
Click to expand...
 
Wow, there's some costing reductions there.

I think I'll drop the blu-ray (missus wanted it but we have a ps3 downstairs).

Although the case is expensive, it might have to stay. I'm really picky over aesthetics and it's the only pc case I've seen that I like.

Think i'll drop the Dell monitor too in favour of the Samsung.

Would it be worth holding on to the Mobo for the eventual drop in ddr3 prices? Just change the 8500 RAM to a 6400 flavour? I will be pushing some multi-threaded apps with this system.

I'll have another think and post based on the suggestions above.
 
It is worth it if he intends on doing more than dabbling in overclocking. Also, this RAM would be a good choice.

I chose those hard disks because they're each the fastest of their size. The 250 GB Seagates are faster than the WD, but the WD is bigger. I'd recommend a 500 GB 7200.11 but there is a problem with the firmware on those so I won't recommend for a while to be sure than the problems are fixed.
Although the case is expensive, it might have to stay. I'm really picky over aesthetics and it's the only pc case I've seen that I like.
Click to expand...
Have a look at the Lian-Li V1000. It's a classy case and will cool better and still cost significantly less than that massively overpriced Zalman. The Zalman really isn't very good at all.

DDR3 won't make any economic sense for another year or so. It doesn't offer much more performance than DDR2 does now and it costs much much more. It's not worth it in the least. You'd never notice the difference in performance.
 
Last edited:
Thanks for all your suggestions fellas. Knocked £500 off original starting price. Here's what I've got specced out:

specsth6.jpg



I'm staying with the case, I really like it. I've changed the RAM as I think the Asus board is having problems with the OCZ (dug around). Anything major I'm missing?

I'm likely to take the processor to 3.2ghz (first overclock). Will it come with thermal paste, or shall I buy some?

Any cables I'm missing (need any cable management kits?).

Cheers
 
I think you're mad to go with that case, you could almost buy a whole PC with that. The Lian Li and Akasa cases Billy told you about are well regarded as being the Mercedes & BMW (or Lexus and Audi if you prefer) of the computer case world.

I'd also get 2 hard drives, as you're flush maybe a raptor x for boot and apps, with a 5000AAKS for data and pagefile?
 
thanks for the case reommendation.

Just ordered, thinking I've missed something off. Will the western digital sata HDD's come with some cables?
:(
 
Was just going to say don't order the Raptor X - the MTBF (meantime before failure) is half that of the non windowed version! :o
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom