Help me save some cash for a monitor - almost there :)

dubleon · 5 May 2011 at 10:56

Hi all,

I am after a monitor as well and was wondering if I could change the spec a bit so I can get something nice. I was thinking something around a 22 inch + size.

Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - OEM £163.99
(£136.66) £163.99
(£136.66)
Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 5850 Extreme 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card **OcUK Exclusive** £107.99
(£89.99) £107.99
(£89.99)
MSI P67A-C45 Intel P67 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard - (Sandybridge) ** B3 REVISION ** £99.98
(£83.32) £99.98
(£83.32)
Corsair Enthusiast Series TX 750W V2 High Performance Power Supply (CMPSU-750TXV2UK) £92.99
(£77.49) £92.99
(£77.49)
Fractal Design Define R3 Midi Tower Case - Silver Arrow £84.98
(£70.82) £84.98
(£70.82)
Seagate Barracuda Green 2TB SATA 6Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM (ST2000DL003) £69.98
(£58.32) £69.98
(£58.32)
Samsung SH-B123L/RSBP 12x BluRay ROM DVDRW DL & RAM Lightscribe SATAII Optical Drive - Retail Black £59.99
(£49.99) £59.99
(£49.99)
G.Skill RipJawsX 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C7 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (F3-12800CL7D-4GBXM) £49.99
(£41.66) £49.99
(£41.66)
Sub Total : £608.25
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £13.75
VAT is being charged at 20.00% VAT : £124.40
Total : £746.40

Please note I need a 2tb drive!

Thanks so much for your help, really appreciated

Leon

sk82jack · 5 May 2011 at 10:59

XFX 650W XXX Edition Modular Power Supply £76.99

Corsair XMS3 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMX4GX3M2A1600C9) £39.98.

LiteOn iHOS104-37 4x BD-ROM Drive / 8x DVD-ROM (Black) - OEM £41.99

650 watts will be fine for what you've got.

RAM is cheaper, it's not worth the extra money for better timings, as you won't notice the difference. If you wanted to save more money on the RAM get these:

G.Skill RipJawsX 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (F3-12800CL9D-4GBXL) £35.99

But you may come into trouble if you want to put an after market cooler in as these are quite tall.

You can save money on the blu ray drive if you don't mind about the speeds.

Tealc · 5 May 2011 at 11:02

I wouldn't use a green drive as a boot drive so you should grab a fast boot drive as well and I'd get a lower wattage power supply if you don't plan to go multi GPU in future.

Meekal · 5 May 2011 at 11:24

As Tealc mentioned.

may be worth having one of these Link as your boot drive.

sk82jack · 5 May 2011 at 11:25

Whats your total budget? Guessing about £800?

How about...

Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor with FREE Operation Flashpoint Red River Game £149.99

Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 5850 Extreme 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card **OcUK Exclusive** £107.99

BenQ G2222HDL 21.5" Widescreen LED Monitor - Black £102.12

MSI P67A-C45 Intel P67 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard - (Sandybridge) ** B3 REVISION ** £99.98

Fractal Design Define R3 Midi Tower Case - Silver Arrow £84.98

XFX 650W XXX Edition Modular Power Supply £76.99

Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (ST31000528AS) (£42.98) x 2 - £85.96

LiteOn iHOS104-37 4x BD-ROM Drive / 8x DVD-ROM (Black) - OEM £41.99

G.Skill RipJawsX 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (F3-12800CL9D-4GBXL) £35.99

Total : £810.12 (includes shipping : £20.10).

Could drop the 5850 down to a 5830 if you wanted a bigger monitor possibly?

As pointed out by cmndr_andi this is a read only drive (can't believe I missed that lol)

paradigm · 5 May 2011 at 11:26

I see an OEM CPU with no CPU cooler?

cmndr_andi · 5 May 2011 at 11:35

+1 to the corsair XMS3 RAM and switching out the green drive suggesions. Also, the i5 2500K is currently £150 for the retail version (comes with a CPU cooler and 3 year warranty), act fast.

Using a green 5400rpm drive as a primary HDD is really not recommended since they are a good deal slower and less responsive than even modern 7200rpm hard drives, since they are optimised for quietness and lower power usage instead of speed and responsiveness. Since a single 7200rpm 2TB drive costs a bomb and I would never suggest someone use a hitachi deathstar, then I would recommend using two of these drives together. You could configure them independently or run it in RAID0 - though bear in mind with RAID0, if one disk fails you lose all your data.

As for the PSU, you could get away with this PSU with a HD 5850 and a i5 2500K, but this one would be a better option as it gives you more headroom.

Assuming you want the option to write to DVDs and CDs as well as just reading, you can save a few quid going for this blu-ray drive. However, if you just need a read-only drive then the one suggested by sk82jack is a good one (my parents use this drive in their HTPC and it's great).

dubleon · 5 May 2011 at 11:48

Hey all, thanks for the replies- all very good points that I had not considered! Would you say its worth waiting for the z68 Motherboard in a couple of weeks?

cmndr_andi · 5 May 2011 at 11:51

dubleon said:
Hey all, thanks for the replies- all very good points that I had not considered! Would you say its worth waiting for the z68 Motherboard in a couple of weeks?

If you can, then I would. Last rumor I hear said a May 11th (next Wednesday) release, hopefully it's accurate.

It may reduce P67 prices a bit and if you do a lot of video transcoding then the Intel Quick sync technology (along with Lucid virtu so you can use it while running a graphics card) is very nice indeed and makes the Z68 a really good option if you will make use of this feature.