Hi all,
I could do with some advice narrowing down some choices for a gaming pc.
Budget £900-£1000
My current pc has died on me. Barton2500-AbitNF7-2GB pc3200-7600gt-SyncMaster913n (no laughing
)
It's been along time since i've built a pc but i've been scanning the forums this past week and have come up with a list i like some review on.
Processors:
Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 LGA775 'Wolfdale' 3.00GHz (1333FSB) - Retail £152.74
or
Intel Core 2 Quad Pro Q6600 "Energy Efficient SLACR 95W Edition" 2.40GHz (1066FSB) - Retail £150.39
(I'm leaning towards the E8400, it's newer technology and i'm really not sure i need 4 cores... I mainly play mmorpg's but will play the newer fps games too, a bit of photoshop and web browsing is about it.)
Motherboards:
Asus P5K Premium/WiFi-AP Intel P35 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £109.26
(It lost me a bit with all these chipset choices but a lot of people here like this motherboard and it has wifi which i really wanted, i think there is a slightly cheaper version P5K-E with wifi for £93.99 but wasn't sure on that)
Memory:
G.Skill 4GB DDR2 PQ PC2-8000C5 (2x2GB) CAS5 Dual Channel Kit (F2-8000CL5D-4GBPQ) £82.24
or
OCZ 4GB (2x2GB) PC2-8000C5 1000MHz ReaperX HPC Enhanced Bandwidth Edition Dual Channel DDR2 (OCZ2RPX10004GK) £70.49
(Lost again, this used to be easy, i dont understand the 8000 / 8500 bit anymore. I think the 8000 memory will be enough for a decent overclock on a E8400? I dont want to overclock too much but an easy overclock without increasing voltages too much would be ok. I'm thinking the G.Skill memory aswell as it doesnt have those giant heatsinks so i could add more easily in the future)
Cooling:
Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro CPU Cooler (Socket LGA775) £17.61
(I like the look of this cooler over the Tuniq Tower which just seems too big. I'm looking for something quiet with good cooling, thought id avoid the retail cooler, would this meet my requirements? I still have a coolermaster atcs 200 case from back in the day i'll be using so hopefully it will fit, that goes for the motherboard fitting too..)
Graphics:
Leadtek GeForce 8800 GTS 512MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail £164.49
(The 8800 GTS fits about the most i'd like to spend on a graphics card, apparently good and quiet coolers on these, i went for Leadtek as i had a Leadtek geforce3 in the past and it was great, would like any recommendations on different manufactures though)
Hard Drives and Optical Drives:
2x Samsung SpinPoint S 160GB SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM (HD161HJ) £61.08
Samsung SH-S203PBEBN 20x DVD±RW SATA Dual Layer Lightscribe ReWriter (Black) - OEM £19.96
(I only have old IDE drives and wanted the upgrade to SATA. Never done raid before but fancied Raid 0 with the 2 Samsung drives. Will this be a noticable improvement? I've just used standard Western Digital IDE drives before. Hopefully it will be simple to setup with that Asus mobo. I also picked the samsung drives as these seem the quietest)
PSU:
I'm really stuck on the PSU, i would like something quiet and with enough power but don't even know how much power i really need for my setup. Any help here would be great.
Monitor:
Samsung SM-226BW 22" Widescreen LCD Monitor - Glossy Black £211.49
(I really like the look of this monitor, it's had some great reviews and it's around the price i'd like to pay. The only thing that worries me is this bit..'OcUK cannot guarantee any particular panel (Please do not call OcUK asking for the panel type as we can't provide this information)' Does this mean that some panels are better than others on the same monitor?)
I think that covers everything, i already have an enermax keyboard, deathadder and speakers.
I can't decide whether i should stick with Win XP pro for now or upgrade to Vista either.
Lastly, i think anything nowadays would be a huge upgrade from what i had. This week however i've been trying to decide if i should go with something along the lines of the pc above or a gaming laptop. I've never owned a laptop before and the best i can afford is something like the xps m1530:
Intel® Core™ 2 Duo Processor T7500 (2.20 GHz, 800 MHz FSB, 4 MB L2-cache)
Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium - English
2.0 mega pixel Camera & Tuxedo Black for CCFL Display
15.4" Widescreen™ WXGA (1280x800) TFT Display (220nits) with TrueLife™
4096MB 667MHz Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM [2x2048]
320GB (5.400rpm) SATA Hard Drive
NVIDIA® GeForce™ Go 8600M GT with 256MB dedicated graphic memory
Fixed 8x DVD+/-RW Slim Slot Load drive, including SW
Primary 6-cell Lithium-Ion Battery (56 WHr)
It looks nice for a laptop and it would be nice to be able to play games from anywhere in the house but i'm thinking the pc spec above would be miles further ahead again in gaming performance?
Thanks for any advice
Ben
I could do with some advice narrowing down some choices for a gaming pc.
Budget £900-£1000
My current pc has died on me. Barton2500-AbitNF7-2GB pc3200-7600gt-SyncMaster913n (no laughing
)It's been along time since i've built a pc but i've been scanning the forums this past week and have come up with a list i like some review on.
Processors:
Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 LGA775 'Wolfdale' 3.00GHz (1333FSB) - Retail £152.74
or
Intel Core 2 Quad Pro Q6600 "Energy Efficient SLACR 95W Edition" 2.40GHz (1066FSB) - Retail £150.39
(I'm leaning towards the E8400, it's newer technology and i'm really not sure i need 4 cores... I mainly play mmorpg's but will play the newer fps games too, a bit of photoshop and web browsing is about it.)
Motherboards:
Asus P5K Premium/WiFi-AP Intel P35 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £109.26
(It lost me a bit with all these chipset choices but a lot of people here like this motherboard and it has wifi which i really wanted, i think there is a slightly cheaper version P5K-E with wifi for £93.99 but wasn't sure on that)
Memory:
G.Skill 4GB DDR2 PQ PC2-8000C5 (2x2GB) CAS5 Dual Channel Kit (F2-8000CL5D-4GBPQ) £82.24
or
OCZ 4GB (2x2GB) PC2-8000C5 1000MHz ReaperX HPC Enhanced Bandwidth Edition Dual Channel DDR2 (OCZ2RPX10004GK) £70.49
(Lost again, this used to be easy, i dont understand the 8000 / 8500 bit anymore. I think the 8000 memory will be enough for a decent overclock on a E8400? I dont want to overclock too much but an easy overclock without increasing voltages too much would be ok. I'm thinking the G.Skill memory aswell as it doesnt have those giant heatsinks so i could add more easily in the future)
Cooling:
Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro CPU Cooler (Socket LGA775) £17.61
(I like the look of this cooler over the Tuniq Tower which just seems too big. I'm looking for something quiet with good cooling, thought id avoid the retail cooler, would this meet my requirements? I still have a coolermaster atcs 200 case from back in the day i'll be using so hopefully it will fit, that goes for the motherboard fitting too..)
Graphics:
Leadtek GeForce 8800 GTS 512MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail £164.49
(The 8800 GTS fits about the most i'd like to spend on a graphics card, apparently good and quiet coolers on these, i went for Leadtek as i had a Leadtek geforce3 in the past and it was great, would like any recommendations on different manufactures though)
Hard Drives and Optical Drives:
2x Samsung SpinPoint S 160GB SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM (HD161HJ) £61.08
Samsung SH-S203PBEBN 20x DVD±RW SATA Dual Layer Lightscribe ReWriter (Black) - OEM £19.96
(I only have old IDE drives and wanted the upgrade to SATA. Never done raid before but fancied Raid 0 with the 2 Samsung drives. Will this be a noticable improvement? I've just used standard Western Digital IDE drives before. Hopefully it will be simple to setup with that Asus mobo. I also picked the samsung drives as these seem the quietest)
PSU:
I'm really stuck on the PSU, i would like something quiet and with enough power but don't even know how much power i really need for my setup. Any help here would be great.
Monitor:
Samsung SM-226BW 22" Widescreen LCD Monitor - Glossy Black £211.49
(I really like the look of this monitor, it's had some great reviews and it's around the price i'd like to pay. The only thing that worries me is this bit..'OcUK cannot guarantee any particular panel (Please do not call OcUK asking for the panel type as we can't provide this information)' Does this mean that some panels are better than others on the same monitor?)
I think that covers everything, i already have an enermax keyboard, deathadder and speakers.
I can't decide whether i should stick with Win XP pro for now or upgrade to Vista either.
Lastly, i think anything nowadays would be a huge upgrade from what i had. This week however i've been trying to decide if i should go with something along the lines of the pc above or a gaming laptop. I've never owned a laptop before and the best i can afford is something like the xps m1530:
Intel® Core™ 2 Duo Processor T7500 (2.20 GHz, 800 MHz FSB, 4 MB L2-cache)
Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium - English
2.0 mega pixel Camera & Tuxedo Black for CCFL Display
15.4" Widescreen™ WXGA (1280x800) TFT Display (220nits) with TrueLife™
4096MB 667MHz Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM [2x2048]
320GB (5.400rpm) SATA Hard Drive
NVIDIA® GeForce™ Go 8600M GT with 256MB dedicated graphic memory
Fixed 8x DVD+/-RW Slim Slot Load drive, including SW
Primary 6-cell Lithium-Ion Battery (56 WHr)
It looks nice for a laptop and it would be nice to be able to play games from anywhere in the house but i'm thinking the pc spec above would be miles further ahead again in gaming performance?
Thanks for any advice
Ben
