How is this build?

manic111 · 27 Jul 2007 at 21:25

Your basketProduct Name Qty Price Line Total
OcUK ATI Radeon X1950 Pro 256MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail £64.99
(£76.36) £64.99
(£76.36)
Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 250GB ST3250620AS SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM £36.99
(£43.46) £36.99
(£43.46)
(£32.89)
Gigabyte GA_P35C_DS3R (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 & DDR3 Motherboard £79.99
(£93.99) £79.99
(£93.99)
Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium 32-Bit Edition DVD - OEM - 1Pk (66I-00715) £54.99
(£64.61) £54.99
(£64.61)
Samsung SH-182MRSMN 18x18 DVD±RW Dual Layer Lightscribe ReWriter (Beige,Black,Silver) - Retail £17.99
(£21.14) £17.99
(£21.14)
Intel Core 2 Duo E4500 "LGA775 Allendale" 2.20GHz (800FSB) - Retail £77.99
(£91.64) £77.99
(£91.64)
OCZ GameXStream 600w Silent SLI Ready ATX2 Power Supply £49.99
(£58.74) £49.99
(£58.74)
Antec Nine Hundred Ultimate Gaming Case £57.99
(£68.14) £57.99
(£68.14)
OCZ 2GB (2 x 1GB) PC2-6400C4 Dual Channel Platinum Revision 2 XTC Series DDR2 (OCZ2P800R22GK) £56.99
(£66.96) £56.99
(£66.96)
Sub Total : £497.91
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £12.95
VAT is being charged at 17.5% VAT : £90.10
Total : £600.26

I would rather not be overclocking within the first year of having it, which is why Ive gone for the 4500 above the 4300. This is the absolute maximum i can afford (budget of £600, but I think I can go £4 over!). If anyone can see any worthwhile changes, then please tell me, but I cant afford to spend any more than this!

It will be used for gaming primarily. I would ideally like to put an 8800gts in there, but dont want to compromise on the mobo or chip so dont think I can do that. If not, I will just upgrade in a year or so instead.

Is the RAM ok? Also, Ive heard that some PSUs have trouble reaching in the Antec cases due to them being placed at the bottom-will that OCZ be ok?

Thanks for the help!

pc-modd · 27 Jul 2007 at 21:55

looks ok, Theres a few things that i would swap around (e.g the samsung hard drive as i have had problems in the past) but this is down to personal choice and past experiences with certain makes.. probably bad luck.

I would change things also if you were not overclocking but if you are going to be in a year then.. meh

any reason why you wont be overclocking for a year :confused:

Garyj881 · 27 Jul 2007 at 22:01

£600, a bargain.

At this point i would think of DX10 but the 1950 are amazing cards.

manic111 · 27 Jul 2007 at 22:02

Just that it will be my first time and I dont want to lose my warranty for a bit! Plus I dont think it will need OCing to run games well at 1280x1024 for a year or two anyway.

If I wasnt OCing at all, what would you change?

Also, will this come with enough power cables, SATA cables etc?

Ive ditched the Samsung HDD for the Seagate 250GB .10 one. This has meant knocking the RAM down to OCZ's £66 pound offering (Il edit the post above.) Is this still ok?

Nullvoid · 27 Jul 2007 at 22:27

In theory most new motherboards should come with a couple of sata cables bundled inside the box.

I know you said you didn't want to compromise but just have a look at the spec below:

Case - Antec Solo <- Definitely enough space for an 8800gts, quite a few noise-reducing features and depending on your taste, it is pretty good to look at.
Power Supply - Antec Earthwatts 430w <- A 380w Earthwatts has been shown to handle an 8800gtx so this would be plenty powerful and despite its super bland looks, it remains a Seasonic-built unit.
Motherboard - Abit IP35-E <- It's not the ideal but it is still p35-based and packs most of the essential features of the more expensive alternatives.
Processor - Intel c2d e2160 <- I know what you're thinking but really, is it too slow? Bear in mind the rest of your components and in theory you're ready to OC it quite high, even on stock cooling.
RAM - 2gb Crucial Ballistix PC2-5300 (2 x 1gb) <- By all accounts these are outstanding performers for OC'ing.
Hard-drive - Samsung Spinpoint T 160gb
Operating System - Vista Home Premium 32-bit
Optical Drive - Samsung 20x dvd burner <- It's cheaper than the 18x one so why not?
Graphics Card - OCUK 8800gts 320mb <- Well it's the centrepiece of the build. All the cut corners were for this.

Together that lot comes to £606.14 including next-day delivery.

To my mind, you wouldn't actually be losing that much in terms of the quality of your components by taking the above build. When you get around to overclocking, the e2160 will fly, and more importantly, you get your hands on an 8800gts. It's worth considering at least.

Nebzor · 27 Jul 2007 at 22:29

I'd stick with the original spec. This "rush" to DX10 is getting a bit silly now. DX9 cards will handle games fine, and considering DX9 versions of new games will be coming out for years to come, I don't see why you shouldn't wait for the better next-gen cards before jumping on the DX10 wagon.

manic111 · 27 Jul 2007 at 22:35

I'd stick with the original spec. This "rush" to DX10 is getting a bit silly now. DX9 cards will handle games fine, and considering DX9 versions of new games will be coming out for years to come, I don't see why you shouldn't wait for the better next-gen cards before jumping on the DX10 wagon.

I agree. Cheers for putting the spec up though, its certainly something to contemplate. What do you think of the Thermaltake Soprano case? Just trying to cut a little bit off the price.

Nebzor · 27 Jul 2007 at 22:37

I currently have a Soprano, and I am glad to say I cannot fault it.

manic111 · 27 Jul 2007 at 23:54

Ok; how is the cooling on it? Also, what do people think of that RAM?

Nullvoid · 28 Jul 2007 at 00:06

It's unlikely to hold you back in any overclocking you do.

manic111 · 28 Jul 2007 at 00:07

Is that the RAM, the cooling or both

?

manic111 · 28 Jul 2007 at 02:18

Im just gonna bump this for the night (sorry) and see if anyone else comes up with anything, and if not I will buy tomorrow! Cheers for the help

Nebzor · 28 Jul 2007 at 11:20

Soprano is fine for cooling. I've changed nothing in it apart from adding a PCI exhaust to help cool my graphics card.

I have no experience with your RAM, so I suggest moving to the PC-5300 Ballistix or the PC-6400 GeIL Ultra Low Latency, as they are both very good.

Nullvoid · 28 Jul 2007 at 12:19

manic111 said:
Is that the RAM, the cooling or both ?

Well I was just talking about the RAM

Benjarghmin's suggestion of the PC2-5300 Crucial Ballistix is probably worth taking up though.

If you were still looking to further shave some money off the build, perhaps you'd consider trying to find somewhere with the Antec Sonata III in stock? It should be cheaper than pretty much any worthwhile case+psu combo that you could otherwise come up with.

manic111 · 28 Jul 2007 at 14:59

I cant find anywhere with the Sonata III, that was my original plan! Is DDR25300 quick enough to OC with as and when I want to? With the 6400 I can run at a 1:1 ratio at stock speeds.

Also, with the Soprano rather than the Antec 900, and the Crucial 5300 RAM Im down to £580. Is it worth spending the remaining £20 on upgrading to an E6550?

Nullvoid · 28 Jul 2007 at 15:53

I think you're better sticking with the e4500 as it has a multiplier of 11 compared to the e6550's 7. That means that although they may well reach the same final overclock, you would need a considerably higher fsb with the e6550 to achieve it.

e4500 at stock = 11 x 200, to get a conservative 3ghz would need an fsb of 273 which is easily achievable (hell my asrock 775dual-vsta can do that ^^).

e6550 at stock = 7 x 333, to get 3ghz needs an fsb of 429.

That's still quite achievable, but you can see how it might start to become a limiting factor. To get 3.2ghz would need an fsb of 457, 3.4ghz = fsb of 486. By contrast, with the e4500 it would be 291 for 3.2ghz and 309 for 3.4ghz.

Oh and that crucial ram has been repeatedly shown to be happy to run with fsb speeds at or around 500 (using a 1:1 divider) so it should never be a limiting factor to your overclock.

As to the Sonata III, 'you nEed to Be more thoroUgh with Your sEaRch'

manic111 · 28 Jul 2007 at 16:55

K, the 4500 sounds good then! I had a look the other day for the Sonata, and, despite being thorough

nowhere had it in stock then, although they may now. I only really want to order from one store though to cut down on shipping, and OCUK have all the other parts that I want. Plus I would rather get the extra cooling benefits from the Soprano, so I may as well stick with that, and OCUK now have the Corsair 520W PSU in which keeps getting rave reviews, so I think I will do that instead.

How is this looking for a final build? I could (just about) afford to switch to the 6550-Ive heard some good things about G0 stepping, but the higher multi. sounds good enough as well, especially since I will probably go Penryn in a couple of years.

Product Name Qty Price Line Total
Gigabyte GA_P35C_DS3R (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 & DDR3 Motherboard £79.99
(£93.99) £79.99
(£93.99)
Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium 32-Bit Edition DVD - OEM - 1Pk (66I-00715) £54.99
(£64.61) £54.99
(£64.61)
Thermaltake VB1000BNS Soprano SuperMidi Tower - Black ( £39.99
(£46.99) £39.99
(£46.99)
Samsung SH-182MRSMN 18x18 DVD±RW Dual Layer Lightscribe ReWriter (Beige,Black,Silver) - Retail £17.99
(£21.14) £17.99
(£21.14)
Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 250GB ST3250620AS SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM £36.99
(£43.46) £36.99
(£43.46)
OcUK ATI Radeon X1950 Pro 256MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail £64.99
(£76.36) £64.99
(£76.36)
Crucial Ballistix 2GB (2x1GB) DDR2 PC2-5300C3 667MHz Dual Channel Kit (BL2KIT12864AA663) £54.99
(£64.61) £54.99
(£64.61)
Corsair HX 520W ATX2.2 Modular SLI Compliant PSU (CMPSU-520HXUK) £54.99
(£64.61) £54.99
(£64.61)
Intel Core 2 Duo E4500 "LGA775 Allendale" 2.20GHz (800FSB) - Retail £77.99
(£91.64) £77.99
(£91.64)
Sub Total : £482.91
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £14.95
VAT is being charged at 17.5% VAT : £87.13
Total : £584.99