How is this for a first ever build?

zombiegenesis

zombiegenesis

zombiegenesis

Associate
Joined
1 Dec 2010
Posts
230
Location
Winchester, UK
Case: HAF 912
CPU: i5 760
PSU: Corsair Module 750w
Cooling: Akas Venom
HDD: F3 Spinpoint 1TB
RAM: 4GB Corsair XMS 8-8-8
GPU: GTX 470 EVGA
MoB: Asus P7P55D-E Intel Express
Optical: Sony 24x

Keyboard/M: Logitech Wireless
Monitor: LG 23"
Speakers: Logitech 2.1

The tower comes to about £700, the monitor/key/speakers adds another £170 to that. I'm trying to minimise costs as best I can but not hamper my performance too much! Any suggestions?
 
zombiegenesis said:
I found an SLI board for £90, but whats the difference between SATA 3/GBS and SATA 6/GBS? Will it make a difference?
Click to expand...

SATA 3Gbs is fine for mechanical HDD's

The 6Gbs you could utilise to get the max out of something like a Crucial C300 SSD if you want to upgrade in the future

The Asus P7P55D-E Intel Express you originally quoted is a fine "premium" socket 1366 MB with nice OCing potential :)
 
Wow this board is so much more helpful than gamefaqs...
Well I did consider the 460 but since its only an extra £20 for the 470 I figured I'd bite the bullet :) An SSD upgrade in future would be nice, but I'm not worried about that now. Maybe if I can manage to find an SLI/6Gbs motherboard for under £120 or so but somehow I doubt it...
 
zombiegenesis said:
Wow this board is so much more helpful than gamefaqs...
Well I did consider the 460 but since its only an extra £20 for the 470 I figured I'd bite the bullet :) An SSD upgrade in future would be nice, but I'm not worried about that now. Maybe if I can manage to find an SLI/6Gbs motherboard for under £120 or so but somehow I doubt it...
Click to expand...

An extra £20 for a 470, where are you looking?!
 
It's not OcUK so I'd feel rude in saying it :) But it begins with an S, and it's marginally cheaper. But they don't have a members market- so it's a give and take relationship.
 
Unfortunately the cheap SLI boards (MSI GD65 and GD80) are both currently out of stock. With either of these you can simply add a SATA 6Gb/s card later if required, although most current SSDs barely exceed SATA 3Gb/s speed so dont suffer too much without it. To get all the features on the mobo, you currently have to spend about £150.

The P7P55D-E is a fine board so think hard if SLI/x-fire is really that important. Most people never bother with SLI/x-fire despite 'I'll add a second later' plans, as selling the old and buying a new better single GPU is often just as good a choice.
 
zombiegenesis said:
It's not OcUK so I'd feel rude in saying it :) But it begins with an S, and it's marginally cheaper. But they don't have a members market- so it's a give and take relationship.
Click to expand...

Thats good, I only checked Ocuk prices and it was more like £40-50. For only £20 its definitely worth the extra, especially if you plan on overclocking it. Just so you are aware it is not only rude to mention a competitor its against the forum rules :)
 
AndyH_Lufc said:
Thats good, I only checked Ocuk prices and it was more like £40-50. For only £20 its definitely worth the extra, especially if you plan on overclocking it. Just so you are aware it is not only rude to mention a competitor its against the forum rules :)
Click to expand...

Of course, wouldn't want to offend the big brass at christmas now would I :D Though I was a margin mistaken, it was in fact closer to £30, but I still feel its a reasonable step.

Still in a mix about the GTX470/6870/5870 conundrum :confused:
They're all so damn nice... and the 5870 is on offer right now...
 
zombiegenesis said:
Of course, wouldn't want to offend the big brass at christmas now would I :D Though I was a margin mistaken, it was in fact closer to £30, but I still feel its a reasonable step.

Still in a mix about the GTX470/6870/5870 conundrum :confused:
They're all so damn nice... and the 5870 is on offer right now...
Click to expand...

I know what you mean, I'm so damn tempted to drop around £200 on a new card to upgrade from my 4870. The 470, 6870 and 5870 are all good cards and similarly priced. If I was to go ahead then I think I'd go for a 5870 as the 6870 isn't far off it but is more of a replacement for the 5850 and to upgrade from a 5870 at the moment you would have to spend a lot more money.
 
Something i found out this week while doing some research on 1156 boards.

P55 cannot do SLI/Crossfire at the same time as doing Sata 3/USB 3.0, it just does'nt have enough bandwidth. If running dual cards then Sata 3/USB 3.0 drops to Sata 2/USB 2.0 speeds. This is taken from Gigabytes website from the description of the P55A-UD4:-

When dual graphics cards are used in 1st and 2nd PCIex16 slots, SATA3 / USB 3.0 (Marvell 9128 /NEC USB 3.0 Controllers) will work at normal mode.
Click to expand...

Other boards do it another way. Taken from the Gigabyte P55A-UD3 page:-

When SATA3 / USB 3.0 (Marvell 9128 /NEC USB 3.0 Controllers) work at turbo mode, 1st PCIE x16 will work at x8 speed.
Click to expand...

Asus has found a way around this on the P7P55D-E Pro/Evo/Deluxe/Premium by adding a PLX bridge chip to give an extra 4x PCI-e 2.0 lanes. Not perfect but at least you can run dual cards and have USB3.0 and Sata 3 at the proper speeds.
 
With the P7P55D-E and you use sata 3/USB 3.0 then yes. From the Pro up you can have everything at full speed because of the extra PLX bridge chip. I will try to find the review again where some people from Asus and Gigabyte explained it all.

***Edit*** Can't find it now. Will keep trying over the weekend. The P7P55D-E can't do proper SLI/Crossfire anyway as the second slot only runs at 4x and would severly cripple the card in it.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom