How's this for a ~£450 build?

PSGamer

PSGamer

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Hi all!

Looking to build a new computer (its been a few years and the desire to tinker has returned.) Basically i had in mind a budget of £450 max, dont need an OS, dont need any dvd drives. My current computer (built it about 3 years ago) seems to be slow lagging behind, i did post a thread a month or so ago, but i couldn't decide, i've come back refreshed with a little higher budget and this is what i've come up with :

XFX ATI Radeon HD 6850 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card with FREE MOH Game £134.99
(£112.49) £134.99
(£112.49)
AMD Phenom II X4 Quad Core 955 Black Edition "125W Edition" 3.20GHz (Socket AM3) - Retail £94.79
(£78.99) £94.79
(£78.99)
Coolermaster Elite 430 Windowed Case - Black (with 500w Elite Power PSU) £64.99
(£54.16) £64.99
(£54.16)
Asus M4A88T-M AMD 880G (Socket AM3) PCI-Express DDR3 Motherboard £59.99
(£49.99) £59.99
(£49.99)
Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM 1yr Warranty (ST31000528AS) £37.99
(£31.66) £37.99
(£31.66)
OCZ Special OPS 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C8 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (OCZ3SOE1600LV4GK) £35.99
(£29.99) £35.99
(£29.99)
Sub Total : £357.28
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £10.50
VAT is being charged at 20.00% VAT : £73.56
Total : £441.34


What do you think? Is there too much of a lean on any specific component or is it a good balanced mid level gaming build? that's what i've tried to go for, something that's a great all round machine, with plenty of poke for future games. Been intrested in CAD design recently, as well as using graphics packages a little more often too, hence the quad core.

Thanks for reading!
Regards.
 
stulid said:
Have you seen the price of this ATI 5850 - http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-259-SP&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=1711 ???

Comparision between a 5850 and a 6850 - http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/295?vs=291

And optical drive?
Click to expand...

Dont need an optical drive, got a spare one from an upgrade. I was under the impression that the higher the model number, the better the card was but i guess the motto of you get what you pay for doesnt exactly exist within certain things. So Changing the 6850 to a 5850 would reduce the cost to £414.34... Im glad i asked here!

Thanks for the fast reply, is the build pretty solid other than that?

Regards.
 
The Builds fine, the 5850 was the second fastest single gpu card from the last gen, the 6850 is the lowest from this gen, it was always doomed:D
 
Okay so:

Product Name Qty Price Line Total
Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 5850 Extreme 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card **OcUK Exclusive** £107.99
(£89.99) £107.99
(£89.99)
AMD Phenom II X4 Quad Core 955 Black Edition "125W Edition" 3.20GHz (Socket AM3) - Retail £94.79
(£78.99) £94.79
(£78.99)
Coolermaster Elite 430 Windowed Case - Black (with 500w Elite Power PSU) £64.99
(£54.16) £64.99
(£54.16)
Asus M4A88T-M AMD 880G (Socket AM3) PCI-Express DDR3 Motherboard £59.99
(£49.99) £59.99
(£49.99)
Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM 1yr Warranty (ST31000528AS) £37.99
(£31.66) £37.99
(£31.66)
OCZ Special OPS 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C8 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (OCZ3SOE1600LV4GK) £35.99 (x2)
(£29.99) £71.98
(£59.98)
Sub Total : £364.77
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £10.50
VAT is being charged at 20.00% VAT : £75.05
Total : £450.32

I assume 8gb's of ram will be better during Graphics and CAD related programs, and help with movie conversion and that sort of Ram intensive stuff, so this is a pretty solid build?

Thanks for the swift replies and help =]
 
Looks good, problem is, you'll fill your memory slots, which will limit any overclocking.

I also don't trust OCZ ram, after their massive issues with Gold and the fact they're leaving the RAM sector.

I'd go for the G.Skill 8GB set, or the GeIL 8GB set (2x4GB ofc ;)).
 
Okay, so i think i've got it squared up now:

Your basket
Product Name Qty Price Line Total
Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 5850 Extreme 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card **OcUK Exclusive** £107.99
(£89.99) £107.99
(£89.99)
AMD Phenom II X4 Quad Core 955 Black Edition "125W Edition" 3.20GHz (Socket AM3) - Retail £94.79
(£78.99) £94.79
(£78.99)
G.Skill RipJawsX 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (F3-12800CL9D-8GBXL ) £79.99
(£66.66) £79.99
(£66.66)
Coolermaster Elite 430 Windowed Case - Black (with 500w Elite Power PSU) £64.99
(£54.16) £64.99
(£54.16)
Asus M4A88T-M AMD 880G (Socket AM3) PCI-Express DDR3 Motherboard £59.99
(£49.99) £59.99
(£49.99)
Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM 1yr Warranty (ST31000528AS) £37.99
(£31.66) £37.99
(£31.66)
Sub Total : £371.45
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £10.50
VAT is being charged at 20.00% VAT : £76.39
Total : £458.34


Thanks for all your help! =]
 
if you dont order today, then dont forget to pick one of the other ram kits to keep the price down.
 
Ordered it today:

£91.66 x 1 - **B Grade** MSI ATI Radeon HD 5850 Twin FrozR II 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card
£83.32 x 1 - AMD Phenom II X4 Quad Core 955 Black Edition "125W Edition" 3.20GHz (Socket AM3) - Retail
£61.99 x 1 - Kingston HyperX Genesis Grey 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1600C9D3X2K28GX)
£54.16 x 1 - Coolermaster Elite 430 Windowed Case - Black (with 500w Elite Power PSU)
£47.49 x 1 - Asus M4A88T-M AMD 880G (Socket AM3) PCI-Express DDR3 Motherboard
£31.66 x 1 - Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM 1yr Warranty (ST31000528AS)

Thanks for all your advice =]
 
The card that was suggested went up in price and i wanted to try to keep it nearer £450, drivers can be found online and such, therefore B-grade doesnt bother me all too much.
 
PSGamer said:
The card that was suggested went up in price and i wanted to try to keep it nearer £450, drivers can be found online and such, therefore B-grade doesnt bother me all too much.
Click to expand...

Naturally.

Just wondering why it was B-Grade.

I recently inquired about a B-Grade CPU cooler, turned out only one of the brackets was packaged - so I couldn't mount it! :p
 
Tazzfalcon said:
Sorry to thread jack but can someone explain in laymens terms why having sticks fill all the ram slots has an effect on CPU overclocking? I don't get it?
Click to expand...

Ah good question, I've always taken it as face-fact when since I keep seeing it mentioned!

EDIT: I believe it limits how far you can push the fsb - not sure why though!
 
Tazzfalcon said:
Sorry to thread jack but can someone explain in laymens terms why having sticks fill all the ram slots has an effect on CPU overclocking? I don't get it?
Click to expand...

Tried to find a definitive answer but it seems to depend on the other components that are used, as with all overclocking the results aren't always set in stone, some get more milage than others; But from what i've read, it's more information for the Memory controller to handle, and thus can result in a lower clock.
 
For me personally the HDD you have picked is a little low on cache since it is only 32MB I would drop the size down a little and see about getting one with 64MB cache but that is my personal preference, overall though pretty good for the price ;) The reason I mention the cache is because the higher it is the faster it will be.

Stoner81.
 
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