I hate these threads, but spec check please :p

Werewolf

Werewolf

Werewolf

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My Brother in Law (henceforth he shall be known as BIL*) has asked me to look at building a machine that must

1: Be reliable
2: Be relatively quiet (he leaves it running all day in the living room)
3: Be ok for games, but he mainly plays things like Football Manager (so more ram = better than bigger video card I think).

Budget between £6-800, lower is better but he doesn't want to have to upgrade in a year...

What I've worked out for now is an I5 on a P67 mobo, with 8 gb of ram, and a 6870 video card.


Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - OEM
(£129.99) £155.99

MSI ATI Radeon HD 6850 Cyclone Power Edition 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card
(£104.16) £124.99

MSI P67A-C45 Intel P67 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard ** B3 REVISION **
(£81.66) £97.99

Antec TruePower New Modular 650W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply
(£59.99) £71.99

Cooler Master CM-690 II Lite Dominator Case - Black
(£55.82) £66.98

Seagate Barracuda Green 2TB SATA 6Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM(ST2000DL003)
(£48.32) £57.98

Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C10 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (BL2KIT51264BA160A)
(£35.99) £43.19

LiteOn IHAS324-32 24x DVD±RW ReWriter SATA (Black) - Retail LiteOn (£16.66) £19.99

Sub Total : £532.59
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £12.50
VAT is being charged at 20.00% VAT : £109.02
Total : £654.11
Add on an OS and it's about the middle of his price range..


To me that reasonable but I'm not sure about the noise level, and case size.
Noise is likely to be the kicker, but I really don't want to muck around with non standard cooling options if I can avoid it, hence a fairly solid case that can take big fans (and has plenty of room for the air to rise straight up).

The case is a bit bigger than I'd like to use ideally, but it should fit under his desk and i've chosen it in part because it's got plenty of room, and space for a slot in drive on top.

I'd prefer to use 4gb memory modules over 2gb ones, as that means he can upgrade the ram in the future without having to take out modules.

If anyone has any suggestions I'll be more than happy to hear them :)




*Not his name...
 
You've put in a 6850 in your basket even though you say you want a 6870? I'd personally go up to a gtx 560 and cut down to a 1tb hard drive to get the extra money as I probably won't use all the space. Though for football manager I imagine it won't make much difference the upgrade in graphics. Unfortunately i'm not really experienced with noise reduction so I can't help you there.
 
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What I've worked out for now is an I5 on a P67 mobo, with 8 gb of ram, and a 6870 video card.
Click to expand...

You say a 6870 card here, yet the spec has a 6850 card in it.

If you want to save more money (who doesnt:)) then a GTX460 is as fast as a 6850,

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-140-OK&groupid=701&catid=1914&subcat=1830

GTX460 vs 6850 - http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/313?vs=291


Next is the PSU, very good and quiet (I use one) but for this spec machine, a 550W PSU will be ample.



Then you will need to find a good quiet cooler for the CPU as being OEM its not supplied with one.
 
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In-laws and computers are a nasty combination. Unless you enjoy providing lifetime FOC support walk away now.

I appreciate that this isn’t very helpful, but it does come from prior experience, and it has gone 04:30 in the morning (‘Time for bed’ said Zebedee - Boing!).
 
Cheers guys, I knew there was a reason I don't normally spec up machines at 2am :)

How's the Intel cooler for the CPU these days?

Bremen, I'm used to the support thing, fortunately BIL and nephew are both reasonably PC savvy (they've been using PC's for long enough).

I'll look at the 460 :)

I'm going to have to discuss everything with him before any order is placed, so at the moment pretty much everything is up in the air :)
 
I would opt for the Spinpoint F3 or similar HDD. The "green" HDD you spec'd has a low rpm. Good enough as a backup drive but I wouldn't use one as a primary drive for the OS.

Seeing as you've opted for the K spec CPU it would make sense to buy a decent aftermarket cooler. The K spec cpus are for overclocking so get a heatsink that can tame it, the gelid suggested is more than ok ;)

460 is definately an option. Technically it's rival is the 5850 but the 6850 doesnt perform much better. As a current gen card it could be argued that it will handle the DX11 "special effects" better but for the use you have stated a 460 would be cheaper and just as good. Just make sure you get the 1GB 460 not the cut down version.

Good luck with the build. Any probs or Qs come back to us
 
Cheers for the input, Lemin, that looks interesting but i'm trying to keep it as simple as possible :)
I think for the use he's going to have the F4 should be ok, as he's not doing much that requires a speedy hard drive, although I'll ask him :)

Here's the updated spec, with the 460 (msi cyclone for the cooler...), and the retail CPU.

Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail
£172.99

MSI GeForce GTX 460 Cyclone 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card
£119.99

MSI P67A-C45 Intel P67 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard ** B3 REVISION ** £97.99

Cooler Master CM-690 II Lite Dominator Case - Black
£66.98

Antec TruePower New Modular 550W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply
£59.99

Seagate Barracuda Green 2TB SATA 6Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM (ST2000DL003)
£57.98

Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C10 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (BL2KIT51264BA160A)
£43.19

LiteOn IHAS324-32 24x DVD±RW ReWriter SATA (Black)
£19.99

Total £639.11

The silly thing is, that when I'm buying for myself I pretty much decide on a spec and go for it (usually if need be leaving some of the parts for later purchase, say HDD's and reuse an existing one), but whenever I buy/build for someone else I tend to be much more cautious and hesitant over it.
 
When you buy for yourself, your reputation is not on the line :)

Personally, I would still go Z68, pick up the AsRock Pro 3. A 460 idle still sucks a lot of power. You also have a Asrock Z68 Pro3 M, if you want a tiny case, like a Fractal 1000, or a Silverstone Temjin.

As for the case, the Elite 430 is smaller. The Antec 100 as well.
 
Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £172.99
MSI GeForce GTX 460 Cyclone 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £119.99
Asrock Z68 PRO3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £99.98
Silverstone Temjin TJ08B Midi Tower Case - Black £74.99
Antec TruePower New Modular 550W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £59.99
Samsung SpinPoint F4 EcoGreen 2TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (HD204UI) £54.98
Kingston HyperX Genesis Grey 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1600C9D3X2K2/8GX) £47.99
LG GH22NS70 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £16.99
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £12.50
Total : £662.90


Replacing the mobo with a Pro 3 M.

review of the board.

review of the case.

Review of the Antec TP-550.
 
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Why not replace the MSI board for:
Asrock Z68 PRO3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £99.98

and the LiteOn for:
LG GH22NS70 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) £16.99

Newer board (unless you need Firewire) and with the optical drive a grand saving of £1 !!! :p


Aahhh... didn't read post above.... beat me to it :o
 
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In the end we stayed with the MSI (but went to the G45), and Dominator case and it went together a treat, using the kingston ram.

I'm surprised at how quiet it is with the default Intel cooler, BIL was impressed with how quiet it was, although it wasn't until I turned the machine off that I realised something - most of the noise I thought was the machine was in fact my BIL's telly (he's got a huge LCD rear projection screen which has a cooling fan...), and V+.
It was actually quieter than his previous machine that was a store bought model with a custom case/cooler (the case had a side vent with a funnel onto am 80mm fan for the heatsink)
and quite poor GPU.

I am definitely going with the 690 for my next case, as it seems to be able to keep the machine quieter than my Sonata 550, and is much nicer to work in/on.

The downside is, I've now been asked to look at how cheaply I can make a simple web browser/net machine for one of his friend - I'm thinking that ASrock motherboard and the silverstone case with an I3.
But that will have to wait until I've confirmed it :)
 
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