My dads new build to be (all threads into 1)

snadge

snadge

snadge

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right heres the thread to roll all the other ones into one... I didnt mean to have lots as I asked about one comnponent not thinking I would ask about another...then I had to ask again for something else... blah blah.. ended up with 3 or so posts...

anyway...

basic parts that arent changing...

Core-i5 2500k
4Gb (2x2Gb) 1600Mhz Memory

...erm...thats it hehe , anything else could change.. we have pencilled in a SATA DVDRW too but that might get scrapped if I test his current one to be OK , he is struggling playing movies from it but copied to hard-drive fine but seemed to take longer than it should - 3 mins or so for 700Mb file - it used to play movies fine.

this PC is only for web browsing and 1 or so hours on FSX everynight before bed - he loves it and is dying for fluid gameplay with decent graphics... he has been plaing it previously on a 256Mb nVidia 6200GS (which is now dead and is back to SiS Graphics onboard) and a 3Ghz P4 with HTT and now can only play on new laptop with the ATI HD 4000 series (4150 i think) and 2.2Ghz AMD chip... the laptop he bought for the missus as she couldnt get on PC for him, now he is pinching it off her to be able to play FSX a little
we are fixing this for him
he does NOT play any other games or install lots of software - his current 160Gb drive is barely used with XP, FSX SP2 (stock) and 2Gb of Photos and Music..

budget is £600 - it was originally £500 but we just couldnt do it with good parts etc so he said £600 but not a penny over..im sure a couple of pounds would be OK but not more than that...


HARD-DRIVES
we would like an SSD - particularly the Vertex 2E as it has 50,000 IOPS and excellent read and write rates but mostly its the attractive IOPS figure, the Agility 3 instead if it could be afforded , he has a SATA 160Gb drive currently and we plan to install this to install FSX onto - although he is giving his old PC to his partners sister so he may consider buying a new small drive for the new PC to partner the SSD for FSX installs and backups so he can keep the old drive with PC for new owner. plus the old drive is noisey.

CASES
a MIDI size, not huge, something black, shiny and smart, no gamers cases - just plain but but smart, has to have a door or sorts as lots of unused bays is UGLY! the one he liked as the Asus TA-9L1 but not on OCuk

GRAPHICS
as FSX does not require absolute top GFX cards as its more CPU intensive we require something that quiet and cheap - has to be quiet as thats what we are aiming for - summit like a quiet 460 OC ? I had eye on GTX 460 OC HAWK which is known to be super quiet and is equivelant to a GTX 560 (336 cores) but running at 780Mhz or so instead of 810Mhz and was only £125

PROCESSOR
Core-i5 2500K @ 4.4Ghz.... nuff said

MEMORY
2x2Gb 1600Mhz 1.5v ...nuff said

MOTHERBOARD
Any reliable P67 board that has decent warranty.

PSU
Anything quiet , reliable brand so has good caps and good build, 80+ cert and 3yr warranty is a must (I think) - maybe 2yrs if had too...

so if anyone can help or has advice - thats what we need, ive also just found out Iam still going up to his later on at end of month (we were gunna build it next week while he is down) so we can wait for SSD to come in stock.

he has windows 7 unopened to go on it

thanks
 
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thanks for the spec up - but the case needs to be black and preferably with door too hide all the blank empty bays

also - think 30Gb SSD would be OK? be about 27Gb formatted and win7 64 use about 16Gb... leaving 11Gb for apps - so yeah prbs fine

oh its not the 50,000IOPS one... does that make much difference?

is BeQuiet a good PSU brand?

thanks for the list... opened my eyes it did as i didnt think you could do it never mind with two drives and P&P
 
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Subliminal Aura said:
:rolleyes:

I think you need to know that FSX is cpu bound. The 2500K will perform 'OK' but the 2600K will be golden in comparison.

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showpost.php?p=18182894&postcount=24

I would probably spend an extra £100 and go with a 2600k on a Z68. Current SSD of choice is the Vertex 3 MI but that's probably beyond of your budget
Click to expand...

I know this...but, like you say WAY OUT OF BUDGET... also reviews say that you get less for your money once you start paying £240 for Core-i7 2600k, while it would be better its not really worth paying another £100 for and thats why they recommend the 2500k as best gaming CPU - think it was on Toms Hardware I read just recently - yeah if you have the money, but i dont.

also, FSX does not use more than four cores so HTT on a quad core CPU would be next too useless
 
thanks for the support re 2500k etc... like I said HTT is next to useless on FSX on a quad-core chip, ive been told this on FSX forums that no more than 4 thread CPU as it wouldnt use any more threads

WE HAVE A PROBLEM

OCuk have confirmed they do not deliver to different address on first orders, they may be able to ask my dad for other documents (which he wont have as he will be here tomorrow then on holiday after that and both of us meet up at his on 26th and I leave his on 30th... so as you can see its a tight gap... unless we order the parts and ask for delivery to be made on 26th (Tuesday) but it can not be any earlier and not later as he is unable to build it himself and I live 360 miles away

I want to say THANK YOU to everyone on this forum who has helped.. it is simply the best forum ive used, you get replies instantly and many of them and everyone is very helpfull, going out of your way to spec up and price up parts... brilliant. also OCuk seems to be cheaper overall when you total in a full build across other popular websites.

also... for FSX ive been told that the better scenery add-on could interrupt gameplay as it takes long to load from HDD - is this true? before we were just going to get HDD 500Gb Seagate 7200.12 anyway... but thinking of adding that 30Gb SSD just for OS - he is here tomorrow I will speak with him but he wont break that £600 budget as he already pushed it up from £500 - he will just see it as creeping up and up as keep saying...well if yer getting this and paying this much you may aswell get that.
 
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im just going what information ive been told by many on at least 3 different FSX forums... cos originally I was going to get a 6 core AMD Phenom II and they said not too bother as FSX will not use more than 4 cores - if their theory is right then 4 more threads would not be used by FSX, i may be wrong but FSX is primarily a single threaded application and was not deisgned for multi-core systems...im sure thats what ive been told aswell (long time ago) ...im not sure how it all works but im just going off what ive been told.

I would love to put a 2600K in my dads machine but he just cant afford it so he has to make do with 2500K ...lots of other people say FSX runs find on 2500K @ 4.4Ghz
 
Reaper 392 said:
had a little rethink. you could split the build between two shops. get the case + SSD + whatever is cheaper from one competitor, then get the rest from OcUK:

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - OEM £159.98
1 x MSI GeForce GTX 460 HAWK "Super-OC" 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £125.99
1 x Asus P8P67 LE Intel P67 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard - (Sandybridge) ** B3 REVISION ** *LOWEST UK PRICE* £78.98
1 x BeQuiet Pure Power L7 530W '80 Plus' Power Supply £44.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA 6Gb/s 16MB Cache - OEM (ST3500413AS) £29.99
1 x OCZ Gold 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-10666C9 1333MHz Low-Voltage Dual Channel Kit (OCZ3G1333LV4GK) £25.99
1 x Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro Rev 2 CPU Cooler (Socket 939 / AM2 / AM3 / 775 / 1155/ 1156 / 1366) £19.99
1 x Sony Optiarc AD-7260S 24x DVD±RW SATA Lightscribe ReWriter (Black) - OEM £16.98
Total : £514.90 (includes shipping : £10.00).

ive changed the RAM in an attempt to save more money. the corsair RAM is better, but im trying to save money wherever i can.

couldnt bring myself to change the heatsink because anything cheaper than the gelid on OcUK is a big step backwards
Click to expand...

thanks... we are going to have to sit tomorrow while he is here and re-think it all, we cant afford to be paying P&P from 2 or 3 websites, once you do that you may aswell re-price up all from one website with the P&P added from the other 2..

can you tell me why the GELLID is better than the FREEZER PRO..? the reason I chose the Freezer Pro is because it is known to be super quiet and is cheaper.

other people are on about 6Gb of ram at least for FSX... ive not been told this on FSX forums...will ask now.. we would like to keep the Corsair also...1600Mhz

edit: he gunna have to move money into my bank account to make the order
 
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surely the freezer pro cant be that hot on full load? 82'c..? they must have had a duff fanspeed or summit like...it gets rave reviews and loads of people buy them and note how cool their CPU is under load? my dad has REV1 on his pentium (we got simply to cut noise) and it reduced temps by 10'c.. that benchmark shows to be hotter than stock HSF's??

if you read reviews on the buyers page it gets good reviews...

I may consider swapping it still though.

other people are on about 6Gb of ram at least for FSX... ive not been told this on FSX forums...will ask now.. we would like to keep the Corsair also...1600Mhz

edit: he gunna have to move money into my bank account to make the order
 
Subliminal Aura said:
Did you read the synthetic / compute sections ? - Gaming is not real computing... Look at cpu benchmarks and you'll find the 2600k wipes the floor and flushes the 2500k.

FSX is heavily cpu bound so you're looking at a very big performance gap for just £100.

If however you want to use your dad's computer to play your run of the mill gpu bound games then you wouldn't notice much difference between the 2500k and the 2600k. Have a look on these forums for fritz benches for the 2500k and 2600k - the gap *will* shock you
Click to expand...

were are these benchmarks that show the 2600K wiping the floor with the 2500K on FSX only? ive asked on FSX forum and ive been told again that HTT is useless on the 2600K on FSX and its actually benchmarked WORSE than the 2500K and that the 2500K is the budget king for gaming.

if you can supply proof i can show them that they are wrong.
 
mmm more conflictin info as ive been told on here that even the stock cooler would do for overclocking at 4Ghz etc?

i'll probs go for gelid simply cos of budget
 
my dad will be here any minute, still havent finalised the build... I think SSD is gunna have to go out the window

and, im not sure about BeQuiet PSU as ive never heard of them? - are they reliable? they only have 2 yr GT
 
yeah thats what im going for now... im just saying others on here said i could overclock with stock cooler if needs be (due too tight budget)
 
im just saying someone on here said i could even overclock on the i5 stock cooler and im sure they said 4Ghz+ - im gunna look for that post when i get time... anyway im buying the GELLID anyway

just need to find out if this DVD drive is working or not before I purchase the build as I can use the cash elsewherec - i have £620 for the build.

the DVD stutters during DVD playback and file copy seems to take longer than should
 
has to be GTX 460 OC HAWK

i have £620 and no longer need DVD drive as ive managed to test his current one fully on a non original DVD MOVIE disc (encryption prevents testing) - it max speed is 16x , 133ms random access and 41MB/s burst

going to spec up now and purchase... the case he wants is on another site but im gunna have a look on here and see if i can see anything he might like... no spare bays - its Fugly.. door prefered or tower with just two bays

thanks for the help :)
 
well this is what i spec'd up but its £10 over due to case I need elsewhere so may have to drop the XFX PSU for the BeQuiet which I would have preferred not too.. also prices seem to change by large amounts on daily basis on here - GFX card has gone up £10 and Processor £5 (Retail 2500k is now £169.99)

Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - OEM £155.99
(£129.99) £155.99
(£129.99)
MSI GeForce GTX 460 HAWK "Super-OC" 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £134.99
(£112.49) £134.99
(£112.49)
Asus P8P67 LE Intel P67 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard - (Sandybridge) ** B3 REVISION ** *LOWEST UK PRICE* £72.98
(£60.82) £72.98
(£60.82)
OCZ Vertex 2 50GB 2.5" SATA-II Solid State Hard Drive (OCZSSD2-2VTX50G) £71.99
(£59.99) £71.99
(£59.99)
XFX Pro 550W Core Edition '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £54.98
(£45.82) £54.98
(£45.82)
Corsair XMS3 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMX4GX3M2A1600C9) £29.99
(£24.99) £29.99
(£24.99)
Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA 6Gb/s 16MB Cache - OEM (ST3500413AS) £29.99
(£24.99) £29.99
(£24.99)
Gelid Tranquillo CPU Cooler (Socket 754/939/940/AM2/AM2+/AM3/LGA775/LGA1155/LGA1156/LGA1366) £25.99
(£21.66) £25.99
(£21.66)

Sub Total : £480.75
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £10.00
VAT is being charged at 20.00% VAT : £98.15
Total : £588.90

they also add VAT to the Delivery which is wrong I think - cost+P&P then add the VAT to that total... so paying £12 instead of the £10 that it states... bit sneaky I think
 
we have ordered

this what we got

GTX 460 OC (336 cores @ 725Mhz)
Core-i5 2500K Retail (for the 3 year warranty)
Gigabyte GA-P67A-D3-B3 (wanted UD3 but just couldnt afford it)
4Gb Corsair 1600Mhz XMS3 (2x2Gb)
Gellid Tranquillo Cooler
XFX Pro 550 Watt with EasyRail (5 Year Warranty)
60Gb OCZ Vertex 2E SSD (for OS and Apps)
500Gb Seagate HDD 7200.12 (for FSX + Addons)
Asus TA-9L1 Black Midi Tower Case (ATX / mATX)

the motherboard doesnt support SLi I know (only Crossfire) but he wont be using SLi at any point

stuff comes tomorrow ...cant wait
 
perhaps aye... I just like Gigabyte boards..maybe im misled but ive been told they are the better quality MB Manufacturer? perhaps not but i feel happier with a good brand.

will post up pics..its not getting built until Sunday when my dad is here, iam showing him how to do it and he gunna build it hehe ...cant wait! ive read somewhere that the motherboard has issues (for some people) and few reviews said to upgrade BIOS to F4 immediatley using qflash on USB stick.. so will have to do that, i will check now for any other possible problems that might require immediate updates like SSD/HDD/GPU firmware

thanks for all the help everyone - I couldnt have done it without this forum... I had a last minute heart attack when I realised I couldnt remember if the Midi tower took ATX boards..but i checked and it did...phew! panic over!! haha

thanks again
 
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