Need help choosing my new system!

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3 Apr 2011
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193
Hi,

I have been looking for a new system for a while now and here is some of the specs I have been looking at.

Coolermaster CM690-II Advanced Case - Black
Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz Quad Core Processor
Stage 5: MAX OC OF CPU, 24/7 Stability [Only]

Thermalright Silver Arrow CPU Cooler
Asus P8P67 Intel P67 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard **B3 REVISION**
GeIL Value PLUS 8GB 1600MHz C9 Memory Kit
Gigabyte GeForce GTX 560Ti OC 1024MB GDDR5
OCZ Vertex 2E 120GB Solid State Hard Drive
Western Digital Blue 1TB SATA 6Gb/s HDD
Samsung BluRay ROM DVDRW Lightscribe Optical Drive
OnBoard Sound Card
Corsair Enthusiast Series TX 750W V2 High Performance Power Supply
Windows 7 Home Premium 64-Bit
Fully Cable Managed

The cost will be around £1450 and I wondered if you think I could improve on this or save money on items I wont get the benefit from.

I will not be using this pc for gaming, but I do a lot of movie encoding and burning.

Do you think the graphics card is more than enough for my needs or could I save money by getting something lower spec ?

Do you thin it would be worth hanging on a little longer and spending the extra money on the new OCZ Vertex 3 which is a bigger improvement over version 2 ?

Thanks for any help.
 
Can you build it yourself? Apart from video encoding and DVD burning, do you do anything else of note?

If you can build it yourself and the above is pretty much all you do, the following will be far better for much less:

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i7-2600K 3.40GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail with FREE Shogun 2 Game £239.99
1 x MSI P67A-C45 Intel P67 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard - (Sandybridge) £90.00
1 x Corsair XMS3 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMX8GX3M2A1600C9) £89.99
1 x HIS ATI Radeon HD 5670 512MB GDDR5 ICEQ PCI-Express Graphics Card (H567Q512) £65.99
1 x XFX Pro 450W Core Edition Power Supply £41.99
1 x Samsung SpinPoint F3 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (HD103SJ) £41.99
1 x Coolermaster Elite 335 Case - Black £29.99
1 x LiteOn IHAS324-32 24x DVD±RW ReWriter SATA - (Black) Retail £19.99
1 x Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro Rev 2 CPU Cooler (Socket 939 / AM2 / AM3 / 775 / 1155/ 1156 / 1366) £17.99
Total : £652.01 (includes shipping : £11.75).



Obviously get Windows 7 as well (~£80) and an SSD if you really want one- although I wouldn't get OCZ as they're not very popular at the moment.
 
Can you build it yourself? Apart from video encoding and DVD burning, do you do anything else of note?

If you can build it yourself and the above is pretty much all you do, the following will be far better for much less:

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i7-2600K 3.40GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail with FREE Shogun 2 Game £239.99
1 x MSI P67A-C45 Intel P67 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard - (Sandybridge) £90.00
1 x Corsair XMS3 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMX8GX3M2A1600C9) £89.99
1 x HIS ATI Radeon HD 5670 512MB GDDR5 ICEQ PCI-Express Graphics Card (H567Q512) £65.99
1 x XFX Pro 450W Core Edition Power Supply £41.99
1 x Samsung SpinPoint F3 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (HD103SJ) £41.99
1 x Coolermaster Elite 335 Case - Black £29.99
1 x LiteOn IHAS324-32 24x DVD±RW ReWriter SATA - (Black) Retail £19.99
1 x Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro Rev 2 CPU Cooler (Socket 939 / AM2 / AM3 / 775 / 1155/ 1156 / 1366) £17.99
Total : £652.01 (includes shipping : £11.75).



Obviously get Windows 7 as well (~£80) and an SSD if you really want one- although I wouldn't get OCZ as they're not very popular at the moment.

Considering the saving here over his original spec it might be worth getting a slightly more powerful PSU in case he ever wanted to SLI/Xfire.
 
I can't see how spending an extra £20 or so on a "better" cooler that will net you at best an extra 200MHz is really worth it, particularly as stability and CPU damage will start to take effect at this point.
 
Hi Everyone,

Thanks to everyone that has helped so far with this thread.

Just to answer a few question, I have not built my own system before, but I would love to do this in the very near future.

My system runs 24/7 and is never switched off and I use my system for downloading games at 4.2 gb each plus many movies to encode.
I have never really bothered about using my pc for games, but do have a new xbox360 and also a wii.

I use my system everyday and I was mostly looking for an increase in speed to help with my encoding which takes up quite a bit of my time.

The system I have just now is a custom built one from 4 years ago.

core 2 duo 6600 overclocked to 3.2ghz
Asus P5W DH Delux motherboard
PC6400 2 Gb RAM 800MHZ
650 watt psu
Nivdia Geforce 7900 GT/GTO
320gb hardrive
Windows xp pro

I have up to £1500 to spend on my system and I just want to really up the game on performance.

Thanks again.
 
Judging from anandtech's benchmarks, the i7-2600K at stock is about 100% faster than the Q6600 at stock for encoding, and the Q6600 at stock is about 50% faster than the E6600 at the speed you have it. That means a stock clocked i7 could triple your speed, and overclocking it might even quarter your encoding time.
 
Hi,

I really want to get a system that will give me all the speed and performance, but will also last a few years and not feel to underpowered and wishing I had upgraded to a better system, rather than going for a cheaper system.

My choices that I am keeping so far are

Coolermaster CM690-II Advanced Case - Black
Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz Quad Core Processor
Stage 5: MAX OC OF CPU, 24/7 Stability

Asus P8P67 Intel P67 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard **B3 REVISION**
GeIL Value PLUS 8GB 1600MHz C9 Memory Kit

I am not to sure about the rest now and money really is not the issue here, but I do understand you dont want me to buy items I may not use or take full advantage of.

I really appreciate all your help so far.

Trying to choose a system is not as easy as I thought it would be and everyone has different opinions as well.
 
Hi,

Do you think the Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro Rev 2 would be good enough to keep the i7-2600K temps down, even if I got it overclocked, as I am only really going to be encoding movies and not running any intense games.

Thanks again hybrid572.
 
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