Need help Speccing a new build

[Phage]

+1

Even if youre right in how much of a step forward theyre all going to be (Im a bit sceptical myself but would like to be proved wrong) as with all new tech initial prices will be prohibitively high for most users for at least first 6 months if not year, I wouldnt recomend anyone buying latest kit atm dont get me wrong, but if youre wanting to upgrade Id say go for it now as it'd be more like a year to 18 months b4 the new tech is affordable

And then add more time for the apps to take advantage of the new hardware.

 

[PakJai]

Re: PakJais spec: a couple points Id make, you dont necessarily have to agree but
1) the cooler, that cooler is a passive heatsink and doesnt come with fan, you'd need an extra 120mm fan such as the P12 if youer getting this, whilst it is a good cooler when you add up the cooler (45) retention kit (8) and fan (17) thats 70quid for a cooler, a nice cooler, but unless youre really into your clocking youre not going to get the worth out of it
2) I wouldnt buy a SSD atm, theres still a few bugs in them being worked out, incl partition offset and block rewrite penalty. Dont get me wrong I do want one but considering how much they cost (for a decent one with decent storage - 30gig will dissappear rapidly) Im going to wait til w7 is fully released and see if TRIM does what it promises and which manufacturers actually adapt it - still no news from intel, Samsung seem to be the best placed atm but the problem with them is they dont allow end users to update their own firmware so theres no way to benefit from improvements in performances - hoping to see this change soon
Other than that the spec looks good

Thanks for your input.

Yes I guess I have forgotten about the fan. The fan for the cooler is around £10 which isn't a lot, the reason for the cooler is it will enable you to get the most out of your cpu whenever you decide to get more juice out of it as well as prolonging the longevity of the cpu.

As for the SSD, 30gb is sufficient for any operating system and you can even squeeze in some games and still have rooms to spare. SSD's are never meant for storage in the first place, it's mainly used for performance increase. It will not be anytime soon till we see them as a cheap storage that offers increase in boot/application load/fast file transfer times. Hence why people use ssd for OS only and an additional drive for mp3s/videos etc.

In regards to trim doing what it states it will do or not. End of the day, you will still get an enormous increase in performance from the SSD drive regardless if it supports it or not. If you think too far ahead, you can never finish your system before more new technologies comes out.. i.e SATA3,better graphics card, CPU and new versions of SSD etc.

The list I posted are suggestions only, you can by all means change some i.e. a lower W PSU or cut back on the 500GB hardrive and Blu Ray rom etc and upgrade those later. Main thing to think about is the Motherboard and Monitor, those are the ones you are least likely to change anytime soon. They will probably last you till you next major upgrade.

 

[FrostFox]

How old is the hard drive and cd/DVD drive you intend to use?

I only ask as an old slow hard drive will pull the performance of your shiny new system through the floor!

My current OS HDD is Western Digital Caviar SE16 400GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (WD4000AAKS) which i bought June 2008 my storage HDD is quite an old Western Digital Caviar 200GB Special Edition 8MB Cache Serial ATA - OEM (HD-013-WD) bought 5yrs ago with my orig build spec.


My OS HDD is partitioned into a 60GB for OS and applications and 320GB for storage as well. I also have an external HDD for backup as well.

 

[PakJai]

I don't think there is anything wrong with your current HDD. You may aswel format and reuse it on your new build for storage. 400GB is enough since you also have external storage if needed. You probably won't be needing something as big as 1TB unless you're addicted to downloading or stores a lot of large image/video files.

But to enhance performance, having a SSD for your OS is the way forward. Poeple used to use WD Raptors and raid them for their OS, but now you can get SSD that is cheaper and offer better performance.

What matters in the end is what you do with your computer. Most people will settle with an all round package that offers performance with good cooling solution at an affordable price.

 

[FrostFox]

K guys i ordered my kit last week should arrive today.

I went for the following:

CPU:- *OVERCLOCKED* AMD Phenom II X4 Quad Core 955 Black Edition 3.20GHz @ 3.80GHz / Asus Crosshair III Formula Motherboard / Corsair XMS3 DHX 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 1600C9DHX Bundle

GFX:- XFX ATI Radeon HD 4890 XTX XXX Edition 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card (Includes Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X.)

CASE:- Antec 1200 Twelve Hundred Ultimate Gaming Case - Black (No PSU)

PSU:- Be Quiet! Dark Power Pro 850W ATX2.2 Modular SLi Compliant Power Supply

MONITOR:- Acer X233Hbd 23" Widescreen LCD Monitor


I have a question over the sound card though. Do you guys think I should use onboard soundcard or stick with my old Audigy 2 ZS 7.1?