New Build £1000 - Any Pointers...

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Hi there,

I'm relatively new to this forum and I've been reading through quite a few of your threads and find them very interesting and informative. I built my first computer some 7 years ago and I'm venturing back into the scene now. The main use of my PC will be website/image editing and gaming. I plan to install Windows 7 RC 64bit on one partition and attempt to install Mac OS X on the other.

Here is the spec that I intend to buy and build, what do you think?

Case - Silverstone Fortress FT01B-W £130

PSU - BeQuiet or Corsair 650W-700W £90

MoBo - GigaByte EX58-UD5 or Asus P6T Deluxe V2 £200

CPU - i7 920 D0 Stepping £220

Cooler - Thermalright Ultra 120 & 2 Fans £60

Memory - 6GB Corsair or OCZ DDR3 1600MHZ £70

GFX - ATi (Gainward) 4870 £140

HDD - Samsung Spinpoint F1 1TB £65

CD/DVD Writer £20

Total: £995

Any comments/advice would be extremely helpful,

Thanks,

Henry
 
I was going to go with a 4890 but then read that they're more noisy than the 4870s? I'd definitely go for a 4890 if it's pretty quiet and not too hot... any suggestions on make?

With regards to a Blu-Ray drive, I don't really need one at the moment as I have a PS3 if I need to watch Blu-Rays. I'll probably buy a blu-ray writer later in the year when the price drops a bit.
 
Very well thought out spec! :)

I agree about upgrading the graphics card, you do have a bit of space left in your budget!

Other than that, perfect! I'm assuming you already have peripherals etc?
 
Yeah I bought a 22" SyncMaster last year and have keyboard etc. I'm currently using a last-gen Black MacBook but it isn't really that good for what I need to do (Graphics etc...)
 
You should pay £10 more and get the powercolor 4890 it's really good.

Other than that it looks perfect.
 
OK, So i'm going to go with the XFX 4890. What are people's thoughts between P6T Deluxe V2 and the EX58-UD5? Was set to get the Gigabyte as it's more compatible with Leopard, the Asus has got a black PCB which will match the fortress' insides though...
 
They all seem about equal however the performance of the 4890 is amazing for £150.(sure the fan may be a bit noisy but who cares when you playing all games even Crysis very good?:p )

I am in the same boat as you, building new i7 pc aswell soon but just going for the standard P6T board which is £170 if i remember and probably http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HS-052-AK as my cooler.

Then you can maybe stretch to a 4870X2 but a 4890 is enough for 1920x1200 res gaming which i assume you are playing at?
 
Yeah I see what you mean about noisy fan when playing but I'm going to be using this machine for image editing and website editing so a noisy fan could prove to be quite irritating. Has anyone here used the Powercolor 4890/ XFX 4890 who can testify as to how noisy they are?
 
On the noisy fan front, I share your dislike for incredibly noisy graphics cards.

Upon reading up on it though, it seems that the fan speed on most of the graphics cards is adjustable. So, what you could do is lower the speed of the fan on the graphics card itself (which tend to be noisy), and buy a cheap 'quiet' fan for about a tenner, to blow on it as well.

I have just ordered a 4870 x2 and that is what I was planning to do anyway.
 
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