New Build, Advice Appreciated

Bablos

Bablos

Bablos

Associate
Joined
19 Oct 2002
Posts
139
Location
Liverpool, UK
Hi There...

It's time for me to build a new main PC, and as such my existing machine will be my backup. The only item I'm likely to keep is the case, as I've got a spacious Akasa Eclipse-62 to put the new build in, and I can migrate current components into a spare case.

New build would be used for gaming, general life stuff.

I was looking at an i7 based machine with a 5870 and 6GB RAM for starters. I'd go with an SSD boot drive, and probably a 1GB drive for everything else. I'd want SATA III and USB 3.0 support.

I've never overclocked before, and I've read some mixed thoughts on the i7 OcUK bundles, so I'm not sure whether to opt for that or just start out at stock for now. Feel free to calm my fears!

I want the build to be cool and quiet, but also be able to offer up enough grunt when it's needed.

I've no idea what the best kind of coolers and PSUs there are these days either.

Not sure on price (yeah, this is pretty vague), as I'm after a good monitor too, so I'd probably limit myself to £1500 all in. I've more or less decided on a Samsung PX2370 for the monitor though, which cuts through best part of £300 of the budget.

Any suggestions or pointers?
 
If I had £1200 to blow I'd go for something like:

spec1200.png


It's good to learn how to overclock yourself :) rewarding experience when you manage to get an extra 50-70% speed out of your CPU!

If you need to fit Windows 7 in to the budget you could probably swap the graphics card for the 5850 and still get excellent frame rates at 1080p resolution.
 
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Yeah, I forgot that I'll need to factor in Windows 7 too.

I don't mind creeping past that figure - monitor is just an extra expense, so it's unfair to let it impose on the system overall. My 19" Vision Master Pro just doesn't hack it any more.

I've had bad experiences with Antec PSUs in the past, so I'd probably go for the likes of a Corsair HX or BeQuiet! - put one of the latter into a build for my girlfriend last year, and the thing is a work of art :)
 
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The Corsair and BeQuiet! PSUs are very similarly priced around the 700/750W range here on OcUK, so not so bad.

As for why that monitor? I'm a sucker for good looks, I wanted an LED backlit display, and I'd checked out some reviews and various sites dedicated to monitors.
 
Redmint said:
It's good to learn how to overclock yourself :) rewarding experience when you manage to get an extra 50-70% speed out of your CPU!
Click to expand...

I'm sure it is, but I really wouldn't know where to start, and I'd be scared stiff of frying something in the process.

Hence me considering the overclocked bundles, give someone else the job, but then I wouldn't want to run into problems there either as I've seen with both bundles and systems lately via the forums.

My last build for my girlfriend was based around an OcUK overclocked Phenom II bundle, and that's been stable since build, and I realise that different chips behave in different ways. Just adds to my indecision :confused:
 
Well if you went with the AM3 option it would still be very fast in games and save you a fair bit of money. Overclocking AMD black edition CPUs is also pretty straightforward from what I understand (bump up the multiplier and cpu voltage until you're happy). If you read a few guides, ask on here for advice and take it slowly it's relatively unlikely you'll fry your CPU. I think I read a post on here a while back from someone who tried setting everything on max, all volts and frequencies in the BIOS on his i7 just to test what would happen. The motherboard safety features just kicked in and it refused to boot. It then happily auto set everything back to stock settings and turned on without any problem.
 
I'd rather stick with the Intel route, hence me deciding on the i7. Overclocking is a complete mystery to me, even checking out the beginners guide and some of the forum threads helping people out, so I've clearly got a lot to learn.

I would've happily shelled out for an overclocked bundle direct from OcUK if I could find plenty of happy happy threads about the i7 bundles - at least then I'd have the work done for me and it warrantied just in case.

I just don't fancy a never ending cycle of reapplying thermal paste, reseating heatsink, run lots of tests. Rinse, repeat...

By all means give me a kick if I'm just being a whiney overclocking virgin :p

How is the Corsair H50-1 when it comes to overclocking, and how much does noise tend to become an issue when overclocked?

Despite my initial plans regarding my Akasa Eclipse-62 case, it's spacious, yet it doesn't have that many fan mountings - 120mm rear, 120mm front. Am I likely to want a more appropriate case too?

Oh, and another odd question - do Intel based motherboards have anything along the lines of cool'n'quiet that I've seen on AMD based systems? How would such a thing work with an overclocked system?

Thanks for everyone's comments, and sorry about the never ending questions!
 
+1 for Redmint's build

Overclocking an i7 is pretty easy, and there are a ton of resources about how to do it. Use google, you should get a pretty good idea of what to do. And, if you get stuck, or just want to check something, the guys on this forum are always helpful.
 
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