New Build - Any Suggestions?

Ringlen

Ringlen

Ringlen

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2 Feb 2009
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12
Hi,
Building a new PC for a friend with a budget of £1500
Hoping to order in the next hour or two, so just a final check to see if any of you guys can recommend any last minute changes.

Any feedback is great - thanks :)

CPU
Intel Core i5 760 - This week only £138.16

MOBO
Gigabyte GA-P55A-UD5 - £149.99

RAM
Patriot Viper 2 Sector 5 4GB x 2 (8gb) - This week only £99.99 each

GPU
MSI GeForce GTX 460 Cyclone 1024MB x 2 SLI - £319.98 for both

HDD
Samsung SpinPoint F3 1TB x 3 - £43.99 each

Crucial RealSSD C300 64GB x 1 - For OS/Boot - £121.99

CASE
NZXT Phantom Enthusiast Full Tower Case - White - £119.99

PSU
Corsair HX 750W ATX Modular SLI Compliant £120.98

TOTAL = £1303.52

This build is purely for gaming - and occasional video editing/photo but not extreme. He also want's to be able to show off and 'brag' about it.

Any suggestions? Will be ordering within an hour :)
 
Your basketProduct Name Qty Price Line Total
Intel Core i7 930 2.80GHz (Bloomfield) (Socket LGA1366) - Retail £211.49
(£179.99) £211.49
(£179.99)
HIS ATI Radeon HD 6870 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card with FREE CODMW2 PC-Game £199.99
(£170.20) £399.98
(£340.40)
Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD3R Intel X58 (Socket 1366) DDR3 Motherboard £140.99
(£119.99) £140.99
(£119.99)
Patriot Viper 6GB (3x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C8 1600MHz Low Latency Triple Channel (PVT36G1600LLK) £109.99
(£93.61) £109.99
(£93.61)
OCZ Vertex 2E 60GB 2.5" SATA-II Solid State Hard Drive (OCZSSD2-2VTXE60G) £107.99
(£91.91) £107.99
(£91.91)
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-Bit - OEM (GFC-00599) £82.99
(£70.63) £82.99
(£70.63)
XFX 650W XXX Edition Modular Power Supply £69.99
(£59.57) £69.99
(£59.57)
Coolermaster CM-690 II Lite Dominator Case - Black £62.99
(£53.61) £62.99
(£53.61)
Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1.5TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (ST31500341AS) £57.99
(£49.35) £57.99
(£49.35)
Sony Optiarc AD-7260S 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £16.99
(£14.46) £16.99
(£14.46)
Sub Total : £1,073.52
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £10.50
VAT is being charged at 17.50% VAT : £189.70
Total : £1,273.72

plenty of bragging rights there.

did he need a copy of Windows? if not then its cheaper still.
 
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Not like you to add e-peen for the hell of it, Stulid! :) Would stick with the OP's i5 build myself as i7 adds nothing for gaming. I'd definately swap the 460's for 6850s though for the same price. Personally wouldn't spend that much on a case, but that's personal taste, and for this budget why not - and there's something I quite like about that white NZXT - I think it's the fact it looks like something straight out of Portal. Or a stormtrooper :). I'd spend less on the PSU and wouldn't bother with 8GB. Keep the savings, or bump up to 6870s, consider a nice keyboard/mouse, bluray etc etc.
 
I just checked on google, and Wow, I didn't realise how much better the 6870's in CF are.
Will be changing them now, thanks :)

I think i'll stick with the i5 build, despite the lack of upgradable in future, because of performance in games for price.

What PSU do you recommend? I've always trusted corsair as a brand and never had issues, but the price is pretty high I admit.

I agreed the case is expensive, but man it looks pretty, and he likes it too. After all, if it's the one he want's ^^

Yes he does need Windows, and a DVD drive *facepalm* that would have been embarrassing ordering it and forgetting those!

I thought why not get 8gb, for that price and performance! It is overkill tho, but he can brag about it lol

Thanks for suggestions.
 
stulid said:
but once a i7 reaches 4ghz its good bye i5.
Click to expand...

What when where how??

Anyway. Bigger SSD, Bluray, 6870s, keep your 8GB and that case (damn shame it's out of stock here:(), water cooler for your 4GHz overclock, Win7...

2x HIS ATI Radeon HD 6870 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card with FREE CODMW2 PC-Game £399.98
OCZ Vertex 2E Bigfoot 90GB 3.5" SATA-II Solid State Hard Drive £154.99
Gigabyte GA-P55A-UD5 Intel P55 (Socket 1156) DDR3 Motherboard £149.99
Intel Core i5 760 2.80GHz (Lynnfield) (Socket LGA1156) - Retail £138.64
NZXT Phantom Enthusiast Full Tower Case - White £119.99
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-Bit - OEM (GFC-00599) £82.99
2x Patriot Viper 2 Sector 5 4GB (2x2GB) PC3-12800C8 1600MHz Dual Channel Memory Kit £145.68
XFX 650W XXX Edition Modular Power Supply £69.99
Corsair H50-1 High-Performance CPU Watercooler (Socket LGA775/1156/1366/AM2/AM3) £62.99
Samsung SH-B083L/RSBP 8x BluRay ROM / 16x DVD±RW Drive - Black (Retail) £46.99
Samsung SpinPoint F3 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (HD103SJ) £43.99
Sub Total : £1,242.73
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £11.25
VAT is being charged at 17.50% VAT : £219.45
Total : £1,473.43
 
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stulid said:
since forever!! lol.

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/cpus/2010/03/01/intel-core-i7-930-cpu-review/7

look at the Intel Core i7-920 (4.08GHz) beating the Intel Core i5-750 (4.15GHz)

and there are more examples floating around the internet to show this too.

the fact that the i7 has hyperthreading and better memory bandwidth makes it faster at 4ghz or more than an equivalent i5 speed.
Click to expand...

Huh - you posted a link with 2 game tests. One the i7 wins and one the i5 wins. Barely any difference anyway??? Overclocked results have always looked the same as stock results to me in gaming. We already know hyperthreading and tripple channel memory give i7 the potential to push ahead, but also that this isn't seen in gaming. Not to an extent to make i7 worth the price, anyway, imho. But again, that's the same story stock or overclocked.
 
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Huh?? Another thread that mostly says i7 is no faster in gaming than i5, with results to prove, plus a couple of 'I bought an i7 so it must be amazing' statements from people suffering from severe confirmation bias :). HT, tripple channel RAM, 16x/16x x-fire/sli make naff all difference in games and dont justify the price difference (which is now even more than when that thread was made). This is old old news! Has stulid's account been hijacked - never heard this from you - you normally agree with reality/common sense! :p

Anyway - plenty of i5 vs i7 threads/tests - no need for a debate here. The OP seems to have the correct information anyway! Good luck with the build. Would like to see some pics of that case being built up :)
 
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it doesnt say that at all.

the users who have tried or own both say its worth the difference.

my argument is when the i7 is at 4ghz, it leaves the i5 behind at the same speed.

the bit-tech link has the i5 running at a slightly faster speed, I know i usually am a man of reason/reality/common sense but im bored.
 
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stulid said:
my argument is when the i7 is at 4ghz, it leaves the i5 behind at the same speed.
Click to expand...

Just not in games. In encoding type apps i7 performance scales ever so slightly better with OC % than i5. All very well known. This is a gaming rig though :)

I know i usually am a man of reason/reality/common sense but im bored.
Click to expand...

Time to get some DIY done then :) That's my instructions for the day anyway. Better get gone...
 
Liampope said:
Just not in games. In encoding type apps i7 performance scales ever so slightly better with OC % than i5. All very well known. This is a gaming rig though :)



Time to get some DIY done then :) That's my instructions for the day anyway. Better get gone...
Click to expand...

i was going to mow the lawn, but it chucked buckets down.

could clean the bathroom I suppose. ????????????????? nah.
 
Door handles. I suppose it is about time we hade some...

Sorry OP :) Er, PC hardware and stuff... buy buy buy. An i5. And I would like to see more pics of that case if/when you get it (cos 32 in the shop isn't enough).
 
Hmmmm measured up that case. By god it's HUGE!!!

Would need some serious desk-modding...

Naaaah shouldn't couldn't...
 
Liampope everytime i see you post its to build up the i5 and BASH the i7. its getting rather boring now. How do you know that games wont be using hyperthreading or triple channel memory soon? have you been back to the future again? the fact of the matter is that you got your i5 rig for next to nothing so fair play, but that doesnt mean it gives you the right to spec i5s all day long saying its enough for now, because these ppl r paying a hell of a lot more than wot u paid. you said it yourself the i7 has the "potential" to pull away even further. so in theory the ppl that buy i5s have the same potential wasting there money. the difference between an i5 and i7 is like around £200 you could maybe get it down a bit more. this is not a massive difference especially wen your looking to spend £1500 on a rig. if you have the money get the i7, who knows wot programs this guy will start using next week that uses hyperthreading and he will always have it locked and loaded wen games start to use it.

Add: why dont you add up all the hardware and stuff you have now at the prices on ocuk to see how much it comes to. i bet anymoney if you could rebuild you would rebuild with an i7. youll say u wouldnt but ud be lying because who wouldnt want a faster system for the same money?
 
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Yeah whatever jake :). I'm not bashing i7 - just relating well known FACTS about it and its platform :). It has it's benefits (which aren't exploited by the software I use and likely wont be - even when games heavily use more than 4-cores, i7's HT will be worth ~25% at best. Wow). I would have bought an i7 if there was a compelling reason for a mostly-gamer to do so. There wasn't and still isn't. In the future when i5 doesn't cut the mustard (a long time) I'll upgrade to the current tech which will be destroying both i5 and i7. I can fit an i7 8xx series to my mobo anyway as an intermediate upgrade if I need to, though I very much doubt it'll ever be worthwhile. Anyone who wants to buy themself an i7 purely for gaming is more than welcome to do so as far as I'm concerned. I'll just be chuckling slightly that their extra £150 or so has netted them a total of 0 FPS in gaming :p. £150 that could go on SSD space, GPU, peripherals, or a whole load more.

I'll leave it for the OP to decide, as should we all. L8rzzzzzzzz
 
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Try this m8, only £7 over budget but pretty darn amazing gaming system imo...

build7.jpg


Not only is that powerhouse an overclockers dream but it will look stunning and tear any game u put in it apart. Plus 120gb SSD is a must for a gamer imo (if u simply must have an SSD that is) as games are starting to get close to 20gb hell my steam alone wouldnt fit on a 60gb.

Drop Kaspersky and your in budget :), that was leftover from my own build!
 
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