New build conundrum

solefald

solefald

solefald

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Joined
22 Aug 2011
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18
Hey all, I wanted to jump on here and ask your advice after lurking around here for a while.

What I have now:
E6750 @ Stock (Touchy mobo put a stop on OC'ing)
4gb OCZ DDR2 1066 mhz (2x2gb)
ATI 4890 1gig


I had £2000 for a new rig and nearly grabbed a 2600k rig but was convinced to wait and see what the next Intel release brings if I'm spending that sort of money. Problem is, some stuff that came up over summer has wiped out that budget and it’ll be at least early February until I can save that sort of cash back up (If I live extra-thrifty).

Something has just come to my attention though:
2 x Asus 768MB GTX 460 TOP edition graphics cards

1 x i7 920 D0 CPU, does 3.8ghz on low voltage
1 x Asus P6T Deluxe motherboard

1 x Corsair XMS3 6GB (3x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Triple Channel

Coming to a grand total of £378, second hand.

It's been looked after very carefully and has been run at cool temps in an air conditioned room. All of it also comes in original boxes with all original anti-static sleeves and all cables/extras.

What I'll be using it for: Gaming.

I have the following sat waiting to unlock on release:
Dead Island
Deus Ex 3
Spacemarine

I'm looking at BF3, Rage, Colonial Marine, Stalker 2, a couple of other high end games too.

So, verdict?

I’ll be throwing it all in a Cooler master HAF with a nice big PSU, a nice big cooler and lots of extra fans to help with the overclock.

Thanks in advance for any help.
 
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well, that lot would cost about £450-500 if you were buying it new, so if you can trust the seller and what he says about its condition and your desperate for an upgrade now then go for it.

however, you wont need anythng like £2000 for a decent computer, especially if you already have a coolermaster HAF case, a decent processor cooler and a decent PSU. even £1050 will get you 2x GTX 570's, an i5 2500k, 8GB RAM, a Z68 Gen3 motherboard and a 128GB SSD. assuming your PSU is a good brand 750W or better then there is very little reason to spend any more.

so, if you reckon you can save £1000 or so by the time you need an upgrade you can get the killer PC you were after. also, dont forget the ATI 7000 series of graphics cards and AMD bulldozer processors are coming out later this year, with Nvidias 600 series graphics cards coming up soon after that as well.

*edit*
actually, with less than £500 you could get a far superior i5 2500k and equivalent graphics cards brand new:

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - OEM £155.99
1 x MSI P67A-GD53 Intel P67 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard ** B3 REVISION ** £107.99
2 x OcUK GeForce GTX 460 768MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card - Bare OEM £85.99 (£171.98)
1 x Kingston HyperX Genesis Grey 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1600C9D3X2K2/8GX) £47.99
Total : £495.35 (includes shipping : £9.50).


thats not how i'd spend the £500 myself, but just a comparison of new vs old
 
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Thanks for the reply!

My post was a little unclear on the case/psu/cpu cooler situation: I'd need to buy that too.

As for being desperate for an upgrade: Yeah I kinda am. Lots of lovely gaming to be had in the next few months and my rig simply wont cut the mustard. I can play it, but it'll bring back horrible, horrible memories of attempting to play Doom 3 on a 9600 512mb.

I've looked at an i5 build but I'd much prefer an i7 based rig.

It's been a few months since I priced up the i7 rig I was looking at and the £1050 you've quoted there is a lot more apetising that the £2000 build I was looking at.

I was having a quick look and I price up the parts I'm looking at at a fair bit more than £450-£500 (GFX being £350 for the pair new). Where do you get your parts?

EDIT: Ban hammer avoidance
 
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there is almost no difference between the i7 2600k and i5 2500k in gaming:
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/288?vs=287

look at the FPS scores - 99% of games simply cant use hyper threading, which is the only difference between the i5 2500k and i7 2600k. if you were doing anything other than gaming and general use then an i7 2600k would be sensible, but if your just gaming the i7 2600k is a waste of money.

i didnt realise you'd also be buying the case and PSU and whatnot. if you were buying the tower and everything in it the most i would be able to justify spending on it would be roughly this:


YOUR BASKET
2 x MSI GeForce GTX 570 OC Twin FrozR III Power Edition 1280MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £254.99 (£509.98)
1 x Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £172.99
1 x MSI Z68A-GD65-G3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £159.98
1 x Crucial RealSSD M4 128GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive £156.98
1 x Cooler Master HAF X Gaming Tower Case - Black (RC-942) £145.99
1 x OCZ Z-Series 850W '80 Plus Gold' Power Supply £99.98
1 x Thermalright Silver Arrow CPU Cooler (Socket LGA1366/LGA1155/LGA1156/LGA775/AM2/AM3) £50.99
1 x Kingston HyperX Genesis Grey 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1600C9D3X2K2/8GX) £47.99
1 x Samsung SpinPoint F3 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (HD103SJ) £39.98
1 x LiteOn IHAS124-19 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £16.99
Total : £1,422.08 (includes shipping : £16.85).
this build has the tower and everything inside it for a gaming PC

after this you get to the point where you spend a lot of money for not a lot of extra performance
 
@Reaper 392

Cheers for the advice on the i5 rig. I'm not a big fan of the i5 but I did have another look at the build I had in mind, and it has dropped by nearly £600

I've updated what I was originally looking at:
i7 2600k
Asus Maximus IV Gene-z
8gb 1600mhz DDR3
GTX 590 3gb
XFX BE PSU
Dark Rock Pro cooler
SilverStone FT02B

£1399.33

and I'd slap in a 1tb HD I have in a caddy for a while till I save up a little more of an SSD.

But, again, this would take a fair while to save up for, especially seeing as how I have a handful of birthdays, special occasions and christmas to get in the way of the saving.

EDIT: Apparently I was going to travel in to the future and buy an 8 series Nvidia card...
 
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@Reaper 392

Damn. Where the hell do you shop?

Good point on the i5/i7 performance. I'd based it around a spec I'd seen and assumed the performance jump betwen i5 and i7 was similar to the early models.
 
i assume where you put the GTX 890 you mean the 590. i really wouldnt go for one of them because they are very loud, very hot, prone to overheating and slower than 2x GTX 570's in SLI because they have been downclocked so much in a failed attempt to stop the problems i have just stated.

you already know how i feel about the i7 2600k

case is fantastic. probably the best case on the market.

motherboard is very overpriced, especially since it is not full sized and doesnt have PCIe Gen 3 lanes

been hearing good things about the cooler, not sure exactly where it stands against the other top contenders, but ive been hearing good things about it

PSU is great too

*edit*
just seen your latest post. thats all from OcUK :)
 
need to read reviews on the SB i5, best gaming chip out at the moment ;).
get 2xgtx570, gtx590 is a waste of money as it runs quite hot.
get a Gen3 board to support Ivybridge and PCIe 3.0

Reaper's build is spot on, if you really wanted the e-peen then get dual gtx580s.
 
Right, level with me on this, because I get no end of "Just wait for X" or "If you wait another 4 months you can have Y".

If I save my cash till January/February and buy the rig you've outlined (with adjustments based on price changes and GFX releases), will I hover my finger over the checkout button and then be told that I'd be wasting money buying that build and I should buy some gear that is being release in Q2/3?

I don't mean that to come off as snappy or ungrateful, but it's the bane of my life trying to put together stuff like this, saving the money and being told to hold my horses. I end up in a never ending loop.
 
solefald said:
Right, level with me on this, because I get no end of "Just wait for X" or "If you wait another 4 months you can have Y".

If I save my cash till January/February and buy the rig you've outlined (with adjustments based on price changes and GFX releases), will I hover my finger over the checkout button and then be told that I'd be wasting money buying that build and I should buy some gear that is being release in Q2/3?

I don't mean that to come off as snappy or ungrateful, but it's the bane of my life trying to put together stuff like this, saving the money and being told to hold my horses. I end up in a never ending loop.
Click to expand...

thing is buy then might have new cards and ivybridge around the corner
but can upgrade either into that rig easily..
 
tbh, you wont be disappointed if you get the build Reaper specd now, with that rig you should be able to skip 2 generations of CPU/GPU, unless developers start making games with requirements the same as Metro 2033 :)
 
Not meaning offence and don't take this in an agressive way, but: There we have it.

I don't consider a new board and a CPU to be a small upgrade. And it would simply not be the case of waiting until January (I'm betting February/March in reality) for the new ivybridge stuff and then grabbing that. It's always a month before there's solid info showing if new tech is worth it, reliably solid info any ways.

I didn't upgrade to a Q6600, 6gb of ram and a pair of 9800gt's because I was told to wait for the i series. i series came, I see they might be worth it, I save the money: BOOM, wait for second gen. I save the money for second gen: BOOM wait for ivybridge.

It'll never end.

My worries about waiting for ivy is that the rough price for the chip I would probably want is something ridiculous like £1200. The cheapest chip being a crazy £450.

I'd have to play every release between now and most likey February on my rig (see first post) and it'll kill the experience of the games I have lined up.


EDIT: unnecessary profanity
 
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thing is theres always new stuff and you might as well upgrade at some point.
motherboard is fine..
graphics i would wait for new cards .. supposed to be better and very soonish
cpu.. buy 2500k will be great and only upgrade if you need to .. too an ivybridge in the same board..
 
The issue I have with popping an Ivy in the same board is that the board will be a crossover board. These things tend to be lower performance, less features and not the ideal platform for the latter of the two options available for the board.

Bit like the mistake I made buying the Asus P5KC DDR2/DDR3.
 
Back to Reapers suggestion:

I've not had a good opinion of MSI motherboards for quite some time now. I tend to see lots of people having issues with those boards.

What makes the 1 x MSI Z68A-GD65-G3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £159.98 superior?
 
what size/res monitor do you have? You don't need sli/xfire unless you have 2560x1440/1600 or 2/3monitors.

motherboard wise asus p8p67 pro/p8z68 v pro?
 
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