New Build PC - Spec, Price and Compatiability

GastricTitan

GastricTitan

GastricTitan

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Joined
6 Aug 2007
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86
In the next couple of weeks, I am going to be building a new PC primarily for gaming, I DO have a budget of £1000, I've priced up (what I feel is) a decent setup and would really appreciate if somebody could please have a look at the components selected and make any alterations/additions. Please bear in mind I have a £1000 budget and have already gone over it by a little. Thanks for any input.

Processor
Intel Core 2 Duo E6550 "LGA775 Conroe" 2.33GHz £111.61

Motherboard
Asus P5K Deluxe WiFi Intel P35 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £146.86

Memory
GeIL 4GB (2x2GB) PC6400C5 800MHz Black Dragon DDR2 Dual Channel Kit £211.49

Graphics Card
Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT SILENT Heatpipe 512MB GDDR3 VIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) £234.99

Harddrive
Samsung SpinPoint T HD501LJ 500GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM £65.79

CPU Cooler
Akasa AK-961 CPU Cooler with Fan Controller (LGA775) £19.96

SOundCard
Creative X-Fi Xtreme Gamer Fatal1ty Professional 7.1 Soundcard - Retail £89.29

Case
Antec Nine Hundred Ultimate Gaming Case £68.14

Power Supply
OCZ GameXStream 600w Silent SLI Ready ATX2 Power Supply £64.61

DVD Drive
Samsung SH-183LBEBN 18x18 DVD±RW Dual Layer Serial ATA Lightscribe ReWriter (Black) - OEM £19.96

Keyboard & Mouse
Microsoft Wireless Optical Desktop 1000 Black - Retail (BV3-00007) £27.01

Paste
Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound (3.5g) £7.04




Total £1066.75
 
Quickly scanning your spec I would suggest looking at the Nvidia 8800 range of cards, ideally the 640Meg version.

Also of the top of my head there are cheaper 4gig RAM kits such as the G.Skill of the top of my head, the saving could be put towards the 8800 GPU.
 
Decent spec but if you wanna cut down the price slightly then maybe look at a different motherboard, one of the more cheaper P35 chipsets as unless you need all the features of it then its not worth spending that much on a motherboard.

Again if you wanna try shave a few pounds of the price then maybe get a cheaper soundcard such as the X-Fi Xtreme Music/Gamer soundcard which is almost half the price and still very good quality.
 
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SLi you are looking at the 680 or 650 chipset based motherboards, not sure which of themif any come with onboard WiFi.
 
Slinwagh said:
SLi you are looking at the 680 or 650 chipset based motherboards, not sure which of themif any come with onboard WiFi.
Click to expand...

I may be wrong, but i think the 650i motherboards only run SLi at 2x8 where as the 8800's need 2x16.


EDIT: Tbh the 2900xt is a good card and unless you can some how budget the GTX in then the 2900xt is fine, also the cheapest P35 Wifi motherboard i could find is the Asus P5K-E Wifi P35
 
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Thanks for the help guys, so If I was to have the Asus P5K-E Wifi P35 as opposed to the more expensive Deluxe version, it would all run together? And regarding an OS, is it logical for me to assume that I could stick with XP professional (legit OEM, never activated). As it's a system for gaming I have been hearing that XP out performs Vista and I didn't want to upgrade until it is a more established platform. Or should I just plump out for Vista 64bit.
 
You have to have a 64bit Operating System to fully recognise 4GB RAM.

Also your gonna be buying a DX10 card so i presume your be wanting to play in DX10 which needs Vista anyway and theirs a few DX10 games coming out fairly soon such as Bioshock.
 
I understand the need for DX10, but I know that Crysis will even support 9.0C. However, I was unware of 4gb of RAM and 64bit support. Thanks for bringing it to my attention. I have been reading though that purchasing Vista OEM's effectively lock the copy to one specific motherboard, meaning futher OEM purchases if the motherboard were to fail or is upgraded. I couldn't afford to by Vista retail -_-
 
System Spec Ver.2

Made a few changes due to several much welcome suggestions from people who have posted such as Motherboard, Soundcard, RAM and the addition of Vista 64bit. Anyone want to please give it a quick scan to just check that everything will run together?

Processor
Intel Core 2 Duo E6550 "LGA775 Conroe" 2.33GHz £111.61

Motherboard
Asus P5K-E WiFi Intel P35 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £129.24

Memory
G.Skill 4GB DDR2 PQ PC2-6400C5 (2x2GB) CAS5 Dual Channel Kit (F2-6400CL5D-4GBPQ) £176.24

Graphics Card
Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT SILENT Heatpipe 512MB GDDR3 VIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) £234.99

Harddrive
Samsung SpinPoint T HD501LJ 500GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM £65.79

CPU Cooler
Akasa AK-961 CPU Cooler with Fan Controller (LGA775) £19.96

SOundCard
Creative X-Fi Xtreme Gamer 7.1 Soundcard £52.86

Case
Antec Nine Hundred Ultimate Gaming Case £68.14

Power Supply
OCZ GameXStream 600w Silent SLI Ready ATX2 Power Supply £64.61

DVD Drive
Samsung SH-183LBEBN 18x18 DVD±RW Dual Layer Serial ATA Lightscribe ReWriter (Black) - OEM £19.96

Keyboard & Mouse
Microsoft Wireless Optical Desktop 1000 Black - Retail (BV3-00007) £27.01

Paste
Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound (3.5g) £7.04

OS
Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium 64-Bit Edition DVD - OEM - 1Pk (66I-00788) £64.61




Total £1042.06
 
Yeh looking good, but 1 more thing.

About the soundcard, i kno its slighty more expensive and labeled "Gamer" instead of Music and theirfore you would assume its better for gaming than the Xtreme Music but i bought mine like 3 weeks ago and after a few reviews etc i decided to go along with the Music edition even for gaming so might be worthit having a quick read and research which is better although their both good choices.

Might also if you are planning on Overclocking be worthit buying a slightly more beefier CPU Cooler such as the Tuniq Tower , amazing for its price and about £10-£15 more but totally worthit.
 
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Hey GastricTitan, hows this:

Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium 64-Bit Edition DVD - OEM - 1Pk
Intel Core 2 Quad Pro Q6600 "LGA775 Kentsfield" 2.40GHz (1066FSB) - Retail
Tuniq Tower 120 CPU Cooler (Socket 478/754/939/940/AM2/LGA775)
Asus P5K Intel P35 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard
Crucial Ballistix 2GB (2x1GB) DDR2 PC2-5300C3 667MHz Dual Channel Kit X2
Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT SILENT Heatpipe 512MB GDDR3 VIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail
Western Digital Caviar SE16 500GB 5000AAKS SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM
Samsung SH-183LBEBN 18x18 DVD±RW Dual Layer Serial ATA Lightscribe ReWriter (Black) - OEM
Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Music 7.1 Soundcard - OEM
Corsair HX 620W ATX2.2 Modular SLI Compliant PSU
Antec Nine Hundred Ultimate Gaming Case

Total : £1,057.30

Right if your spending that amount of money a Quad is a must if you ask me. You will be able to clock it to 3GHZ+ pretty easily.

The Tuniq Tower is a great CPU Cooler and will keep that Quad of yours nice and cool.

Asus P5K Intel is an exceelent board, very reliable and solid, the abilty to reach a high FSB with it aswell.

The Crucial Memory will hit 1000MHZ+ with ease. Brilliant stuff.

The HD2900XT a very nice card and should be able to play any game to date.

The Western Digital Hard Drive is very reliable and quite.

A SATA DVD Drive, now you can get rid of them big, fat, ugly IDE Cables.

The Soundcard will be quite a boost from onboard sound. You will hear things that you never thought were their. :p

The Corsair PSU is one of the best PSUs around, very reliable and quite too.

And finally the Antec case, not my cup of tea but will certainly do the job. :)

Sorry for totally re speciing you but you just have to get a Quad, if your spending that much. ;)
 
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wow, thanks for the post, i'll definitely give it much consideration. A quad core is definitely something that I would like to have as is 4gb of RAM, it will all come down to affordability at the end of the day. But I have a few weeks to get the funds so anything is possible aslong as I am sensible with spending.
 
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