new Build Spec Advice Please!

[Muel]

Hey, I'm looking to spend about £550 on a new system, no more really! I've come up with a spec that I'm pretty happy with, but I was wondering what you guys thought? It doesn't really need to be a rocket ship, but as always the faster the better!

This is a complete new build, so if I've missed anything off, please let me know!

COMPONENT NAME PRICE
MOTHERBOARD: Asus P5QL Pro £63.71
GPU: Sapphire ATI Radeon 4670 1gb DDR3 £55.12
CPU: Q8400 £124.75
HDD1: Maxtor STM3250318AS 250GB Hard Drive SATAII 7200rpm 8MB Cache £28.98
HDD2: Samsung HD103SJ Spinpoint F3 1TB Hard Drive SATAII 7200rpm 32MB Cache £55.95
RAM: Corsair XMS2 DHX 4gb (2x2gb) £42.99
PSU: OCZ ModXStream 400w Silent PSU £42.30
CASE: Antec 300 Three Hundred Black Case £45.59
OPTICAL: Samsung SH-S223 22X DVD±RW/RAM/DL Serial ATA Black Bare Drive £16.21
SOUND CARD: Creative Sound Blaster Audigy SE 7.1 OEM PCI Soundcard £21.52
CPU FAN: Scythe Mini Ninja Socket 478/775/754/939/940/AM2 Heatpipe Cooler £26.82

£523.94


I had thought about going for an I5 or I7 setup, but it look like it would push me way over budget for similar level stuff in the new standards.

Few things I'm wondering about right now are:

Would the PSU listed be powerful enough?

Is the graphics card a good match for the rest of the setup?

Is this CPU fan any good? Ideally I want to overclock it in the future, but at the start I'll probably just leave it be.

Could so with some advice about case fans aswell? I don't know how many to get, what size and 3pin/4pin.

Cheers in advance guys! (Y)

 

[Muel]

Thanks for the input!

I hadn't thought about going AMD really, I've always wanted Intel really, just purely a personal preference more than anything!

I'll look more into going i5 or i7 later, but just from looking this morning it was looking like I was going to have to overspend by at least £100.

 

[Muel]

Aye, thats a very valid point!

I think I'm now going to take your advice, for a Q8400 powered machine with all the old standards, it will cost about the same as the AMD spec you provided, which looks about right, although i think I might change a couple of things.

Cheers for the advice! I shall doctor your spec slightly and report back.

 

[Muel]

Whats the system for?

If its primarily for gaming then choosing a slower or tri-core CPU and a faster graphics card would be a good idea.

However, if it is mainly for CPU intensive tasks then Kenny's spec is spot on, there is nothing intel-wise that can touch it in that price bracket.

Not so much in the way of gaming really, I **** about on San Andreas on the odd occasion, but mostly I just watch videos, programming, web design and that. It's looking like in the future I'll be doing some decent video editing though so it will need to handle that.

The main thing for me is future proofing though, If I'm spending £70 on a CPU now, I'd rather spend £150 and make it last longer!

----

Right, question time:

What would be the best thermal paste to use?

Should i stick with the motherboard in Kennysevenfold's spec? (This one). Just there's an offer on this week on This one which has the 790X chipset over the 785G.

If I get the Ram kenny suggested, would it be possible to up it to 8GB if I needed to? Doubt I will, just I will be running a 64 bit OS on it so I might feel at some point in the future that it needs to be done!

Which OS would you recommend? I can get either Windows 7 or XP 64 through Uni for free. Can get Vista aswell, but I hate it.

The cost is now over £625, would really rather it didn't get much more, thats half my student loan until just after christmas!

 

[Muel]

You would be mad to start a new build when AM3 and ddr3 parts are so cheap atm, You got to have some cash to stick with Intel IMHO. either save a little more for i5 or just get the new 965 AMD its not that far off the intels performance/price wise

Cheers for the advice dude! I think I will go for the AMD now, seems you get more bang for your buck where they're concerned! I don't mind if it's not as powerful as an i7 920, I just want it to be as fast as it can be for my rough budget. That Q8400 machine I specced up cost about £450, seems daft not to go with all the new standards now I look at it!

 

[Muel]

Is it worth going for the newer chipset though? In case I decide it needs upgrading at some point during the future?

I probably will overclock it in the future, but not until it's "run in".

I was leaning towards Windows 7, seeing as I'm be moving up from the old P4 into the new age, it's probably a good idea to upgrade the OS too.

 

[Muel]

Oh right, in that case I'll probably go for the board that Kenny suggested. but then again, it's only £13 more and you don't have to overclock the ram to get it to 1600mhz. Also it says they're both 45nm?

Coolers already added into the current spec.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HS-000-TQ

 

[Muel]

Looks like the 785G board actually has more features aswell, I'll be getting that one then!

Have updated the spec with that cooler aswell, thanks very much for your advice!

----

I think this is the last thing to address, what shall I do about case fans? I don't know anything about them really, on my current machine I've got one 4 pin one, and the CPU fan. I've heard the Antec 300 is a good choice where air flow is concerned, but I don't actually know anything about air flow?

 

[Muel]

OK finished spec! I just looked at how many empty places for fans the case had and added them in. It's gone a good wack over budget, but never mind.

AMD Phenom II X4 Quad Core 965 Black Edition 3.40GHz (Socket AM3) £159.99
Corsair TX 650W ATX SLi Compliant Power Supply (CMPSU-650TXUK) £72.99
Asus M4A785TD-V Evo AMD 785G (Socket AM3) PCI-Express DDR3 Motherboard £70.99
G.Skill Ripjaw 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit £66.99
Samsung SpinPoint F3 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - £58.98
Samsung SpinPoint F1 320GB SATA-II 16MB Cache £34.99
Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 4670 1024MB DDR3 PCI-Express Graphics Card £57.99
Antec 300 Three Hundred Ultimate Gaming Case - Black (No PSU) £45.99
Titan TTC-NK85TZ Fenrir CPU Cooler (Socket 754/939/940/AM2/LGA775/LGA1366) £33.99
Sony Optiarc AD-5240S 24x DVD±RW SATA Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM £16.99
Arctic Cooling MX-3 Thermal Compound £6.99
3x Xilence XPF120R Red Wing 120mm Quiet Fan (£6.89) £20.67

Sub Total : £563.09
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £12.50
VAT is being charged at 15% VAT : £86.34
Total : £661.93

 

[Muel]

The antec 300 is a nice case, however it doesn't come with any front intake fans (though it does include a pair of exhaust fans). My suggestion would be to add one of these fans to provide intake airflow.

Without a power hungry GPU or much overclocking, that should be perfectly sufficient. However, if you want a very quiet system,you will want to look at replacing all case fans with quiet fans and a fan controller, this and this are very good - but certainly not required for your build.

Cheers for the advice yet again mate!

I looked in the description on Overclockers, it says:

- 1 rear 120 x 25 mm TriCool™ Fan with 3-speed switch control.
- 1 top special 140 x 25 mm TriCool™ Fan with 3-speed switch control
- 2 front (optional) 120 mm fans to cool the hard drives
- 1 side (Optional) 120 x 25 mm Fan to cool graphic cards

I've added 3 into the spec, two for the front and one for the side. Should be enough I hope!

My only worry is, how many sockets do they put on motherboards for fans these days? My current one has 1 3pin socket for a case fan, then one other for the CPU.

On another website, I found this:

1 x CPU Fan connector
1 x Chassis Fan connectors
1 x Power Fan connector

I've no idea what the difference between a Chassis Fan and a Power Fan is though? The fans you suggested are 4 pin aswell though, do people still use 4 pin much or would it be a better idea to get a fan controller? Or just use it on 4 Pin and if I feel it's too loud, get a fan controller then?

 

[Muel]

That all sounds fine, do the two already supplied with the case connect straight to the PSU then if they've already got there own controllers?

I was planning on leaving the standard fans in and filling the 3 empty spaces aswell, is it really necessary to have 3 more with this set-up? I will be overclocking at some point, but not when it's new.

 

[Muel]

OK cheers, think I'll just get the one, get it running and if I decide it needs OCing, I'll get another two.

I think that's everything sorted now, pretty sure I'm ready to order!

For anyone whos interested, here's the finished spec. Thanks to all who've helped, you've done an admirable job!

AMD Phenom II X4 Quad Core 965 Black Edition 3.40GHz (Socket AM3) £159.99
Corsair TX 650W ATX SLi Compliant Power Supply (CMPSU-650TXUK) £72.99
Asus M4A785TD-V Evo AMD 785G (Socket AM3) PCI-Express DDR3 Motherboard £70.99
G.Skill Ripjaw 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit £66.99
Samsung SpinPoint F3 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - £58.98
Samsung SpinPoint F1 320GB SATA-II 16MB Cache £34.99
Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 4670 1024MB DDR3 PCI-Express Graphics Card £57.99
Antec 300 Three Hundred Ultimate Gaming Case - Black (No PSU) £45.99
Titan TTC-NK85TZ Fenrir CPU Cooler (Socket 754/939/940/AM2/LGA775/LGA1366) £33.99
Sony Optiarc AD-5240S 24x DVD±RW SATA Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM £16.99
Arctic Cooling MX-3 Thermal Compound £6.99
Xilence XPF120R Red Wing 120mm Quiet Fan £6.89
Zalman Fan Mate 2 Fan Controller £3.44

If there's anything I've forgotten, now would be a wonderful time to let me know.

Once again cheers guys. (Y)

 

[Muel]

I am thinking that maybe I will end up with a more powerful GPU in the future, I'm not really into gaming at the moment, but seeing as I'll have a decent spec computer soon it'll probably be worth having a dabble.

Have updated the DVD drive though, thanks for everything dude! Time to get ordering...

 

[Muel]

Double post...