New build, spec me!

DiCe!

DiCe!

DiCe!

Soldato
Joined
1 Sep 2007
Posts
5,416
Ok so at the moment i have:

Antec900
e6700
8800GTS
2 gigs ddr2 random memory.
and soem god forsaken EVGA Mobo that has been nothing but a problem.

I have a new case in the works that i will be modding.

This leaves me with 600ish great british pounds to play with. im not to bothered about the graphics card at the moment as it runs MW2 and black ops just fine, so im really looking for a mobo, cpu and ram.

must be compatable, good makes etc that wont **** me around like the EVGA board has.

what would you reccommend?

PS i may be looking at a CPU watercooling kit to, but not to sure atm.
 
If its just for gaming then somethign like this would be good

Intel Core i5 760 2.80GHz (Lynnfield) (Socket LGA1156) - Retail £144.98
Asus P7P55D-E Intel P55 (Socket 1156) DDR3 Motherboard £103.99
Corsair XMS3 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMX4GX3M2A1600C9) £61.09
Titan Fenrir Evo CPU Cooler (Socket LGA775/LGA1156/LGA1366/AMD K8/AM2/AM2+/AM3) £35.99
Sub Total : £294.51
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £9.50
VAT is being charged at 17.50% VAT : £53.20
Total : £357.21

Which leaves you plenty to play with, a nice 470 would still be a big upgrade over the 8800 and tehyre a really good price atm, youd also still be under budget
 
Looks good, but would it future proof it for a bit? as the system i have now, when i got it set me back a fair wack and has lasted me well, would like to do the same here if possible. also will probs get a new GFX at christmas ;) ill keep this in mind but go crazy with it :D

many thanks for the quick reply
 
what model is your psu?

That I5760 is a quality piece of kit and will sort your gaming needs out. Anything like an i7 would be overkill simply for gaming due to pricing.

The AM3 option may be a good way for you to go if your overly worried about futureproofing. A chip like the Phenom II 955 or 965 will work very well for gaming. Then in the future you could pop in a hex core Phenom II 1090T. But we are talking a way off as many games are still only utilising dual core and only some have jumped to quad core.
 
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-132-AN&groupid=701&catid=123&subcat=1088

i believe its that 1, or maybe the old antec 1000 but it LOOKS like that one :P must admit i just got it because i knew i wouldnt have to upgrade it,

im still looking i7 as then i wont be back here in 2 years needing to upgrade again, and if i get a very good mobo that supports the next chipset again i wont be back upgrading that. i was AMD for years then swapped to intel with the e6700 because it was so much better than what AMD offered at the time but since then i havnt really kept up with the tech.

as no one seems to want to spent my money :P what would be THE BEST i could get for £600? even if it is complete overkill :P
 
THE best would still be the above, i7 offers v little over i5 for gaming, and only then is it when youre looking at xfireing/SLiing 2 top end cards, even then its only a few % increase, really not worth it imo, for single card set ups i5 actually outperforms i7 by a few %, plus its cheaper, if you want to spend £600 get the above i5 set up with a new gfx such as the 470, if youve still got a bit left over chuck in a SSD
 
To be honest, if you are mainly gaming - an i7 is no faster than an i5 (700 series) in the majority of games. In fact in some games the i5 is slightly faster (due to more agressive turbo boost and onboard PCIe controller). However, the difference is pretty small - usually we just say that i5 and i7 are just as good as each other for gaming.

The main bebenfits i7 has over i5 hyperthreading and the X58 chipset. Hyperthreading can give a performance boost of up to ~25%. However, most current games are not coded to make use of the extra virtual cores this provides - so there is no performance boost in modern games due to this. The X58 chipset supports features like triple channel memory (of no benefit to gamers) and dual PCIe x16 PCIe crossfire/SLI, but this this is only of benefit if you use multiple graphics cards, and even then the performance boost is only 2-3% vs dual PCIe x8 crossfire/SLI offered by many P55 boards.

As for suporting future CPUs/chipsets - the current i5 and i7 nahalem-based intel systems are pretty much at the end of the line in terms of upgrades. The X58 can support westmere hex cores, but these cost close to a grand and the price isn't likely to drop any time soon. The next intel platform is called "sandy bridge" which will be out at the start of next year. This platform will not be compatible with current i5 and i7 CPUs and sandy bridge CPUs will not work in current s1156 or s1366 motherboards.
 
Righto, that sounds like a plan :D

That mobo any good then? GFX i know a fair bit about but mobos always seem to blow up or just not work on me :P
 
OK so,

looking like ill go for the i5, can someone explain to me why
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CP-329-IN&groupid=701&catid=6&subcat=1672

is pricier than
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CP-339-IN&groupid=701&catid=6&subcat=1672

mobos ive never used MSI before as linked above, but have used ASUS and had problems with their striker, so not to sure there

was liking the look of this CPU cooler
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HS-072-AK&tool=3

but was also thinking of the corsair watercooling
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=WC-002-CS&groupid=701&catid=57&subcat=1395

ill go for the GFX upgrade as i will have the cash spare.
 
The first CPU you linked to is dual core, with hyperthreading and an onboard graphics core. The second CPU is a true quad core with no hyperthreading or onboard graphics core. In pretty much every situation the i5 760 (second one) is the faster, better chip. The reason the i5 655K is more expensive is because it has an unlocked multiplier (for even simpler overclocking), on balance the i5 760 is still the better chip and is easy to overclock (even with a locked multiplier).

The reason I picked that MSI is because it can run two graphics cards at x8x8 PCIe speed (in SLI or crossfire) while the ASUS P7P55D-E can only run two at x16x4 speed - which is much worse. So if you plan on using dual graphics cards in the future, then the MSI is a solid board, but if you don't plan to do this then the ASUS board is a good one.

As for cooling, the Akasa one is great. The cooling of the H50 will be about on-par with the akasa but it costs more, the money would be better spent towards a new graphics card or SSD imho.
 
Ok thanks for the help :D does the msi offer an onboard overclock like the asus?

im not really looking to run two graphics, im always more likely to just buy a bigger faster card haha, know what im going for now i think ill place the order tonight or tomorrow :D
 
Yea, the MSI genie is actually supposed to be pretty good. But it really doesn't compare to a proper BIOS overclock which I strongly recommend doing instead of an automatic overclock.

If you don't plan on using two cards then ASUS looks like your best option.
 
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