New Build

Quick Mustard

Quick Mustard

Quick Mustard

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Joined
7 Jun 2011
Posts
529
Morning All,

I intend to spend around £400 buying a few new parts for my PC, £450 being my ultimate cut off point.
I'd like to be able to play games at high settings as well.

I already have a HDD, a Case, a CPU Cooler, etc I just want a new:

GFX Card: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-074-GI
Mobo: No Idea
CPU: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CP-253-AM
RAM: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-290-CS

Now, Above are what I've come across and like the look of, but its been a long time since I built a PC and would like some advice as to what might work better.

I'm an AMD / Nvidia fan as well.


Any suggestions would be welcome as I'm looking to get the most out of my money for each component but also have them work together really well.
 
I would say this is what you could be looking at:


YOUR BASKET
1 x Gigabyte GeForce GTX 560Ti OC 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £179.99
1 x Asus Crosshair IV Formula AMD 890FX (Socket AM3/AM3+) DDR3 Motherboard £124.98
1 x AMD Phenom II X4 Quad Core 955 Black Edition "125W Edition" 3.20GHz (Socket AM3) - Retail £89.99
1 x Corsair XMS3 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMX4GX3M2A1600C9) £33.59
Total : £439.94 (includes shipping : £9.50).


I am guessing you want the other components soon so I won't say 'Wait for bulldozer', however I have included an AM3+ motherboard as when the new AMD processors come out it will be compatible with those too.


Edit: Looking back at the original post I noticed you wanted the 8gb of RAM instead of 4. If i put this into my spec it would take it over the £450 cut off point. As I would really recommend getting the AM3+ motherboard in order to make upgrading a much easier process in future. I would say if you need the 8gb to downgrade the GPU to a regular 560. What will the computer be primarily used for? Is it just gaming?. Just remember that adding another 2 sticks of RAM is easy later down the line but changing a graphics card can be expensive
 
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Either wait for bulldozer, or get a 2500k. It'll blow that out of the water.

Something like 2500k, MSI mobo, corsair xms ram should run about £300 leaving £150 for a decent card.
 
As lrlcr said, an i5 2500k really would be better than anything AMD can do at the moment and it is hard to second guess how good Bulldozer really will be for the price. If you are willing to go down the intel route I would suggest something like this:


YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - OEM £155.99
1 x Asus GeForce GTX 560 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £151.99
1 x Asrock Z68 PRO3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £105.98
1 x Corsair XMS3 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMX4GX3M2A1600C9) £33.59
Total : £458.35 (includes shipping : £9.00).
 
I know you said you are a AMD fan but here is a Sandy Bridge build which comes in at the top edge of your budget.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor £173.99
1 x Asus GeForce GTX 560 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £151.99
1 x MSI P67A-C45 Intel P67 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard - (Sandybridge) ** B3 REVISION ** £89.98
1 x Corsair XMS3 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMX4GX3M2A1600C9) £33.59
Total : £460.94 (includes shipping : £9.50).

For an extra £30 you can get this video card instead.

@ DJmartin - The CPU you picked is just the CPU so he would need a heat sink and cooler too ;) (edit - no the OP doesn't see further down).

Stoner81.
 
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If you guys reckon the 2400K will be better I'll go for that. I've only ever used AMD due to how popular they used to be and never really moved away from them.

So with you posted there DJmartin, what would I be able to run these games at:

Starcraft 2
BFBC2
Crysis 2


This is my current Heatsink: https://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HS-035-AR

Will that be sufficient enough?

and new ones coming out? High? Medium high?
 
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Frankly Sandy Bridge bitch slaps practically everything that AMD has out at the moment and with the above specs you will be able to play those games at medium-high settings depending on your screen resolution.

That cooler will be fine so you could drop £20 of the price of the spec I did for you and use the OEM one DJmartin linked to just remember to clean it properly and apply new thermal paste before putting it on your CPU ;)

Stoner81.
 
Stoner81 said:
@ DJmartin - The CPU you picked is just the CPU so he would need a heat sink and cooler too ;)
Click to expand...

He says in the first post he has a CPU cooler :p


And Quick Mustard, what resolution do you play at? The CPU will in no way limit you from playing all of those games on the highest settings, if you let me know what resolution I could tell you what kind of settings you should expect to use.

And yeah, the cooler should be fine.
 
DJmartin said:
He says in the first post he has a CPU cooler :p


And Quick Mustard, what resolution do you play at? The CPU will in no way limit you from playing all of those games on the highest settings, if you let me know what resolution I could tell you what kind of settings you should expect to use.

And yeah, the cooler should be fine.
Click to expand...

Yeah I noticed m8 I edited my post further up ;)

Anyway Quick Mustard here is an updated spec for you which now includes a tube of good thermal paste in case you don't have any.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - OEM £155.99
1 x Asus GeForce GTX 560 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £151.99
1 x MSI P67A-C45 Intel P67 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard - (Sandybridge) ** B3 REVISION ** £89.98
1 x Corsair XMS3 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMX4GX3M2A1600C9) £33.59
1 x Arctic Cooling MX-4 Thermal Compound (4g) £7.99
Total : £450.94 (includes shipping : £9.50).

Stoner81.
 
At that screen resolution you should be able to play anything on max settings with this new set up. I noticed you didn't include any thermal paste though in those 4 links so if you have some at home already then no need to worry but if you don't then you will need some ;)

Glad to help out :)

Stoner81.

EDIT - After double checking everything the motherboard that DJmartin linked looks like a better option because it clearly states that it supports the K series CPU's which have an unlocked multiplier for over clocking so if you can afford it then get that. If you are not bothered about having the unlocked multiplier for over clocking then the MSI board will be fine and can still be over clocked but not as much as the Asrock one ;)
 
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Stoner81 said:
At that screen resolution you should be able to play anything on max settings with this new set up. I noticed you didn't include any thermal paste though in those 4 links so if you have some at home already then no need to worry but if you don't then you will need some ;)

Glad to help out :)

Stoner81.
Click to expand...

Yea i just edited the old trolley to include that.
I have some here, but well, its about 3 years old and I would rather go for new stuff so I know its all new :D

Slightly over budget, but I'm not bothered, i expected to anyway! lol
 
I assumed you would have thermal paste if you already had an aftermarket cooler. On that resolution you should be able to play BFBC2 at 4x AA 16x AF, DirectX 11, Maximum Detail with over 60 fps. :p

Good luck
 
Right!

All ordered, before 12pm delivery for tomorrow!

Thank you guys! Really pleased with the speed and helpfulness of the replies I got here! :)

I always use Overclockers for buying but never really registered on the forums before, glad I did now!
 
Awesome buddy! Show us some piccys when you build it otherwise we may just have to come and find you lmao! (j/k) :)

Good luck with the build ;)

Stoner81.
 
Right!

I have put it all together and done a clean install, loving it so far!

I have one question though...

I have a Asus Multi card reader and for the life of me I cannot find where it needs to plug into on the board so that it works.

Any ideas?
 
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