new comp, boxed or build your own.

hargi

hargi

hargi

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19 Jul 2006
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i have had my comp for about 4 years now sort of built it myself with a little help.
its an AMD athlon xp 2500+ 1.83ghz, asus a7v8x-x. 1 gig ram 80gig hd NVidia Geforce FX5700LE think its 256mb.
I play a lot on flight sim but would like something that i can move to flightsimx with and for it to look nice, would be good to be able to play some new games to.
I dont have mega amount to spend but would like a decent set up. say around the £500 mark.
been having a look at the gaming systems overclockers offer would it be better to buy a ready made rig, or to build my own?
The only drawback with me building my own is the compatibility of the stuff, and to be honest its that long since i looked at getting a new computer i dont know what a good spec is.
TIA
 
Slightly over the budget but you could go for a smaller hard drive if necessary. I'm assuming here that you can re-use your existing keyboard, monitor, mouse and OS.

Gainward BLISS GeForce 8800 GT 512MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (4718462008927) £154.99
(£182.11) £154.99
(£182.11)
Intel Core 2 Duo E2180 "LGA775 Conroe" 2.00GHz (800FSB) - Retail £47.99
(£56.39) £47.99
(£56.39)
Pioneer DVR-212DBK 18x DVD±RW SATA Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM £16.99
(£19.96) £16.99
(£19.96)
Abit IP35 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £69.99
(£82.24) £69.99
(£82.24)
Antec NSK 6580 Super Midi Tower Case - 430W Earth Watts PSU £57.99
(£68.14) £57.99
(£68.14)
OCZ 2GB (2x1GB) PC2-6400C4 Dual Channel Platinum Revision 2 XTC Series DDR2 (OCZ2P800R22GK) £29.99
(£35.24) £29.99
(£35.24)
Western Digital Caviar SE16 400GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (WD4000AAKS) £44.99
(£52.86) £44.99
(£52.86)
Sub Total : £422.93
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £10.95
VAT is being charged at 17.5% VAT : £75.93
Total : £509.81
 
would i be able to run everything on hige detail with that and get nice frame rates, yeah i will be reusing keyboard mouse monitor ect.
Would that power supply be ok? just i have a 600w in my currewnt one as i had problems with it crashing?
 
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The system above is pretty decent, you should be able to run high detail with most new games (barring probably Crysis as from what I've heard that cripples anything) although you will have to overclock the CPU to get the best from it.

The PSU is fine, you don't need anything more powerful for that system at the moment. :)
 
with that card : the special card in my book as its power usage is so well nothing like compared with my x1950pro. that thing eats psus for breakfast.

but yes it does seem a fine rig suggested.

but i do wander ... would he or she prefer a case such as the antec nine hundred.
 
Cheers,
I know theres other threads on it, but how easy would it be to overclock that? what whould i be able to get it to, and will i need any more kit to do that?
 
semi-pro waster said:
The system above is pretty decent, you should be able to run high detail with most new games (barring probably Crysis as from what I've heard that cripples anything) although you will have to overclock the CPU to get the best from it.

The PSU is fine, you don't need anything more powerful for that system at the moment. :)
Click to expand...

That system overclocked will run crysis on "High" up to 1680x1050 with no AA and with a special CFG will be able to run on "Very High" settings with the performance of high.
 
Just before i order this if i have a bit more money to spend how much more ram could i put in there? another OCZ 2GB (2x1GB) PC2-6400C4 Dual Channel Platinum Revision 2 XTC Series DDR2 (OCZ2P800R22GK) £29.99
(£35.24) £29.99
Also if i was to get windows Vista which version do i need home basic or premium and 32 or 64 bit?
Would it be worth upgrading the case or would i be better off putting that money to a new monitor?
Would i need any more fans and cooling stuff?
Last question when do you need to order before to get next day delivery
 
It might be worth changing the Ram to Geil PC6400 C4 for two reasons, one the Geil is cheaper and two apparantly OCZ Ram and Abit motherboards are occasionally a little bit temperamental due to the voltages (Abit starts at 1.8v and the OCZ requires 2.0v), it is an easy fix but it is another thing to be aware of. It wasn't something I learned of until after recommending that system, it ought to still work but may be a little bit more hassle.

If you are getting Vista then the 64bit version would be the one to go for because you can then access all 4gb of Ram.

It should be easy to overclock but take a look in the Overclocking sub-forum there are threads and guides in there and the people know a lot more than I do about it.

Finally the cut off time for next day delivery varies depending on how busy OcUK are it appears but ordering sometime before 2pm is usually a fairly safe bet.
 
cheers semi,
so with that ram would i havr to get 2*2gb or could i get 4*1gb?
could you let me know which i need? thanks,
 
2x2gb would be better overall in that it would allow you to upgrade further in the future and might be slightly better for overclocking. However it does cost a little bit more still for a 4gb kit but if you can't stretch to it then it probably won't make much of a difference. :)
 
cheers will go with the 4 sticks any difference between the black dragon version and the other apart from the extra £5
 
The Black Dragon appears to accept less of a range of voltage input than the ordinary PC6400 C4, I don't know much about Ram but I don't think it will make much of a difference to you between them so I'd go with the cheaper of the two.
 
cheers, ordered for tommorow, will let you know how i get on.
Dunno about overclocking it though, will it run everything fine without it? got 4 gig ram.
just reading through the guide it seems complicated
 
Feel a bit dumb asking this got most of it built now but having trouble with the fans, got my artic cooling freezer 7 pluged in to the cpu fan socket on the mb. the fan on the back of the case just conects to the big 4 pin connector on the power supply, now i have 3 fans left 2 on the front of the case that i want to suck air in, they have a small 3 pin connector and one that looks like it goes into the powersupply 4 pin connector do i need to connect both the 3 pins into the mother board and the other lead into the powersupply??
then im going to have another fan mounted on the side inline with the artic cooler heat sink, do i need this to be blowing air in to the case or sucking it out?
TIA

EDIT also with 4 gig ram do i have to install 2gig first then install vista 32 do the patch then install the other 2 gig?
 
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You should be able to connect either/or, it won't matter whether it is connected to the motherboard or directly to the PSU as a pass-through but I wouldn't connect both.

I'd have the one inline with the CPU cooler sucking the air out.
 
cheers,
right eerything in now, but i have noticed now i have the GFX card in that the connections on there are
inputnu2.png

I take it my really old CTR monitor wont work with this?
 
hargi said:
cheers,
right eerything in now, but i have noticed now i have the GFX card in that the connections on there are
inputnu2.png

I take it my really old CTR monitor wont work with this?
Click to expand...

That would be correct I would imagine it has a 15 pin VGA connector in which case you need a DVI to VGA converter. Not too sure if OC do them but you can find em easily enough with a search :)
 
hargi said:
cheers,
right eerything in now, but i have noticed now i have the GFX card in that the connections on there are
inputnu2.png

I take it my really old CTR monitor wont work with this?
Click to expand...

Nope but you may have gotten a DVI to VGA adaptor in the box and if not you should be able to pick one up quite cheap
 
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