New Comp

Mippie

Mippie

Mippie

Associate
Joined
19 May 2006
Posts
83
hey,

im planning on building a new rig, now i have built all of my comps to date, but my comp is currently 4 years old so i am out of date with components. could you guys give me any suggestions as to what i should be looking at?

The computer will be both a gaming rig and a work rig, so im thinking of an SLI board but other than that i dont know whats good now and whats not. A good benchmark for the sort of power i want would be playing BF2 high settings with no lag. im running on XP so i need a quite good processor to cope with the 101 processes opened by XP. Dont worry bout cases or disk drives, i know a bit about that :). any suggestions will be welcome.

ps. price is prob £1500 at the most.

ty in advance
 
For £1500 you should be able to pick up a very nice system :)

I'd look at something like this:

Athlon dual core X2 processor
Asus SLi motherboard
2GB ram
GF 7900GT
Western Digital Raptor (for windows)
300GB/400GB drive (for storage)
16X dual layer DVD-RW
etc

Not sure if you need a monitor aswel but its worth going for a 20" widescreen or 24" if budget allows ;) im sure some of the guys will be along shortly to price things up properly for you!
 
Welcome to the forums, do you only need the PC itself or do you need monitor, keyboard and software as well? If you want a full specification then I'm sure someone can do one for you otherwise e36Adz has given you a few good ideas to start with :)
 
ty for the quick reply, i already have a lcd x-black 19" monitor and i already have software and mouse and keyboard. keep them coming.
 
I'd be struggling to make a system costing £1,500 without going slightly overboard, you could easily get another 19" monitor into the budget I suppose though. This system should do and allows potential to go SLi in the future should that appeal, it ought to overclock pretty well also. I haven't gone for totally top-end parts as I don't see the point in most cases, this is more of a 'bang-for-buck' system :)

CA-005-AK Akasa Eclipse-62 Aluminum Case (CA-005-AK)
£69.95 £69.95
CA-008-TG Tagan TG530-U15 530W ATX2.01 Easycon SLi Compliant Modular Silent PSU (CA-008-TG)
£61.95 £61.95
CD-033-NE NEC ND4571 16x16 DVD±RW Dual Layer LabelFlash ReWriter (Black) - OEM (CD-033-NE)
£24.95 £24.95
HD-015-WD Western Digital Raptor 74GB WD740GD 10,000RPM SATA 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-015-WD)
£92.95 £92.95
HD-070-WD Western Digital Caviar SE16 320GB 3200KS SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD-070-WD)
£69.95 £69.95
GX-078-LT Leadtek GeForce 7900 GTX 512MB GDDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-078-LT)
£269.95 £269.95
CP-148-AM AMD Opteron UP 170 Dual Core San Diego 2.0GHz 2MB Cache (Socket 939) - Retail (CP-148-AM)
£249.95 £249.95
MB-013-DF DFI LanParty UT NF4 SLI-D (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-013-DF)
£94.95 £94.95
MY-000-MK Mushkin 2GB DDR XP4000 Extreme Performance Dual Channel Kit (2x1GB) CAS3 (991483) (MY-000-MK)
£139.95 £139.95
Subtotal £1,074.55
Shipping (City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)) £10.95
VAT £189.97
Total £1,275.47
 
Nice large budget there considering you don't need anything outside the case. But, I guess you need something that will last you another 4-years so, here goes nothing:
  • DFI LanParty UT CFX3200-DR RD580 Crossfire (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-019-DF) £139.95
  • Corsair 2GB DDR XMS3200C2PT TwinX (2x1GB) CAS2 (MY-079-CS) £119.95
  • HIS Excalibur ATI Radeon X1900 XT-X ICEQ 3 SILENT Heatpipe 512MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-052-HT) £314.95
  • Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 320GB ST3320620AS SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD-078-SE) *2 £119.90
  • Samsung SH-W163 16x16 DVD±RW Serial ATA Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) (CD-076-SA) £24.75
  • Lian-Li PC-7 PLUS Black Aluminium Midi-Tower Case (No PSU) (CA-054-LL) £48.95
  • AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4800+ (Socket 939) - Retail (ADA4800CDBOX) (CP-129-AM) £364.95
  • FSP Sparkle FX700-GLN Epsilon 700W ATX2.0 PSU (CA-001-SK) £89.95
  • Subtotal £1,223.35
  • Shipping (City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)) £10.95
  • VAT £216.01
  • Total £1,450.31
Would go with the silver Lian-Li PC-7, but its on 1-3days :(
 
nice, ty for all the replies and prices, ive got the start of my system planned,

PSU-FSP Sparkle FS600
CASE-Lian-Li PC-7 PLUS Black Aluminium Midi-Tower Case (No PSU) (CA-054-LL)
FANS-2 x Akasa AK-183-L2B Ultra Quiet 120mm Fan - 3 pin (FG-024-AK)
CPU-AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4800+ (Socket 939) - Retail (ADA4800CDBOX) (CP-129-AM) £364.95
MOTHEBOARD-Asus A8n32-SLI Deluxe
MEMORY-Corsair 2GB DDR XMS4400 Pro TwinX (2x1GB) CAS3 (MY-101-CS)
GRAPHICS- 2X XFX GeForce 6800 XT Extreme Edition 256MB GDDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (PVT42E-UDE3) (GX-067-XF)
PSU- UNSURE

thats it apart from the disk drives.....what do you think?
edit: is this better?
 
Last edited:
Do NOT go for two 6600GTs!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The 7900GT will perform so much better and allow upgrade options in the future. Why go for the opty 165 not the 170? Do you plan to be overclocking?
 
i would suggest replacing the 6800's in sli for 7900 gt or gtx as would give better performance in new games. Also i would suggest also the opteron 170 or 165 (upto you) as they will overclcok to a nice 2.5-3ghz with ease! and so would be best value for money with these.
 
i have just built a pc for just over £1500, and for that you can get a monster... i got a 2 x dual core opterons, 4gb of ECC ram, an X1900XTX and a 580watt PSU. but if you need items like DVD drives and HDD's knock of 2gb of ram and 1 opty, and invest in them later on :)
 
ty for all the replies, i have just about decided on what spec, just wanted to know your opinions:

AMD Athlon 64 3700
Asus A8N32-SL Deluxe
2GB Corsair XMS
BFG GeForce 7900 GTX 512MB
Akasa 80mm fan
FSP Sparkle FX600
Lian Li PC-7 PLUS
Western Digital Caviar 160GB (Storage)
Western Digital Raptor 74GB (OS)
Saitek Eclipse illuminated Keyboard
Logitech MX518 Mouse
LG GSA DVD+RW
 
All the components are pretty decent, I'd change the DVDRW for an NEC(maybe the 4571) but that is more down to personal preference than anything else.

Why are you now going for a 3700 San Diego, have you dropped the idea of dual core completely? Given your rather large budget I would have thought that it made sense to get a decent dual core system.
 
well, i decided to drop the idea of a dual core because i was under the impression that not many prgrammes use the dual core at the moment. The 3700 seems to be pretty solid, i mean for the extra 60-70 quid will i actually be getting much more?
 
CPU wise - Opteron 165, 170 or 4400+, all have the 1mb L2 cache & the Opterons clock pretty well.

CPU Cooler - Arctic Freezer 64 Pro is up there with the best at around half the price.

Mobo - DFI Ultra-D, best all round ability and best clocker for the money.

Ram - Mushkin HP3200 Blue or OCZ PC3200 Platinum 2gb kits, both have the tightest timings you'll find on PC3200 ram.

Gfx - ATI X1900XT 512mb, forget about the GeForce cards....The 7900GTX 512mb is more expensive, slower, lower image quality and it can't do AA & HDR at the same time.

PSU - The Enermax Liberty & Tagan Easicon are the best VFM, Seasonic & FSP are also very good but much more expensive.

Case - Lian-Li PC7 or the Akasa Eclipse 62, are the best on the market for the money.

DVDRW - NEC 4571 Labelflash drive is the best for the money

HDD - Hitachi Deskstar's are the best performing and reportedly most reliable, the Samsung Spinpoint are also very good and almost silent.

Monitor - Depends what you want.....For all round ability and VFM either the Viewsonic VX2025WM or the NEC 20WGX2 20" widescreens.
 
It depends what you are doing but for any sort of multitasking you will notice the benefit of dual core and more and more programs are becoming multi-threaded.

Don't get me wrong the 3700 San Diego is a good CPU but you clearly have the budget to get dual core and it will become necessary in the future(or at least more useful). Therefore I'd suggest unless you intend to make this only a fairly short-term upgrade that dual core is worth it.

//edit just to play devil's advocate to Monstermunch for a second there isn't much price difference between the 7900gtx and the X1900XTX last time I looked and while the X1900XTX is the more powerful card (maybe not hugely though) it does use more power and is louder. Actually just rechecked and the OcUK 7900GTX 512mb is cheaper than the cheapest X1900XTX, albeit by ~£10 but still ;) :)
 
Last edited:
in the not so distant future things will be using dual core, so for a system of such high spec u will regret not having gone for the dual core at the time, and will lead to u wanting to upgrade sooner rather than later. just a thought.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom