New/Recycle PC Build

Mal Cullen

Mal Cullen

Mal Cullen

Associate
Joined
7 Feb 2010
Posts
191
Location
Essex
Hi all,

Apologies for the long post but here we go…

I am building a new PC with eldest son. Machine will be his and here are the details..

Use: Mainly gaming; Steam games, TF2, CSS, Gary's Mod, Diablo3, MW3, GuildWars 2 (that’s for me!), BF3, etc.. also some very light video editing and streaming movies to rest of the house wirelessly (mostly to Xbox upstairs for watching on main TV). Lots of music playing also. House has a British Telecom HomeHub3 wireless network.

Budget: Fairly tight sadly, around £400-£500.

What we have:

GPU: We have a GPU, 8800GT 512MB which I want to use initially until more cash becomes available (month or two) and I can upgrade to a card around the £150 mark (not to be included in budget for this build).
Drive: HD Seagate 500Gig which I would like to use as has a Vista 64 OS installed on it. Will upgrade to Win7 again in due course.
Case: We have a Case Antec 900 but I am not overly fond of it and am not adverse to changing.
Screen: Our screen is a 22” Samsung that goes to x1050 but will probably get a new screen for this machine that will max out at x1080, again in due course (not to be included in budget for this build).
Drives: Optical Drive we have one. Again will purchase a SSD in due course but not needed for the build (not to be included in budget for this build).
OS: We have (Vista 64 on current 500gig hard drive noted above) and also an OEM Windows 7 disk for a laptop that no longer works at all due to broken screen but not sure if I can transfer the licence.

Keyboard, Speakers, mouse etc are all here.

So I will need following;

Motherboard
CPU
PSU
Case - Unless a 6 year old Antec 900 is worth a recycle?
Toolkit to put it all together (what do you recommend? I have anti-static bands..)
Memory for a 64bit OS (8gig?)
Wireless Card

I have had reasonably mixed experience of OC’ing as the machine the bits above came from was one I bought from OCUK 5-6 years ago at least. That machine was fine but we suffered from a lot of BSoD’s as it got older. I don’t imagine we will OC this rig initially but in due course will probably. This machine will be based downstairs in a room which gets quite warm particularly during summer, if that makes any difference.
I really want to use the above GPU (8800GT 512MB) for now as most of his time is spent on Gary’s Mod which isn’t particularly intensive but that will be upgraded in a month or two as mentioned above, once cash becomes available. He loves gaming in general and will want to play all things in due course.
I have never built a machine from scratch but am familiar with all the tutorials etc and think we will be able to manage. We also want to do a build log for use with a school project which I will need help on as we go through everything. My plan is to press the purchase button on Saturday and build it all next week.

Any advice on the best direction to take would really be appreciated. I would like to go i5-3570K (Ivybridge) with a Z77 board as I believe will future-proof us a bit for a good couple of years but not sure if that is realistic. Again the GPU will be changed from what I have in a month or 2 so no problem there.

Thanks in advance and I look forward to posting pictures of everything as it happens.

Rgds

Mal
 
 
Overclocking the IvyBridge processors is quite easy and only involves bumping up the max clock multiplier of the CPU cores. Board stability isn't normally affected (other than you need a decent enough board to do it) but you can get a 15+% speed boost for free with a decent cooler.
 
If you want you can run Tri-Channel 6GB (3x2GB) RAM. Not sure if less RAM means less cost, but Tri-Channel runs quicker i believe.
 
name89 said:
If you want you can run Tri-Channel 6GB (3x2GB) RAM. Not sure if less RAM means less cost, but Tri-Channel runs quicker i believe.
Click to expand...

tri channel was on the older intel socket (1366 i think).

nowadays its mostly dual channel , save for sandybridge-e which iirc runs quad channel.

Fire_fly said:
Both Ivy / Sandybridge chipsets can only use duel channel RAM, Tri-Channel RAM will not work.
Click to expand...

just to clarify tri channel ram will work, it just won't run as tri-channel, apologies to fire_fly if thats what he means.
 
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YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-3570K 3.40GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail £189.95
1 x Gigabyte Z77X-D3H Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £103.99
1 x OCZ ZT 550W '80 Plus Bronze' Modular Power Supply £63.98
1 x Kingston HyperX Genesis Grey 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1600C9D3X2K2/8GX) £47.99
1 x Zalman Z9 Plus Tower Case with Fan Controller - Black £44.99
1 x Asus PCE-N15 300Mbps 802.11B/G/N Wireless PCI-E Network Adapter £28.79
1 x Cooler Master Hyper TX3 Evo CPU Cooler (Socket Intel Socket LGA1366/1156/1155/775 / AMD Socket FM1/AM3+/AM3/AM2) £19.99
Total : £514.68 (includes shipping : £12.50).




the gigabyte board has been getting some raving reviews.

stick with duel channel ram.

the psu is modular and has 2 8 pin so should allow u to go for the newer gpu's

the case, well the case speaks for itself :)

take off the asus wireless card depending on how ur network is set up. ie just plug the computer into hub and connect the xbox wirelessly to the hub etc
 
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Yup drive is

500GB Seagate 32MB Cache SATA-2 Hard Drive

and

Pioneer DVR-216DBK 20x DVD±RW SATA Dual Layer ReWriter (Black)

So I guess both will be fine in the above?
 
WOW my pc is old. Im running Tri-Channel RAM on my old machine, i had no idea it was 3generations old and a no longer supported tech :o
 
Nothing the matter with the Antec 900 mate. Use it. It's free!

Start modding it with your son. Help him paint it to his on color scheme.. or use vinyl graphics. Cut vents in the bottom for PSU intake and a 140mm fan in front of PSU. Extend the feet so you have 50mm or more clearance for fans to get air. Add some Silverstone magnetic filters to catch the dust.

Sounds like a great father son project to me.
 
name89 said:
WOW my pc is old. Im running Tri-Channel RAM on my old machine, i had no idea it was 3generations old and a no longer supported tech :o
Click to expand...
The memory modules themselves are single channel. The chipsets on the board use multiple memory modules to run dual, tri or quad memory subsystems. Assuming the correct technology (i.e. DDR3 DIMMs) you should be able to move any tri-channel memory to any other board supporting those memory DIMMs. If you are using 6 DIMMs, you will have difficulty putting all of them in Ivy/Sandy boards with 4 DIMM slots...

I think benchmarking showed only marginal gains from dual toi tri-channel memory systems which is why it isn't supported any more (as has been said above, the -e processors are quad channel)
 
Really appreciated guys.
I am right in thinking once I plug in the existing HDD which has Vista on it.. all should work? I will obviously need to update drivers etc but she should boot up ok?
Hahah Doyll I know what you mean and yes I am looking forward to doing this but I need to do baby steps as will be new area for both of us and modding the case could be a stretching abilities... :)
 
Mind you knocking £45 makes a lot of sense to me! The only thing I haven't mentioned is noise. The machine is not in a particularly noise sensitive area but obviously quieter the better as a general rule. The Antec 900 was always reasonably noisey which I guess has also made me feel less love for reusing it. Is the Zalman reasonably quiet? Again not massively mission critical but relevant.
 
Mal Cullen said:
Sorry dumb question, what is the difference between the retail and oem versions of the 2 i5's above other than the obvious £21.96 ?
Click to expand...

retail comes with a 3 year warranty, the shiny box and the stock intel heatsink
oem comes in a tiny white cardboard box with 1 year warranty, no heatsink.
 
But you dont really need the box or the heatsink if you have an aftermarket one. And how often does the CPU ever fail after a year, lets be honest...
 
Mal Cullen said:
Really appreciated guys.
I am right in thinking once I plug in the existing HDD which has Vista on it.. all should work? I will obviously need to update drivers etc but she should boot up ok?
Hahah Doyll I know what you mean and yes I am looking forward to doing this but I need to do baby steps as will be new area for both of us and modding the case could be a stretching abilities... :)
Click to expand...

A fresh install is a must really, you will only be welcomed with BSODs if the rig boots the OS at all. You could try out the developers copy of windows 8 if you liked (vista is garbage), then you could choose between 64bit win 7 or 8 once the later is released.

I'd consider something like this

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-3570K 3.40GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - OEM £167.99
1 x Gigabyte Z77X-D3H Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £103.99
1 x Cooler Master Silent Pro Modular 700W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £79.99
1 x Zalman Z9 Plus Tower Case with Fan Controller - Black £44.99
1 x Corsair XMS3 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMX8GX3M2A1600C9) £43.19
1 x Alpenföhn Matterhorn Pure Edition CPU Cooler (Socket LGA2011/1366/1155/1156/775/ AMD AM3/AM3+/AM2/AM2+/FM1) £26.39
1 x TP-Link 300Mbps Wireless N PCI Express Adapter (TL-WN881ND) £16.99
Total : £498.53 (includes shipping : £12.50).



The mobo can do SLI/xfire the PSU is modular and man enough to run dual midrange GPUs (eg AMD 7850). If you will never dual card the GPU you can save money on the mobo and the PSU.

or a mini itx build

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-3570K 3.40GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - OEM £167.99
1 x Asrock Z77E-ITX Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Mini ITX Motherboard £119.99
1 x Cooler Master Silent Pro Modular 600W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £65.99
1 x BitFenix Prodigy Mini-ITX Cube Case - Arctic White £59.99
1 x Antec Kúhler H2O 620 CPU Watercooler (Socket Intel LGA 775 / 1155 / 1156 / 1366 / AMD AM2 / AM3 / AM2+ / AM3+) £51.38
1 x GeIL Dragon 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (GD38GB1600C11DC) £43.99
Total : £521.93 (includes shipping : £10.50).



It's certainly worth discussing your options as once you reach 100 posts you qualify for free delivery and lose that nasty P&P
 
Thanks all really appreciate this.
I won't be crossfire or dual carding this machine ever.
Honosuseri I have seen you post about LucidMVP and the onboard IGP. Will this be relevant to me while I am using the old card I have the 8800GT 512MB over the next month or so? As sounds like a significant positive, or is it only relevant if using a GPU of a decent calibre?
 
You're welcome bud

Video walkthrough of a PC build

The lucid software does lots of clever stuff. It will switch between the IGP and the dedicated GPU as required (saves power), I don't see why your current GPU wouldn't be boosted by MVP. Your GPU does need an upgrade though fella

Would you like me to take another crack at spec'ing?
 
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