New rig specs; Think i've got it sorted

Swi1ch

Swi1ch

Swi1ch

Associate
Joined
19 Nov 2008
Posts
1,579
The budget on this has slowly been pushed up and up, but don't want to go any higher than £800. Always had great advice from here in the past (New account) so was wondering if I could get some advice now :)

Antec 1200 Gaming Case
Intel Core2Quad Q6600 2.4
Asus P5Q Pro Intel P45 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard
Corsair 4GB DDR2 XMS2 PC2-6400C5 TwinX (2x2GB)
BFG GeForce 9800 GTX+ OC 512MB GDDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express)
Tagan PipeRock TG700-BZ 700w Modular BZ Series PSU
Samsung SpinPoint F1 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache
Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro CPU Cooler
Samsung SH-S223F/BEBE 22x DVD±RW SATA Dual Layer ReWriter

I checked out shaffaaf27's build thread, and I know mine is very similar to that. I've kinda got my heart set on the Antec 1200 so that's pretty much a definate. Is it worth getting the Radeon 4870 over the 9800GTX+?

Edit. I'll be running XP Pro up until I can afford Vista, and i'm using a Viewsonic 22" non-widescreen pretty sure non-HD LCD Monitor. I bought it about 1.5-2 years back for about £200 at the time.

Edit2. Realised my spec'd mobo is Crossfire and i'm spec'd an Nvidia card. I'll see whether i'll get the 980GTX+ or move to a 4870 before changing it.
 
Last edited:
Bear in mind if you buy Vista now you could get it OEM and thus save some money.
Is there anything you could switch over from an older machine to save some money in the short-term (PSU/HDD?)


I think a lot of people go for the P5q even if using a nVidia card. It's only a problem if you want to SLI that card later.
 
If your thinking of getting the 9800gtx+, I'd give some thought to the 4850, it's cheaper and offers the same performance, on a 22" monitor you shouldn't need anymore than that.

Also you won't need a 700W power supply for that setup, you can save yourself some cash and go for a less powerful PSU, something like the corsair 520W

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showp...X2.2 Modular SLI Compliant PSU (CMPSU-520HXUK)

I'd keep the P45 board, even if going with nvidia. The nvidia chipset motherboards tend to be quite poor, only useful if you plan on going SLi, even then your better off sticking with one powerful card.

The 1200 is a really good case, great cooling and plenty of space. I'd normally suggest the 300, fantastic case for the price, buy a few fans for it and it's even better. Even with the extra fans it's about £70 cheaper, but you seem set on the 1200. The case is always down to what you prefer, after all you've got to look at it everyday. I've got both the 300 and 900, can fit your spec quite easily into either.

If you really need the 1tb of hard drive space then that's fair enough, but again you could save yourself some money switching to the 640gb version, £30 cheaper and still a lot of space. You could either put the money saved on this to upgrade the graphics to a 4870 or get yourself vista (make sure it's the 64 bit version though).
 
Switch the GPU to either the 4850 or 4870, depending on whether or not you want to save some cash or get a little more gaming performance and yeah, that PSU is way overkill. Its very unlikely you'd even draw even half of that PSU's rated wattage, even if you OC.
 
Last edited:
Llamaman: I'd like to buy Vista now, but my budget is based on a loan off my parents for a computer for College/Uni and is way past it's original estimate.

Also, the only thing I can save from my old PC is POSSIBLY my PSU, which is a Tagan Easycon 550w (I think), but the BFG 9800GTX+ says recommended 600w.

ro55o: The 4850s that are around £150 (The same price as the BFG 9800GTX+) have way lower clock speeds than the GTX. Can you recommend one? The 4870s are £200+ so can't really afford that.

Yeah, I'm damn set on getting the Antec 1200, even though I know I might have to buy some PSU extensions. I also pretty much need the 1TB (Music Tech and Graphics stuff).

I've dropped the PSU to a Corsair 650w, but if you guys know if a Tagan Easycon would perform I can keep that. If so, the money saved can go on going from a £150 9800GTX+ to a £200 4870. (I have a thing about buying a GPU that's not the highest in it's series. 9800 or 8800 is fine; 9400 is not. 4870 is good, 4850 is not. It's a flaw, I know)
 
Last edited:
You can't really go by those numbers when comparing ATi to Nvidia, the architecture of either card is totally different. A 512mb 4850 will perform the same as a 9800gtx+, the cheapest 4850 is £135. I run mine with a 500W PSU, I have an overclocked E8400, 2 optical drives, 2 hard drives, sound card and it all runs fine.

I'd personally go for a modular PSU, the corsair 520W will be more than enough to power the system you want and it's also modular, which the 650W isn't. Modular basically means that you choose what cables you want to use, makes it easier to connect everything up and leaves the case a lot more tidy.

(I have a thing about buying a GPU that's not the highest in it's series. 9800 or 8800 is fine; 9400 is not. 4870 is good, 4850 is not. It's a flaw, I know)
Click to expand...

I'm sorry but that's stupid, the 4850 is a fantastic card, like you said you can't afford the 4870, so this is the next best thing. The 9800gtx is just a rebranded 8800gtx anyway, the + makes it slightly better and performs the same as the 4850.

If your computer is already way over budget then try for a cheaper system, what is it going to be used for?
 
About the PSU: My current Tagan Easycon is modular I think (I can choose which cables are connected) and I think it's 580w. Reckon that'll be sufficient?

I know the thing about the graphics card is stupid, but it will actually eat me up inside when I have it, and i'll just end up replacing it. I think the reason I'm still on the side of the 9800 is not because I'm a Geforce fan (My old computer which just died had an x1900) but because my friend has an 8800GTX and it destroys Crysis, CoD5, Farcry 2 and S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Knowing that the 9800GTX will also do this helps my decision.

The reason I say i'm over budget is because originally I thought i'd only need CPU, RAM, MB and GPU and this was gonna come to about £500, which I was going to be helped with, but realising my current case barely fits an ATX MB and x1900, has one single 60mm exhaust fan, two fried IDE HDDs and a DVD drive (Not writer) means I just have to have a total overhaul.

I'll be using it for high-end gaming, graphics design/some 3D work and music production (Sound card, speakers and that coming later)
 
Last edited:
4670 is a cheap option, as you can use your current PSU, and its the highest number in the 46xx series :p

4850 is a better card, as is the 9800gtx, but they more expensive and will need a new PSU.
 
It's your choice at the end of the day and you need to be happy with it, no point in getting something you will want to replace in a few weeks time. The 9800gtx+ is a good card, I'm not denying that, it's just your method for choosing is a weird one :p but each to their own.

The 8800GTX is still a good card, was the best to have for ages, but the new cards, especially the 4850 and 9800GTX+ will better it and consume less power aswell.

580W should be more than enough to power the system you want, which will save you some cash.
 
ro55o said:
It's your choice at the end of the day and you need to be happy with it, no point in getting something you will want to replace in a few weeks time. The 9800gtx+ is a good card, I'm not denying that, it's just your method for choosing is a weird one :p but each to their own.

The 8800GTX is still a good card, was the best to have for ages, but the new cards, especially the 4850 and 9800GTX+ will better it and consume less power aswell.

580W should be more than enough to power the system you want, which will save you some cash.
Click to expand...

I'll see if I can find the box for the PSU and get the exact specs, because if I can knock off the £80 or so from the PSU, I can get Vista right away. I do think i'm gonna stick with the 9800GTX+ for now, cus although the money knock off from the PSU could get me a 4870, the OS is probably more important. One thing I am worried about, is that the 9800GTX+ page on OC does say minimum 500w recommended 600w. Is using 580w really going to be detrimental?
 
Minimum System Power Requirement (W) 450W

According to nvidia's website, so 580W PSU will be fine. A GTX260 could run on that aswell, it only needs 500W minimum. It pretty much depends on what the rest of your system is running at, I doubt it'll pull anymore power than 450-500W.
 
Llamaman said:
Bear in mind if you buy Vista now you could get it OEM and thus save some money.
Is there anything you could switch over from an older machine to save some money in the short-term (PSU/HDD?)


I think a lot of people go for the P5q even if using a nVidia card. It's only a problem if you want to SLI that card later.
Click to expand...

Just re-read the thread and noticed this;

What is OEM? I plan on getting Premium with SP1.

Edit. Oh, and if I do buy and install Vista SP1, will I still be able to install and use my current version of Office?
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom