Newb building new computer, ~£1k budget

MURDEROUS G

MURDEROUS G

MURDEROUS G

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10 Dec 2007
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In the process of building an entirely new machine. Here is the tentative shopping list:

  • Acer AL2416WB 24" TFT Monitor Widescreen 1920x1200 - two of these
  • Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Energy Efficient 95W edition Socket 775 (2.40GHz)
  • Maxtor 500GB Hard Drive SATAII 7200rpm *32MB Cache* - two of these
  • Corsair 2GB Kit (2x1GB) DDR2 1066MHz/PC2-8500 - two of these
  • Arctic Cooling AC-FRZ-7P Freezer 7 Pro Socket 775 Processor Cooler
  • Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3P iP35 Socket 775 8-channel audio ATX Motherboard
  • Arctic Power 700W PSU - With PCI-E, 4x SATA, 20+4, ATX12V, 8pin +12V Connectors
  • Thermaltake Soprano VB1000SNS Silver Mid-Tower Case - No PSU

Total cost is like £1k

No graphics card for now as I understand some new ones are coming out in a matter of weeks, so I will probably hold on and get one of those.

I've built computers from individually purchased components before, but they've generally been done on a shoestring budget and I always bought the bits on recommendations from friends. I know very little about hardware myself and the last time I bought any parts was like 18 months ago so I'm even less knowledgeable now.

I'm looking to put together a nice powerful computer for primarily work (and perhaps a little play). Performance is really important, and while it's not quite money-no-object, I'm happy to spend more if it will realise a significant performance gain. How does the above strike you? Are any parts of it lagging behind / is any of it overkill compared to the rest?

I'm looking to overclock as much as possible (not that I know much about that right now); are these components suitable for that purpose?

TIA for any responses,
mg
 
With your budget I wouldn't be looking at P35 but rather X38/P45 motherboard.

Also get a 4GB kit of RAM as that will be 2 sticks of ram rather than 4 leaving you room to upgrade to 8GB later. Also unless you're looking to squeeze every last bit of OC out your CPU I would save money and get PC6400 RAM.

Hard drive wise most people recommend that you get Samsung drives instead as Maxtor have a bigger failure rate.

Also by "little play" you mean an occasional game or you a serious gamer and would be looking at new range of graphics cards or something on the lines of 8800GT would suffice?
 
why two 500GB hard drives? Why not just get one 1TB samsung f1. What's going to be stored on there?

Again why not get 1 set of 4GB ddr2 6400. It is very unlikely you'll need 8500 even if you overclock.

And as for cooling if you want quite, you'll need to get some new case fans and a different cooler and a gfx card cooler.
 
neoboy said:
With your budget I wouldn't be looking at P35 but rather X38/P45 motherboard.
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Why is this?

unless you're looking to squeeze every last bit of OC out your CPU I would save money and get PC6400 RAM.
Click to expand...

OK, fair enough. Is there really not that much difference?

Also by "little play" you mean an occasional game or you a serious gamer and would be looking at new range of graphics cards or something on the lines of 8800GT would suffice?
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I'm not really a serious gamer, no. Right now I'm thinking I'll wait for the new range of cards, read some comparisons and then choose between one of those or a 8800 depending on how rich I feel at the time. TBH an 8800 will probably suffice.
 
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replace the maxtor drives with samsung F1 drives
replace the RAM with 2x2gb pc6400 RAM (pc 8500 is overkill)
for best temps get a tuniq tower or a thermalright ultra extreme (+ fan)

but you really do need to say what you're using it for for us to tell you what's best.
 
AcidHell2 said:
why two 500GB hard drives? Why not just get one 1TB samsung f1. What's going to be stored on there?
Click to expand...

The work use of the computer involves one databasing application collating data and writing near continuously to a ~10GB PostgreSQL database, and a bunch of other applications making a gazillion queries a second to said database. I was assured that two HDs in RAID would speed up HD access times significantly and would give considerably better performance than one 1TB HD. I don't know if that's right but it's what I was told.

Again why not get 1 set of 4GB ddr2 6400. It is very unlikely you'll need 8500 even if you overclock.
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I guess I will. My assumption was faster is better. If 6400 and 8500 are identical performance-wise then I'll go for the former.

And as for cooling if you want quite, you'll need to get some new case fans and a different cooler and a gfx card cooler.
Click to expand...

This is all well and good (and I appreciate you're trying to help me out) but I'm posting here because I don't know what to look for in terms of better or more suitable components; recommendations would be a lot more helpful than pointing to a couple of things and saying "you will need better XYZ".
 
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OcUK Value L2442WD-VA 24" Widescreen LCD Monitor - Glossy Black £199.99 (£234.99)
Corsair HX 520W ATX2.2 Modular SLI Compliant PSU (CMPSU-520HXUK) £59.99 (£70.49)
Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium SP1 64-Bit - OEM (66I-01939) £58.99 (£69.31)
Razer Krait 1600dpi Professional Gaming Mouse - Retail £16.99 (£19.96)
Intel Core 2 Quad Pro Q6600 "Energy Efficient SLACR 95W Edition" 2.40GHz (1066FSB) - OEM £109.99 (£129.24)
Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro CPU Cooler (Socket LGA775) £14.99 (£17.61)
OCZ 4GB (2x2GB) PC2-6400C5 Dual Channel Vista Gold Series DDR2 (OCZ2G8004GK) £51.99 (£61.09)
Samsung SpinPoint F1 500GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD502IJ) £39.99 (£46.99)
Samsung SH-S223F/BEBE 22x DVD±RW SATA Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM £13.99 (£16.44)
Lian-Li PC-7B PLUS II Aluminium Midi-Tower Case - Black £49.99 (£58.74)
Saitek Eclipse 2 Illuminated Keyboard - Blue/Red/Purple £19.99 (£23.49)
Asus P5K Intel P35 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £59.99 (£70.49)

Sub Total : £696.88
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £14.95
VAT is being charged at 17.5% VAT : £124.57
Total : £836.40

not sure whether you wanted OS or peripherals but ive tried to leave a gap for a new card even though them might be more expensive.
 
MURDEROUS G said:
The work use of the computer involves one databasing application collating data and writing near continuously to a ~10GB PostgreSQL database, and a bunch of other applications making a gazillion queries a second to said database. I was assured that two HDs in RAID would speed up HD access times significantly and would give considerably better performance than one 1TB HD. I don't know if that's right but it's what I was told.
Click to expand...

yep, but i would get two 120gb drives and just have the database on it. then a 500gb for windows and software.
 
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Something along those lines, I went with those monitors due to the hdmi inputs.
That cpu coolers is big so would need to check it fit's mobo and case.

Edit - actually the monitors although have hdmi doesn't appear to have hdcp. But the Acer P243W does.
 
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