Please help

reygjabla · 29 Apr 2009 at 22:07

Helped and sorted

After about a year of helping fix and sometimes upgrade parts of friends and relatives computers, i have decided to join this great forum. My predicament at the moment is that my sister-in-law is asking me to build her a computer based on this cpu:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CP-203-IN

Can anyone help me choose components that is compatible with this cpu?
Budget is around £800. (She already has keyboard/mouse, 22" Asus monitor)

Apart from replacing memory, hardrive, dvd drive and installing software, I know nothing else.

What inspired me to try getting on with it is the kind of help and support that i'm seeing in this forum.

Thanks and yeah! i'm a certified noob!

cmndr_andi · 29 Apr 2009 at 22:13

Hi there, welcome to the forum. Please forgive my ignorance, but do you own the C2Q 9550 or are you looking for the system spec to include it?

P.S. What will the PC be used for? Will it be heavy PC gaming or just simple video watching, emailing and surfing or a mixture of the two?

reygjabla · 29 Apr 2009 at 22:15

She does'nt have it yet but she wants the speccs based on this cpu. Any advice though would be highly appreciated. Gaming speccs should be okay.

cmndr_andi · 29 Apr 2009 at 22:25

Here is my first take on it. I went a bit over budget, if you need to be on £800 drop down the Graphics card to a GTS 250 and save £40.

reygjabla · 29 Apr 2009 at 22:31

Wow! That was fast m8. I'll email this to her and maybe get a reply in a bit. She want's it done first week of may if possible. Thanks for the favor.

cmndr_andi · 29 Apr 2009 at 22:35

My pleasure

If you have any questions when putting it together please just make a post and we'll offer all the support we possibly can.

reygjabla · 29 Apr 2009 at 22:40

Sure! I definitely will. If she decides on it, then it's gonna be my first "overclocker's forum" influenced build.

Just waiting for her reply now.

reygjabla · 30 Apr 2009 at 00:27

Just got the reply and was told that it would be used for photo/video editing and CAD design or something. Is this specs okay or is there any possible revisions?

cmndr_andi · 30 Apr 2009 at 00:41

Hmm, if she is going to use it for image editing she will probably be using photoshop CS4. I hear that program eats up RAM, may want to bump up the RAM from 4GB to 8GB.

To keep you in budget you could cut the graphics card down to a GTS 250, should still be great for gaming (its basically what i'm using).

cmndr_andi · 30 Apr 2009 at 01:09

I have another build option if you are interested (Thanks to killari for the help). This one is based on the Intel Core i7 920, a chip which is significantly faster than the Q9550 ( I can attest to this as I upgraded from q9550 to i7 920). I had to drop down the graphics card to an ATI 4770, but it remains a very good card.

For photoshop and cad which are CPU based apps, this chip is the best bet (4 cores, 8 threads)

killari · 30 Apr 2009 at 01:12

cmndr_andi said:
I have another build option if you are interested (Thanks to killari for the help). This one is based on the Intel Core i7 920, a chip which is significantly faster than the Q9550 ( I can attest to this as I upgraded from q9550 to i7 920). I had to drop down the graphics card to an ATI 4770, but it remains a very good card.

For photoshop and cad which are CPU based apps, this chip is the best bet (4 cores, 8 threads)

I have minions

If rendering work is to be done you can't dispute the 8 threads the i7 can handle. Definitely worth the extra dosh. Also socket 775 is pretty much over now. 1366 will leave you a viable upgrade path for the semi distant future (one hopes)

reygjabla · 30 Apr 2009 at 07:23

Thanks guys

Thanks guys. Just woke up and found this. Bet she'd be glad to know what this things can do. Off to work now. be back at 7 tonight. Thanks a lot.

reygjabla · 30 Apr 2009 at 18:35

Hi guys! just got back from work and got a word from her that she want's the best card and possible upgrade path to two graphics card in the future when the need or maybe budget arise. extra 2 - 300 quids tops.

cmndr_andi · 30 Apr 2009 at 18:46

Roger that, she's the boss. That motherboard can support both SLI and crossfire, so no new motherboard is required for multiple graphics cards. If she wants the BEST graphics card available at the moment that this is it. However, that card is most likely overkill for anything but playing games at FullHD+ resolutions at 60fps+ and it costs a bomb. A much more realistic plan would be to get one of these and when more power is required add a second. 2 of them will give you GTX 295 levels of performance for less money.

Edit: If you are planning a GTX 295 or 2x GTX 260 you will probably need to go for a higher rated Power Supply Unit. This and this are very good choices.

reygjabla · 30 Apr 2009 at 19:00

Thanks chief! That certainly fits the budget with some extra. Well finalize the components in a little while and i'll cetainly give a holler when she presses the "BUY NOW" button

Women

reygjabla · 30 Apr 2009 at 19:31

Here's what i've come up thru your recommendation (Gone over budget a bit

)

Intel Core i7 920 D0 Stepping (SLBEJ) 2.66Ghz (Nehalem) (Socket LGA1366) - Retail £255.99
(£222.60) £255.99
(£222.60)
Gigabyte EX58-UD3R Intel X58 (Socket 1366) PCI-Express DDR3 Motherboard £159.99
(£139.12) £159.99
(£139.12)
Antec 1200 Twelve Hundred Ultimate Gaming Case - Black (No PSU) £149.49
(£129.99) £149.49
(£129.99)
OcUK Value GeForce GTX 260 "Core 216 55nm" 896MB GDDR3 Dual DVI (PCI-Express) + Mirror's Edge £139.99
(£121.73) £139.99
(£121.73)
Corsair TX 850W ATX SLI Compliant Power Supply (CMPSU-850TXUK) £118.98
(£103.46) £118.98
(£103.46)
Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium SP1 64-Bit - OEM (66I-01939) £91.99
(£79.99) £91.99
(£79.99)
OCZ Gold 6GB (3x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C8 (1600MHz) Tri-Channel (OCZ3G1600LV6GK) £79.99
(£69.56) £79.99
(£69.56)
LG GGC-H20L Blu-Ray Reader & HD-DVD ROM Serial ATA Drive - Retail £77.99
(£67.82) £77.99
(£67.82)
Noctua NH-U12P SE1366 CPU Cooler (Socket LGA1366) £54.99
(£47.82) £54.99
(£47.82)
Western Digital Caviar Black 500GB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (WD5001AALS) £54.04
(£46.99) £54.04
(£46.99)
Sub Total : £1,029.08
Shipping cost based on delivery to Home, NW10 9RH with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £13.75
VAT is being charged at 15.00% VAT : £156.42
Total : £1,199.25

You think the power supply can handle additional hard drive, graphics card, Audio card and memory sticks, say 12 gigs? Sort of future proff? :rolleyes:

cmndr_andi · 30 Apr 2009 at 19:35

That looks like a great system. Lovely big case, plenty of power, great optical drive. Furthermore, with that cooler/CPU/motherboard combo you should be able to hit 3.6GHz on stock volts, if you so wish.

Edit: One thing you may want to consider is to bump the hard disk drive from the 500GB the the 640GB. As the 640 has 2x 320GB platters (2 x 250GB on the 500GB ) it is faster at accessing the data than the 500GB (higher platter density) and only a tenner more expensive(plus 140GB extra storage). Here is a good review.
I have two of these drives in RAID 0 - they are blisteringly fast (170+MBps).

reygjabla · 30 Apr 2009 at 20:03

Im after of the fans on the case because the last thing i would want to hear from her is the things getting too hot.

As for the hard drive, i'll look into it.

thanks for the support. I'll shot you a pm when i lay my hand on the components. Looks like a go already.

cmndr_andi · 30 Apr 2009 at 20:17

Happy to be of help

If you are looking for some fans, personally I swear by Noctua. Their stuff is usually the most expensive, but you do pay for quality. These fans are brilliant for case fans, they move loads of air and are pokeittoseeifitson quiet.

If you need to save some money, I hear a lot of the people on the forums use these.

reygjabla · 5 Jun 2009 at 13:13

cmndr_andi

Finally completed the build and here's the final spec;

1 Asus Rampage II Extreme Intel X58 (Socket 1366) PCI-Express DDR3 Motherboard

1 Asus GeForce GTX 285 1024MB GDDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail

1 Intel Core i7 920 D0 Stepping (SLBEJ) 2.66Ghz (Nehalem) (Socket LGA1366) - Retail

1 Noctua NH-U12P SE1366 CPU Cooler (Socket LGA1366)

1 OCZ Gold 6GB (3x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C8 (1600MHz) Tri-Channel (OCZ3G1600LV6GK)

1 Western Digital Caviar Black 640GB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (WD6401AALS)

1 LG GH22NS30 22x DVD±RW SATA Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM

1 Be Quiet! Dark Power Pro 1000W ATX2.2 Modular SLi Compliant Power Supply

1 Antec 1200 Twelve Hundred Ultimate Gaming Case - Black (No PSU)

Unfortunately, my sis-in-law backed out from the original idea and opted for a Lenovo Thinkstation D10 instead, so i end up sourcing the money and get on with the build for myself.

The hardest part was waiting for the components to arive one at a time while reading and re-reading the recent I7 build logs of the members. then, came the most scary part, assembling the components in the case and pressing the start button :eek:

When I finally did pressed the start button and saw the screen start to come alive, the emotions I had simply rocketed beyond description. Now i know why some members become addicted to building rigs. The feeling is just WOOOW!!!

Finally I would say, your recommendations in particular and this forum in general has really influenced my decision to get on with it and i'd say i'm very happy I did. Thank you for that.

A poor but very happy guy