Rig for a friend

Dantoshou

Dantoshou

Dantoshou

Associate
Joined
4 Feb 2009
Posts
212
Location
Milton Keynes
Just wondered whether this rig would be ok and work properly, i can build it but its been a while since i have tried to make a spec!

1xBFG GeForce GTX 295 1792MB GDDR3 PCI-Express Graphics Card (Single PCB) £358.98

1xIntel Core 2 Quad Q8300 LGA775 'Yorkfield' 2.5GHz 4MB-cache (1333FSB) Processor - Retail £141.99

1xAsus P5Q Deluxe Intel P45 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard
£130.99

1xMicrosoft Windows Vista Home Premium SP1 32-Bit - OEM + Windows 7 Upgrade Voucher (66I-03510) £94.99

1xCoolermaster HAF 922 Case - Black (No PSU) £94.99

1xCorsair TX 750W ATX SLI Compliant Power Supply (CMPSU-750TXUK) £89.99

1xCorsair Dominator 3GB (3x1GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C8 (1600MHz) Tri-Channel (TR3X3G1600C8D) £63.24

1xCoolermaster V8 CPU Cooler (Socket 940/AM2/LGA775/LGA1366)
£56.99

1xHitachi Deskstar P7K500 500GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (0A35415)
£37.98

1xSony Optiarc AD-7240S 24x DVD±RW SATA Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM
£18.99

Shipping : £12.50

VAT : £143.94

Total : £1,103.51

so have i forgot anything lol or any ideas his ideal budget is £1000 but he says he could stretch to £1200, we just need a good pc that will carry on for a while!
 
Also the motherboard youve listed is ddr2 and the ram youve selected is a tri channel ddr3 kit.
 
And you have triple channel DDR3 set for a DDR2 motherboard that takes memory in pairs.

Also why spend £350 on a soon to be outdated top end graphics card and match it with a lowrange, old generation quad CPU?

sorry but that is a pretty badly mismatched spec
 
The CPU is quite mismatched with the GPU, likely to cause a serious bottleneck. You should spend more on the CPU - should really go for an i7.
Not a fan of that case, it is personal taste but i really dislike it.
The coolermaster V8 costs much more than its worth. Megahalems is the best atm.
Id go for a Western Digital Caviar Black or Samsung F1 HDD.

EDIT: something like this -
Untitled-1-10.jpg

But with the new CPUs + GPUs coming out soon it might be an idea to wait. Talk to your friend and see what he thinks.

EDIT2: or the cheaper route -
Untitled-1-11.jpg

And you can upgrade the GPU when the new ones come out, or add another 4890.
 
Last edited:
Yeah that is pretty spot on for the budget BIGBC. To be really picky though isn't that HDD 2x250GB platters? Wouldn't it be better to go for the 640GG WD Black as that will be 2x320GB platters and hence a bit faster?

Although agree with phytal that the new graphics cards soon out will either be a better deal or should at least bring the price of the GTX295 down a bit so probably worth waiting.
 
As they are both two platters I would have thought they'd perform the same - havent really looked into it though. Those WD 500GBs have done me excellently though.
 
sorry as i say its been a while im running dual core and havent checked out the stuff i was looking at because it was late and i had to get up for work lol, he says he wants an nvidia for sure, so BIGBC's idea of EDIT 1 looks good, just need vista 64 bit and he should be a ok
 
I would recommend not spending £350 on a graphics card less than a month before the new & improved generation comes out and it suddenly depreciates spectacularly. Your friend, assuming he notices, will regret the decision, resent you for poor judgement in not waiting, and end up buying the new card anyway and taking a massive hit on the 295gtx. Evga's upgrade option might prove useful.

I question the wisdom of you building this for a friend. If it's £1200 on the table and one of your friends is breathing down your neck mistakes are easily made and harshly judged. You up for explaining why against all the odds nothing happens when you hit the on button?
 
Last edited:
I would recommend using the Windows 7 release client for now and preordering Windows 7, its much better than Vista.

I too would think twice about the GTX295, it is a great card. Hell im still using the last generation version of it and it deals with everything beautifully. But; with the new cards coming out soon the prices are likely to drop considerably, or you are going to be able to afford a new DX11 card. Granted the nVidia ones arent expected too soon, so getting a lower spec nVidia and waiting on the new ones is what I would be trying to convince him to do. A second hand 9800GTX would let him game well up until then and you can gerab them for cheap atm.

You should think about what Jon said too, make sure your friendship is upto the task. Ive done it with £1300, £800, £600, £450, £300, £250 builds and the only one that has experienced any issues has been the £1300 build. Luckily it was for my best friend and so he was pretty alright about it, gave it back to me whilst he went on holiday and I figured out what the issue was (need to RMA the ASUS mobo now). If he is the kind of person to turn on you at the first sign of trouble its really not worth it.
 
Last edited:
i see what you are saying about 7 and will definately talk to him about it, as for the actual buy date, he is thinking december, so obviously we will look at spec when he has the money and is ready to commit.
As long as there is no faulty hardware im sure it will all run smoothly, its either he gets one built or he buys an alienware, but is that alienware going to be as good?
ive built my system up from scratch again a few times as i bought it from a shoddy retailer then used ocuk parts to replace the problematic items, each time i was able to isolate the broken part and RMA the item with the company but they are still not trustworthy, i had one broken motherboard, a broken psu, several burnt out ram sticks, there were constant fails, luckily the mobo im using is from them and still works, i had to replace the psu myself as they said the warranty was void as it was "dented" which was a result of it blowing up, therefore very bad customer service.

i trust ocuk as a supplier and know that any parts that are faulty will be replaced if they are genuinely faulty and it was not my doing, im sure he has trust in my decisions thanks jon, i have built for many friends and they have only had problems when trying to mess with the computers themselves.

so yes you can give me advice of either telling him to buy an alienware or i can build, my brother also built his pc and is studying computer science at uni so im confident we can build with no problems but if you think a prebuild is a better idea then tell me


*edit* also im sure ocuk could build the rig for him if you guys think thats the safest option and dont trust the shipping company sending the items safely?

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=FS-070-OE that prebuild could be what you all think he should get but he says ALLOW ATI and wants NVIDIA hands down , i have to agree from experience with faulty ati's in the past.
 
Last edited:
I dont think getting a prebuilt system is a safer option - Ive had more problems with them than self built ones and because I built the self built ones it takes much less time to find + fix the problem.

If you are confident with it then go for it. Theres very little that can go wrong if you know what your doing, and faulty components are easily replaced.

If hes waiting that long then theres not too much point putting spec's together now, things will change a lot by then.
 
From what i have heard Alienware PC's are horribly overpriced so i would stay away from them. As far as i am concerned there is absolutely no reason to upgrade over the next month or so as there's no much changing to make a good judgment.
 
cheers for the advice bigbc, definately will take it, and wait till he has a budget and actually is ready to commit to it, now how do i give you a gold star :D
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom