Second Opinion

marc69

marc69

marc69

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Hi guys,

My friend is looking for a new computer so I've put him something together which I think is good price / performance.

He wants to spend about £450

amdh.jpg


Just nice to have another opinion on it.

It's just for gaming, BF3 mostly.

Many Thanks,

Marc
 
I can't see anything wrong with it. The 6870 is a solid card and beats a GTX560 (NOT THE Ti VERSION) and is on par with last year GTX470.

The CPU is also a good buy. It's the black edition, so overclocking will be a doddle, you can get the 955 to around 3.8ghz easily.

Case is basic but has plenty of features and is kind of pretty.

Motherboard and Memory are also sound. You cannot go wrong with this rig!

Looks great. Beats my Athlon Quad and HD5770 by miles. Though going X6 and my own 6870 by end of the year.

Enjoy the rig!
 
Cheers for the reply mate.

I'm using a 6870 myself at the moment and I'm pretty happy with the performance I was getting in BF3 with it. I'd read quite a bit about the 955BE's and as you've said, quite a few people are getting decent clocks on them. I'm loving how cheap the DDR3 is at the moment, you can get quality ram for so cheap :).

Any more opinions welcomed, he wants to order this tomorrow providing he can get the funds together.

Cheers,

Marc
 
That case is a ok, got plenty of features but its a bit ugly in my opinion, but everyone should have their own tastes!

DDR3 is really cheap and will be for a long while. DDR2 is expensive now. I am only running 1333mhz memory and it does me. With my HD5770 overclocked at 920/1350 from the 850/1200 stock and my Athlon X4 640 @ 3.4ghz I hit 60fps constantly in DiRT3.

I'm getting the 6870 mainly for MW3 and the X6 for the 2 extra cores (especially as I design webites and use photoshop etc a lot) and the L3 cache my Athlon doesn't have, so I get some extra umph from the processor.

The Kingston memory is ok, but I would get some Corsair Vengence, it is on offer for £31.99 (http://bit.ly/q1MaJE) at the moment and is better than the Kingston, plus better coolers on them.

What is he going to be using as a cooler?

If their is going to be overclocking, then the stock cooler is as good as horse crap! I would recommend the Gelid Tranquillo which is out of stock unfortunately, so if you are buying now, get either the Arctic Freezer 13, or even the Arctic Freezer Pro 7 Rev. 2 which I have. Great little cooler and cools my overclocked Athlon very well for less than £20. The Freezer 13 is better, but is £26.99: http://bit.ly/q1MaJE

Anything else I can help you with?

CinderzFTW
 
CinderzFTW said:
That case is a ok, got plenty of features but its a bit ugly in my opinion, but everyone should have their own tastes!

DDR3 is really cheap and will be for a long while. DDR2 is expensive now. I am only running 1333mhz memory and it does me. With my HD5770 overclocked at 920/1350 from the 850/1200 stock and my Athlon X4 640 @ 3.4ghz I hit 60fps constantly in DiRT3.

I'm getting the 6870 mainly for MW3 and the X6 for the 2 extra cores (especially as I design webites and use photoshop etc a lot) and the L3 cache my Athlon doesn't have, so I get some extra umph from the processor.

The Kingston memory is ok, but I would get some Corsair Vengence, it is on offer for £31.99 (http://bit.ly/q1MaJE) at the moment and is better than the Kingston, plus better coolers on them.

What is he going to be using as a cooler?

If their is going to be overclocking, then the stock cooler is as good as horse crap! I would recommend the Gelid Tranquillo which is out of stock unfortunately, so if you are buying now, get either the Arctic Freezer 13, or even the Arctic Freezer Pro 7 Rev. 2 which I have. Great little cooler and cools my overclocked Athlon very well for less than £20. The Freezer 13 is better, but is £26.99: http://bit.ly/q1MaJE

Anything else I can help you with?

CinderzFTW
Click to expand...

Yeah, the case isn't my ideal pick either but it seems to have quite a few good features and he likes it so I think it will do.

As far as overclocking goes I think he probably will leave it at stock for a while but as you said, an aftermarket cooler is definitely a good start if he decides to go ahead with it (I'll mention it to him). I've got a rev 2 artic freezer as well and it cools my Q6600 at 3ghz pretty nice.

As for the ram, I do agree with you about the Vengenace being slightly better but I think the Hyper-X will be fine for him and it helps keeps the cost down which is important for a student :D

Cheers,

Marc
 
marc69 said:
Yeah, the case isn't my ideal pick either but it seems to have quite a few good features and he likes it so I think it will do.

As far as overclocking goes I think he probably will leave it at stock for a while but as you said, an aftermarket cooler is definitely a good start if he decides to go ahead with it (I'll mention it to him). I've got a rev 2 artic freezer as well and it cools my Q6600 at 3ghz pretty nice.

As for the ram, I do agree with you about the Vengenace being slightly better but I think the Hyper-X will be fine for him and it helps keeps the cost down which is important for a student :D

Cheers,

Marc
Click to expand...

Ah students, rinse money from the banks via overdrafts and the government via loans and cannot afford to pay it back. E.g. MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! lolz. Well finished uni now lol.

Anyways, as he is a student, I suppose the Kingston stuff will do it for him. I run standard (no heatsinks on it) Corsair 1333mhz DDR3, but am adding some Antec heatsinks on it soon! Need to, overclocking is a bitch for heat xD.

Yea the Arctic Freezer Pro 7 Rev. 2 will be perfect for him. Small enough to fit in any case, but will cool the 955 like an iceberg without a massive pricetag!

Anything else?
 
Oh yeah, you're right. I never even thought to check the CPU wattage support.

I'd tell him to get an AM3+ board but it pushes the cost up, he's practically over his limit already.

I guess I'll have to have a quick word with him, see what he says about the gigabyte.

Cheers,

Marc
 
I'll go with your suggestion then Stulid. I went with your advice when you helped spec my HTPC and that's running pretty flawlessly so I'll take your word for it.

Thanks both for the information and again, great spot on the CPU Stulid :)

Cheers,

Marc
 
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