Spec advice

LLBDTiberio · 30 Oct 2009 at 12:48

Hi everyone,
I've finally saved up enough money to get myself a new PC!

I have been out of the loop for about 2 years now (last pc had a ati 1950pro!) and I would be very glad if some of you guys could have a look at my spec below and maybe give it your thoughts?
The main aim of the PC will be gaming/video/music, already have a monitor (Dell S2409W.
All that's needed is the PC itself, a keyboard, and OS.

- AMD Phenom II X4 Quad Core 965 Black Edition 3.40GHz (£144.98)
- Gigabyte GA-MA790XT-UD4P (Socket AM3) PCI-Express DDR3 Motherboard (£104.99)
- OCZ Obsidian 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 Dual Channel (£69.99)
- Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 4890 Vapor-X 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card (£150.64)
- Asus Xonar Essence STX Sound Card (£137.99)
- Western Digital Caviar Blue 250GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (£34.99)
- LG GH22NS50 22x DVD±RW SATA Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - Retail (£21.99)
- Tuniq Tower 120 Extreme CPU Cooler Rev.B (£36.98)
- Lian Li B-10 Case (£164.99)
- Corsair HX 650W ATX Modular SLI Compliant Power Supply (£96.99)
- Logitech Illuminated Keyboard (£56.99)
- Windows 7 Home premium Retail (£75.99)

Total: £1,097.56

The only two things that I want to stay in the spec is the B-10 case and the soundcard.
My budget is £1100 - £1200.
In the future I plan to get a 2tb harddrive/SSD and a Ati 5870 when the prices have fallen.
Any comments to my spec?

bigsharn · 30 Oct 2009 at 13:41

- AMD Phenom II X4 Quad Core 965 Black Edition 3.40GHz (£144.98)
- Gigabyte GA-MA790XT-UD4P (Socket AM3) PCI-Express DDR3 Motherboard (£104.99)
...
- Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 4890 Vapor-X 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card (£150.64)
...
- Western Digital Caviar Blue 250GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (£34.99)

Go i5, it'll work out slightly cheaper and I'm sure you can easily clock to 3.4 on the 750. As for the card just get a a 4650 or similar, then you'll have an extra ~£100 to upgrade to the 5870 when the price drops, also get the Samsung f3 1tb, it's less than double the price for 4x the storage (use the money save from going i5)

95thrifles · 30 Oct 2009 at 19:33

I'd recomend sticking with your original spec, looks very good to me, maybe change the HDD yeah, either 500gig or 1Tb Samsung F3 or WD Caviar Black

LLBDTiberio · 30 Oct 2009 at 20:20

Thanks to the both of you for helping me out, I decided to stick with the Phenom spec as the performance difference is very small and I've always wanted to try AMD. I changed the harddrive to the F3 1TB as you suggested and went with the 1gb 4890 Sapphire as I really don't want to buy another graphics card for a few months.

DireEmblem · 30 Oct 2009 at 20:28

Do you really need to spend ~ 260 on just the case/psu?

I would be tempted to knock them down to something like:-
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-106-TT&groupid=701&catid=7&subcat=1479

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-023-OC&groupid=701&catid=123&subcat=1098

and then get a boot drive like:-
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-079-SA&groupid=701&catid=14&subcat=910

OR, up your graphics to a 5800 series?

Whats folks opinions of that?

LLBDTiberio · 31 Oct 2009 at 01:10

Hi Dire,
I went with an expensive case/psu because those 2 components are the ones I plan on keeping the longest. I wanted a good quality modular PSU cause I hate the clutter and I really love the minimalistic look of the B10, each user has their own taste/needs I guess. I went with an 4890 over an 5870 because I can, first of all, actually get an 4890 immediately, and because the performance is still great for the games I will be playing. Once the prices of the 5870 fall I will be looking into the series. Also, in regards to not choosing an SSD, I just cannot justify the cost at the moment. For an average user like me, it's just more important to have a great looking pc that, while not performing at the highest level possible, can provide an excellent bang for buck.