Spec Check ~£800

AtlantisX · 10 Dec 2009 at 23:13

Spec I'm thinking if getting for christmas. Point of the system is to be a gaming system that's not overboard price-wise, but will hopefully last a while.

I'm open to any suggestion that anyone can contribute. Consider the budget flexible within reason.

A few points: I have chosen 1 Graphics card for the time being. This is because I intend to get a 2nd card at a later point in the year/next christmas when I have a little more money at hand.

I'm also completely clueless at what PSU I should be getting. I've done some research and plyed with some of the online calculators, but if anyone with "real world" experience could help me out, I would really appreciate it.

CoxyBoy123 · 10 Dec 2009 at 23:18

You will be fine with the 650Watt version
hmmm change the hard drive for the f3 its faster
if you can push the budget get a H50

will0812 · 10 Dec 2009 at 23:29

Im going to suggest something a bit different, as its for gaming i think i5 would be best.

- Intel Core i5 750 2.66Ghz (Lynnfield) (Socket LGA1156) - OEM + Colin McRae Dirt 2 Full Game
- Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro Rev 2 CPU Cooler (Socket 939 / AM2 / AM2+ / 775 / 1156 / 1366)
- Asus P7P55D Evo Intel P55 (Socket 1156) DDR3 Motherboard
- XFX ATI Radeon HD 5850 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card
- Geil Ultra Series 4GB (2x2GB) PC3-17000 2133MHz Dual Channel Kit
- Corsair HX 750W ATX Modular SLI Compliant Power Supply
- Samsung SpinPoint F3 500GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM
- Antec 300 Three Hundred Ultimate Gaming Case - Black

Total inc VAT = £816.90

Although its a little over, you could go for a cheaper MB + Wait for prices of 5850 to fall a bit, this gives you better graphics and later you could upgrade to Crossfired 5850's which would destroy 2x5770

CoxyBoy123 · 10 Dec 2009 at 23:49

Didaco · 10 Dec 2009 at 23:50

on a budget the True Spirit is an excellent cooler better than that akasa
@Gfx the will has a point about the 5850 but the im sure the 5770 will do fine now and even better in the future when you crossfire it
its a popular card for good reasons

AtlantisX · 11 Dec 2009 at 00:02

I'm liking the suggested setup (especially getting a better graphics card at only a slightly higher price). I hadn't really considered the i5, I'd always sort of brushed it off as "5 < 7, so must be worse. But now I look into it, it does seem the i5 would be more suitable in the benchmarks vs the price.

I also guess that downgrading from 6GB of ram to 4Gb isn't going to be a huge problem.

As for the 5850, I was always a little dissappointed that I wouldn't be able to squeeze something more than the 5770 into the system, as I too thought that 2 5850's would be vastly superior to 2 5770s.

It seems that the forum here supports the above proposed setup. If anyone else can comment, then that would be welcome.

Thanks again for your support.