Spec Check pretty please?

Youstolemyname

Youstolemyname

Youstolemyname

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Have pulled the above together but it is taking me a fair bit over budget of circa £1000-1200 :eek:

I am after a rig that is going to be:

Good for gaming
Good for photo editing- hence the expensive monitor (is this the best to get in 22" range?)
Good for 3d modelling- hence i7
Pretty much future proof (for at least 4-5 years!)

Can anyone suggest an alternative spec to bring me closer to the budget or have I got to bite the bullet with what I have got...

Thanks for any advice in advance!
 
Spec looks good, a personal choice woiuld be change the ram to to this, currently being used on my i7 system.
 
Great choice with the monitor - it may be one of the most expensive 22in - but it is worth it. It uses an e-IPS panel, so its colour accuracy is much better than a cheaper TN and the viewing angles are much wider. Should be superb for your uses. If I was you, this would be the last thing i'd downgrade on the spec.

However, I would suggest a couple of changes:

This RAM is cheaper and faster.
You should consider this PSU instead, it is much higher quality than the OCZ. It is more than powerful enough to power that system. Though if you want to add a second 5850 in the future, the 650W version would be a good idea.

This sound card would be much better, it actually uses proper Xonar hardware, compared to the Creative audio which doesn't actually use X-Fi hardware.

To save some real money you could switch to an i5 750 system. It will be slightly slower in the CPU intensive apps - but not by that much.
 
I am reluctant to go i5 as I want something future proof I can upgrade in 3-4 years time with a new CPU etc.

Are the Asus cards better than creative these days? Been an age since I upgraded my rig..audigy was the dogs danglies back then :D

Is that antec cpu quiet? I also like a veryyyy quiet system hehe :)
 
i7 is no more futureproof than i5. Given that you're already over budget, I think i5 would be a smart move. Spec one out, see what you think.

ppl generally say that XFi is better for gaming, and Xonar is better for movies+music. I've never heard a Xonar tho. As you're looking at low-end sound cards I'd expect the difference to be very small.

The PSU won't be the loudest thing in your system, don't worry about the noise it makes. I imagine they're equal in noise. Although I'd be tempted to get a Corsair HX 650W, just to complicate things further :)
 
is that right about i7 being no more futureproof than i7? I bought socket 939 pretty much on release and it served me well up till now by adding extra ram and overclocking an opteron up to 3ghz but I think the time has come to upgrade the rig.

I just want to be able to buy a platform that will serve me well for a few years and iterations of processors, if possible...
 
The sound cards are equally matched according to this months custom pc.

Love the case in particular.

+1 on the antec psu, I got one.
 
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It really depends on what you mean by "futureproof", hence why I hate using it to describe technology. However, to clear things up I will use it.

If you want a system that will overclock well and allow you to add in some 4GB DDR3 RAM sticks in the future, then the i5 (and i7 s1156) are very "futureproof". Also, the performance of i5 and i7 chips is very good, certainly more than modern games can make use of - so in terms of gaming a CPU upgrade will not be needed for some time. With this kind of definition, then the i5 should be just as "futureproof" as your old s939 system.

However, there is another definition of "futureproof" which relates to the platform continuing to be supported and developed on my the manufacturer. For example, will the new 32nm 6 core Intel CPU come to current platforms? In this case, s1156 (H55/57, P55) will not be able to take these upgrades (as far as intel has revealed), but the more expensive S1366 (X58) will accept upcoming intel 32nm hex cores. On the other side of the lines, the AMD AM3 platform looks like it will be arond for some time, and accept their new Phenom II Hex cores. If you go by this definition of "futureproof", ie likelyhood of supporting future processors, then the X58 or AM3 platforms appear to be the best.
 
When I talk about futureproof it comes down to this,

there's no guarantee of what sockets will be in use 3-4 years from now. there's no guarantee that in 3-4 years you'd need a cpu upgrade, it might be some other part of your system you want to upgrade. there's no guarantee your pc will last 3-4 years. there's no guarantee you'll need to upgrade at all.

and you'd pay about £200 for the privilege?
 
billysielu said:
When I talk about futureproof it comes down to this,

there's no guarantee of what sockets will be in use 3-4 years from now. there's no guarantee that in 3-4 years you'd need a cpu upgrade, it might be some other part of your system you want to upgrade. there's no guarantee your pc will last 3-4 years. there's no guarantee you'll need to upgrade at all.

and you'd pay about £200 for the privilege?
Click to expand...

I totally agree, that's why I hate talking about futureproof. But I tried to lay out the two definitions of the term as I have seen it used, so that the OP can identify which use of the term he was meaning.

Personally, I wouldn't pay much of a premium for a system that MAY support newer CPUs. I just buy what I know will suit me well at the time of purchase and runs all the stuff I need it to.
 
You need to repost the items you want if different to your first post.

If you have decided to replace any with the suggestions it makes it hard to compare.
 
Onnce I change the graphics card to a 5850, a 1tb harddrive and the case to a 690.

I get £1115.

Your spec includes a monitor, and the mkII version of the case.

Your obviously paying for the assembly of that prebuilt pc.

And you got a sound card!! Not onboard.
 
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