Spec for £1000'ish

[Habit]

First post and its a request for help with, surprise surprise, a spec, its not like you get enough of those already.

I know a bit about PC's but hardware is defiantly not a speciality so I've been reading around forums, and different shops trying to choose what I want. The main thing I've learned is I can't make up my mind when it gets down to the specifics.

I'm actually planning on buying this in January when I should have some money but that's not far away and I'm excited about building a machine from scratch for the first time. (well 2nd if a shuttle barebones kit counts).

I'm trying to build a fast gaming machine, and also trying to stick to a budget of £1000'ish though that doesn't include the OS. Anyway as I said its the specifics of what to get that I'm after help with as for example an 8800GTX card varies in price between manufacturers and I have no clue which is the best, or the best in budget anyway. I'm sure you know what I mean.

Hard Drives - Id like fast & quiet, Minimum size would be 50+ gig. Most of my data sits on another machine so doesn't need to be a huge disk. Not worried about RAID

Memory - 2gig fast good quality

Graphics - A single 8800GTX card for now. I plan on buying a 2nd in about 6 months and run them in SLI.

PSU - Enough to run this in SLI when I get the 2nd card, I don't want to skimp on this.

Processor - Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 would be nice if it can be in the budget.

Motherboard - Capable of supporting 2 8800GTX cards in SLI. Needs a reasonable integrated sound card. Wireless NIC would be nice

Case - Really have no idea here, I'm more keen on a good case no matter what it looks like. But looking nice would be a bonus.

Cooling - ????????

I'm planning to reuse keyboard, mouse, speakers and a DVD drive from my current machine and if the above doesnt have a wireless NIC then I have a PCI one I can use. So I think the above is everything I need...

though im probably wrong

Any help appreciated.

 

[Trusty]

Does this include monitor??

Have sketched this up but it include a monitor, cant really fit a 8800 GTX in with a £1000 budget so i went for the GTS.

Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro CPU Cooler (Socket 775)
(£16.44)

Intel Core 2 DUO E6300 "LGA775 Allendale" 1.86GHz (1066FSB) - OEM
(£110.44)

Samsung SpinPoint P HD080HJ 80GB SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM
(£30.54)

Gigabyte GA_965P_S3 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard
(£88.11)

OcUK 2GB (2x1GB) PC2-6400 800MHz DDR2 Dual Channel Kit
(£146.86)

BFG GeForce 8800 GTS 640MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail
(£299.61)

Lian-Li PC-7 PLUS Aluminium Midi-Tower Case - Black
(£57.56)

OCZ GameXStream 700w Silent SLI Ready ATX2 Power Supply
(£99.86)

Asus VW192S 19" Widescreen LCD Monitor - Black Widescreen LCD Monitor -
(£144.51)

Sub Total :£845.91
Vat :£150.30

Total :£1,009.16

This is a very respectable machine and the 6300 combined with the artic frezzer will easily hit 2.8ghz with a simple raise of the fsb.

The OcUK ram is meant to be very good aswell!!!

 

[ATIorNvidia]

get an E6400 for the extra 20 pound, unless youll be overclocking.

 

[Habit]

Thanks for the replies. Couple of comments\questions...

I already have a monitor so no need for that. I should have mentioned it.

With the money saved there do you think I could push the spec up to using a 8800GTX?

Also the MoBo - Does that support SLI? I had a look and could not find any mention of that? I plan on adding a 2nd graphics card in about 6 months and want to run it it in SLI.

Also regarding HD, is it worth the extra to have a 16MB cache? Honestly I don't know how implortant the cache size is.

As for overcloking, never done it before but Im tempted to give it a go if it means I get a bit more punch for my pound. From the comments above can I presume the E6300 is better for overclocking then the E6400?

Thanks again. Its really nice to be able to talk these questions through.

 

[Orison]

The ONLY boards capable of supporting 8800-series cards in SLI are those based on the nVidia 680 chipset. This is because they need to be able to run their PCI-E x16 lanes in tandem at full x16 speed.

There are currently only 3 motherboards that do this, which all should be available here by the New Year (at the mo the EVGA is in stock and the others on pre-order).

EVGA nForce 680 {~210)
BFG nForce 680 (~£200)
ASUS Striker Extreme (~£250)

The 8800GTX is a very powerful video card but it is a lot of money. I'm a gamer and I just built a £1000 rig myself, and to my mind the nVidia 8800 series cards don't warrant the investment at the minute. A mid-high range DirectX card for ~£180 will run all the current spread of games at good resolutions, good visual FX and sufficient FPS to mean you don't see the difference from a ~£400 GTX card, at least in terms of slowdown. The 8800-series cards can do their advanced antialiasing/anisotropy effects on current-gen games, but to be honest, is the slight difference in visual quality worth £220? That's the cost of a Wii or most of an Xbox 360. The difference really is slight.

DirectX 10 games won't start appearing for a year at least, and by that time, DirectX 10 cards like the 8800 will cost far less and - as always with pc technology - perform much faster than those available now.

That is totally just my opinion. Someone else built a £1000 system at the same time as me and chose an 8800GTS, which I was very jealous about He spent a few quid more than me, but I went with a RAID array, and a bigger PSU/more expensive memory/aftermarket heatsink for overclocking instead.

If you want some recommendations, with an SLI-capable mobo, an 8800-series card, and a big enough PSU to run two 8800s in SLI, I'd suggest considering:



800W PSU should last you. The BFG is the cheapest SLI-capable board, but is as-yet unproven as an overclocker. The Arctic Freezer Pro is a decent CPU cooler, performing within a near margin of the more expensive (£40ish) tower heatsinks, and since Core 2 systems run cool it will be more than sufficient for a decent overclock. The GeIL memory is good RAM, but not the very best; since it's specced to DDR800 you will be able to get 2.8GHz out of the E6300 (i.e.400FSB) out-of-the-box, and probably some more if you slacken the timings. Seagate 7200.10 series drives are quite fast, but some are known to be noisy - this seems to depend on where they were manufactured, and I'm afraid it's luck-of-the-draw You could try a Samsung Spinpoint or a WD Caviar SE16 series if noise is a big issue, which have reasonable performance - and you really notice HD performance very very little as a gamer.

Sorry, I can't fit in an 8800GTX while still keeping a PSU and mobo sufficient to run SLI in the future If you've got your heart set on twin-GTX, then you might need to find a few extra pounds somewhere, since obviously if you get a GTS now, you need to get another GTS to run SLI. In any case, even with one GTS, you won't be disappointed with the system's gaming performance

 

[Orison]

As for overcloking, never done it before but Im tempted to give it a go if it means I get a bit more punch for my pound. From the comments above can I presume the E6300 is better for overclocking then the E6400?

Well it depends. I went with the E6400. I laid out my reasoning here Basically I think the extra clock multiplier - x8 rather than x7 - is worth the money to get the most out of the CPU before the motherboard or RAM puts a ceiling on your system. However we're talking about the top-end prospects for air-overclocking, which likely aren't attainable without good luck.

My attitude puts me in the minority though, for some reason. For a lot of OC'ers they want to see just how screaming-high they can set their FSB, and the extra clock multiplier on the E6400 won't help that. However for moderate overclocks, and using the GEIL RAM, you might get more out of it if you can find the extra £20. Some people seem to think 6400's don't overclock as well, but there's no earthly reason why that should be the case, and they're all subjected to the same manufacturing process - therefore, just like with 6300s and 6600s, some will be good OC'ers and some not-so-good.

 

[Habit]

Thanks Orison I think the spec you put up above looks good for what I want/need. Think I'll probably spend the extra £20 for the E6400.

If any one else has any thoughts I'd love to hear them but if not the above spec looks good to me.