Spec me! - £700-750

inverseSquare

inverseSquare

inverseSquare

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Joined
30 Aug 2007
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261
Hi all,


I'm looking for a machine to do graphics work, games, programming, etc.

The machine will be on for around 16 hours a day so any pointers to components that would provide quality, heat reduction, quietness, etc. would be appreciated.

Budget £700-750 (£800 if something really catches my eye ;))

(Don't need a monitor, keyboard, etc..)



One certainty - needs two pci-e 16x slots on the motherboard


I was thinking...
i5 (better than a quad phenomII cos of the new 'turbo'?)
Ati 5850 (seems silly to be buying Nvidia at the moment?)
Nothing too flashy for the case - just good cooling and big enough for those ati 5800 cards ;)
New OS - Win7 business a good buy?




Thanks for the help.
 
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well

i assume i want to go xfire in future, and have both cards operate at x16. Well, you cant do that with i5. lynnfields can only do 16 lanes total, so x8 + x8 (unless you've got nf200 chip, then x8 +x16, but no much point).

So there you go:

84389470.png


i dont like the psu in my spec - it only has 70% power efficiency, but i7 + 5850 only will need about 450 watts at full load, so it will be perfect, and dead cheap. But if it was me, I would still get 650w Be Quiet Straight Power one for £65. (but no need).

edit: actually, for cooler i recommend getting Coolermaster Geminii S isntead of titan fenrir, to be honest, I dont think titan will fit in that case.
 
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This is my new build, you can swap the PSU for that 650W coolermaster and shave 40 quid off the price taking it to £760, and remove the fans aswell to save another 16 quid. Only reason I have the 750W psu there is cos I'm going for a second 5850 eventually.

pc-12.jpg
 
Drake22 said:
well

i assume i want to go xfire in future, and have both cards operate at x16. Well, you cant do that with i5. lynnfields can only do 16 lanes total, so x8 + x8 (unless you've got nf200 chip, then x8 +x16, but no much point).
Click to expand...

Didn't know about this limitation...

So 2 pci-e cards running at 16x wont work with an i5?
Is that to do with the crossfire setup? Or wouldn't it work if it were just 2 cards running at 16x + i5 irrespectively?


Thanks for the help :)
 
Yes, it wouldnt work with 2 cards running at 16x because the i5 (and all other lynnfields) has an on-board PCI-E controller. Unfortunately this only supports 16 lanes, allowing either 1 card running at 16x (taking all of the lanes) or 2 cards running at 8x each (splitting the lanes between the two).
 
Cheers for the explanation - puts a bit of a spanner in the o'l plans though :)


How about an i7 with a cheaper gfx card? Any chance of getting that for a similar price?




Thanks for the help.
 
You could shave around £50 from the rig in the second post by going for a 4890. It's an excellent performer, but if you're going to be making the most of that i7, I wouldnt go any lower than that tbh..
 
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Right Over your top budget slightly I know and with no OS But this will destroy games and has Hyperthreading for graphics work and programming etc

The 860 will clock to about 3.5ghz easily on stock and 4 on a decent cooler.

The 1156 skt 860 draws less power than a i7 920 and the 5850 draws less power than most cards (around 320w for cpu and gfx on load)

Use the RC build win 7 until you have enough cash to buy a new OS for the system or using an existing OS you have.

you wont notice the 8x8 agianst the 16x16 pci lanes prob 7 fps tops in games If you somehow manage to saturate the PCI-E lanes!

The skt 1156 will have a LOT CHEAPER upgrade path to that of the i7 1366 skt too.

20r08yg.jpg
 
Ok ill simplify something.. i7 920 is a very NICE chip without question and skt 1366 is a nice skt but BEAR IN MIND I9 skt 1366 upgrades WILL be VERY expensive.

a lot of people seem to be overlooking the fact that they might not be able to spend £3-400 on a CPU to goto I9, meaning sticking with what you have or undergoing a socket change later.
 
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