Spec me a £3000 Base Unit

Vicar

Vicar

Vicar

Associate
Joined
18 Oct 2002
Posts
2,062
Location
Glasgow, East Kilbride
Going to have a good bit of spare cash in the January, and looking to upgrade my Base Unit, and I am wanting at least 1.5 TB of storage, which I have in my current system.

Regards and thanks for any advice.
 
Coolermaster Mystique 631 Black (No PSU) £63.99
(£75.19) £63.99
(£75.19)
BFG GeForce 8800 GTX 768MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail £359.99
(£422.99) £359.99
(£422.99)
Intel Core 2 Quadro Extreme Edition QX6700 "LGA775 Kentsfield" 2.66GHz (1066FSB) - OEM £564.99
(£663.86) £564.99
(£663.86)
EVGA nForce 680 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £179.99
(£211.49) £179.99
(£211.49)
CellShock 2GB (2 x 1GB) DDR2 PC2-8000C4 1000MHz Dual Channel Kit £239.99
(£281.99) £479.98
(£563.98)
Western Digital Raptor 74GB WD740ADFD 10,000RPM SATA 16MB Cache - OEM £89.99
(£105.74) £179.98
(£211.48)
Western Digital Caviar SE16 500GB 5000KS SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM £110.99
(£130.41) £443.96
(£521.64)
Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Fatal1ty FPS Edition - Retail - Includes £25 Casback £115.99
(£136.29) £115.99
(£136.29)
Enermax Galaxy 850W EGA850EWL ATX2.2 Modular PSU £154.99
(£182.11) £154.99
(£182.11)
Sub Total : £2,543.86
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £14.95
Vat : £447.79
Total : £3,006.60

I think that sort of covers everything. I don't know about periperals but you said that you only wanted a base unit update. Hope this helps :)
 
Akasa Eclipse 62 Aluminium Case - No PSU £87.98
(£103.38) £87.98
(£103.38)
NEC ND7173 18x18 DVD±RW Dual Layer LabelFlash ReWriter (Black) - OEM £18.99
(£22.31) £18.99
(£22.31)
Intel Core 2 Quadro Extreme Edition QX6700 "LGA775 Kentsfield" 2.66GHz (1066FSB) - OEM £564.99
(£663.86) £564.99
(£663.86)
EVGA nForce 680 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £179.99
(£211.49) £179.99
(£211.49)
Corsair 2GB DDR2 XMS2-6400C4 TwinX (2x1GB) £179.99
(£211.49) £179.99
(£211.49)
2* BFG GeForce 8800 GTX 768MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail £359.99
(£422.99) £719.98
(£845.98)
Western Digital Raptor 74GB WD740ADFD 10,000RPM SATA 16MB Cache - OEM £89.99
(£105.74) £89.99
(£105.74)
5* Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 320GB ST3320620AS SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM £55.99
(£65.79) £279.95
(£328.95)
Enermax Galaxy 1000W EGA1000EWL ATX2.2 Modular PSU £194.99
(£229.11) £194.99
(£229.11)
Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Fatal1ty FPS Edition - Retail - Includes £25 Casback £115.99
(£136.29) £115.99
(£136.29)
BFG Ageia PhysX Accelerator - Retail £149.99
(£176.24) £149.99
(£176.24)
Thermalright Ultra-120 (Socket 754/939/940/LGA775) Heatsink £34.99
(£41.11) £34.99
(£41.11)
Sub Total : £2,617.82
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £24.95
Vat : £462.48
Total : £3,105.25




gives you 2 8800gtx instead and an ageia physx card...
if you really want 3000 max then remove the physx card...
 
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Vicar said:
Going to have a good bit of spare cash in the January, and looking to upgrade my Base Unit, and I am wanting at least 1.5 TB of storage, which I have in my current system.

Regards and thanks for any advice.
Click to expand...

Why do you need to spend 3k?

what will you be doing with your PC?

What size is your monitor?
 
You could build a quality system for £2k, and have £1k in the bank for upgrades over the next year each time the next gen of hardware comes out.
 
3 grand is silly however you look at it. There's very little you can do on a 3k system you can't do on a 1500 pound, or even a 1000 pound system.

Either of the above specs are good, but more importantly they give you something to start with. Quad core, 680 mobo and 2gb of fast mem are the core components, with your choice of drives (to make 1.3TB+) and accessories.
 
As per other posts this is a complete waste of money. (pointless thread really).

I can afford a 3K system too but have always purchased bang for buck and overclock like hell systems. A 3K system will be worth 1K in 3 months time. Your choice.

easyrider said:
What size is your monitor?
Click to expand...

Judging by the budget it'll probably be the local cinema screen.
 
Guys why is this always an issue?

Yes you feel like £3000 is a waste but he clearly does not so why almost go as far as to insult him? Joeyjojo, there’s not many things a Bugatti Vayron can do that a family estate can’t in real-life use. In fact almost less because of boot space limitations. The same goes for watches, a decent Casio for sub 400 may even hold better time than a multi thousand dollar Rolex. It’s all about priorities and what you want to spend money on. If he wants to do it then who are we to say different. Subliminal aura; "Pointless thread"? I can smell the jealousy from here.
 
eLbot said:
Guys why is this always an issue?

Yes you feel like £3000 is a waste but he clearly does not so why almost go as far as to insult him? Joeyjojo, there’s not many things a Bugatti Vayron can do that a family estate can’t in real-life use. In fact almost less because of boot space limitations. The same goes for watches, a decent Casio for sub 400 may even hold better time than a multi thousand dollar Rolex. It’s all about priorities and what you want to spend money on. If he wants to do it then who are we to say different. Subliminal aura; "Pointless thread"? I can smell the jealousy from here.
Click to expand...


My thoughts exactly!
 
I think 3k is a bit excessive, it is not flaming or insulting to advise the man to spend just 2k and save 1k for upgrades over the year. It's merely being helpful - let's be realistic, you can build the perfect, killer system for that amount. I seriously doubt you can justify the performance increase going from 2k to 3k. Honestly.
 
If the OP has this sort of money I hope he's got a good display and nice stereo/multi-channel PC setup. Most peope would go daft on the base unit, but use a 15" CRT with £20 PC speaker system.
 
eLbot said:
Subliminal aura; "Pointless thread"? I can smell the jealousy from here.
Click to expand...

Jealously LOL ! No you got me wrong on that one - many years of contractor rates under my fat belt mate. I'm just giving my opinion in terms of trying to save the fella some money.

However far play to your comments as its ultimately his decision to do as he pleases.... to which end I like snowdogs spec however I would recommend Vicar splitting the budget into 2 with his terabyte filestore on a second lower spec machine.
 
Lian-Li PC V1100 PLUS Black Aluminium Midi-Tower (No PSU) £129.99
(£152.74) £129.99
(£152.74)
BFG nForce 680 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £164.99
(£193.86) £164.99
(£193.86)
NEC AD7170A 18x18 DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM £18.50
(£21.74) £37.00
(£43.48)
Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro CPU Cooler (Socket 775) £13.99
(£16.44) £13.99
(£16.44)
Western Digital Raptor 150GB WD1500ADFD 10,000RPM SATA 16MB Cache - OEM £125.99
(£148.04) £125.99
(£148.04)
Intel Core 2 Quadro Extreme Edition QX6700 "LGA775 Kentsfield" 2.66GHz (1066FSB) - Retail £569.99
(£669.74) £569.99
(£669.74)
CellShock 2GB (2 x 1GB) DDR2 PC2-8000C4 1000MHz Dual Channel Kit £239.99
(£281.99) £239.99
(£281.99)
BFG GeForce 8800 GTX 768MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail £359.99
(£422.99) £719.98
(£845.98)
BFG 1000W UK/PFC Approved PSU £154.99
(£182.11) £154.99
(£182.11)
4*Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 500GB ST3500630AS SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM £108.99
(£128.06) £435.96
(£512.24)

Total : £3,075.94 inc delviery

i allways use onboard sound and really find you need anr more than that so havent used sound card how ever if your tastes differ then add one :) also there is 1 raptor for windows and programs and 2tb of storage based on 4 500gb drives.
 
I really would implore you not to blow £3000 on an unnecessarily equipped system, but if you insist, here it is;



Seriously though, there is no earthly reason you could have for spending that much money on a system. There is a serious case of diminishing returns here. You just won't notice much difference at all from a £1500 system. You've got quad-core and 8800GTX cards in SLI and 4gig of RAM in this setup with 3 Seagates for a RAID5 array and a Raptor for your OS install, a top-quality Lian-Li server case, and really, what's the point?

Nobody needs 1.5 terabytes of storage unless they're running a server, in which case you don't need twin GTX cards because they're only going to matter for gaming. If it is a server, you should dedicate the £3000 towards a SCSI array and a T3 connection. If it's an archive, use arrays of smaller disks in a data-securing RAID configuration. Why can't you scavenge your old disks anyway? Or are you intending to have 3TB overall?

Matter of fact, who really needs twin GTX cards at all? Superhumans who can perceive the difference between 150 and 200 frames per second? Because otherwise it's a waste. In fact, as I've said elsewhere, I don't see justification in buying a DX10 card at all at the moment; better to buy a mid-high range DX9 card, and keep the saved money towards the inevitably cheaper and more powerful DX10 cards that will come out when DX10 becomes necessary. An X1950XT will serve most any gamer's needs at the minute.

4GB of RAM will only matter if you intend to upgrade to Vista 64. In fact, in anything other than XP Pro 64-bit edition, Windows won't even utilise all 4GB of memory ever. It can't.

And you'd be paying £600 for a quad-core processor, which is only really justified for the hardest-core power users who multitask between various graphics and video encoding apps at once, or again, servers. Lots of people like to delude themselves with the belief that they're power users, when in truth they're just sacrificing their cash at the altar of vanity. A 2.4GHz E6600 costs £400 less, and if overclocked will reach similar speeds to what an overclocked Quadro can obtain. Buy the E6600 and a £35 aftermarket cooler and learn to overclock, and save yourself a mound of cash. It's got 4mb of L2 cache, which will provide the performance boost in video-encoding in comparison with the cheaper E6300 and E6400 Allendales, and the quad core advantage would only ever have become apparent in very, very limited circumstances and very limited ways. It just doesn't warrant another £400.

It's all a case of sitting back and really considering what is fit for purpose rather than being recklessly extravagant. PC components suffer a massive case of diminishing returns. You could, for instance, shell out even more money on this system and buy Dominator-8888 chips at £450 a pair instead of £210 for the one's I've specced you. But the difference evaluated in any real-world benchmarks between the two chips is 0%.

Why do this? Why waste the money you work hard to save? Look at the £1000 specs people are building. These are good machines that will perform nearly as well in the real world as your £3000 machine. If you must, spec £2000 and go for a big SLI rig with a 1kW PSU and 2x8800GTX, if you're an insane gamer. Or throw in a Quadro if you really are a high-end power user/software developer/graphics processor for some multinational. Or tonnes of storage if data-serving is your calling. But save the £1000-2000 difference toward your next build instead. A £3000 system now will lose value immensely and is a far less cost-effective method of futureproofing than moderate, sensible investment coupled with future upgrades, rebuilds or replacement of redundant parts.

Hell, give £1000 to charity instead, save hundreds of lives with clean drinking water or build a school. They'll name a village after you in some parts of the world for that.

I'm not intending this as a flame and it doesn't come from jealousy. If you're asking for the best way to spend £3000 then I feel obliged to point out that a very large portion of that money - at least £1000, maybe £1500 or £2000 depending on your intentions for the system - would be expended wastefully and would be much better reallocated to future investment. However, as has also been said, it's your prerogative to do as you like with your money. As has been excellently surmised, people pay hundreds of thousands for a Veyron that in the real world is still obliged to obey a 70mph speed limit, or thousands on a Rolex that, being a quality mechanical timepiece, will not keep time as well as a cheaper quartz wristwatch. The difference is you can drive that Bugatti around from now 'til Doomsday and people will admire it as a beautiful triumph of engineering, a motoring masterpiece; it will hold value as a classic. The Rolex will always be a Rolex and will be admired for many years to come. This is not true in the world of pc hardware. In 18 months' time a £3000 base unit will be matched in performance by an average new system of the day, and will be effectively obsolete. It won't be worth a fraction of its original price.

It's not quite the same as buying a Bugatti. It more closely analogises to throwing your money in a pond.
 
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I bought a Cartier for £5000 ++ is that a waste? No. I have the money, so I splurge, simple as that.

To the OP, some of the above mentioned specs are good.
 
Orison said:
Why do this? Why waste the money you work hard to save? Look at the £1000 specs people are building. These are good machines that will perform nearly as well in the real world as your £3000 machine. If you must, spec £2000 and go for a big SLI rig with a 1kW PSU and 2x8800GTX, if you're an insane gamer. Or throw in a Quadro if you really are a high-end power user/software developer/graphics processor for some multinational. Or tonnes of storage if data-serving is your calling. But save the £1000-2000 difference toward your next build instead. A £3000 system now will lose value immensely and is a far less cost-effective method of futureproofing than moderate, sensible investment coupled with future upgrades, rebuilds or replacement of redundant parts.

Hell, give £1000 to charity instead, save hundreds of lives with clean drinking water or build a school. They'll name a village after you in some parts of the world for that.
Click to expand...

" Well said " : Charity now that's something we always overlook when threating oneself to the luxuries of life.
 
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Lolcb said:
I bought a Cartier for £5000 ++ is that a waste? No. I have the money, so I splurge, simple as that.
Click to expand...

cf my point above. You buy the Cartier because it's a truly fine thing, its value and quality endures and it will continue to be admired for what it is. Would you buy a £5000 Cartier watch if they somehow decayed into a £20 plastic Casio after 2 years? Of course you wouldn't. The analogy doesn't stand up.

As Lance said, you could buy a base unit for half the cost and indulge yourself a different way with the rest of the money. Buy a big-screen LCD or whatever else it is you splurge out on. Find another way to treat yourself, or treat others, or if you are determined to invest it in your computing needs, retain the money for a future system or upgrades.
 
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