Spec me a build

Morlock said:
Why are you so adamant that every case being recommended needs more than one 120mm fan?

Also, expecting this guy to overclock when he is asking questions relating to memory on the MB and GPU being different specs of DDR is a bit much!
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Because for decent airflow in a case, it should have minimum a intake fan AND a exhaust fan at the rear for taking hot air out of the case? My point was if you have spend extra to add extra fans to £25 case, you might as well get a better case that's better quality, AND with 3 fans come with default that cost around £40.

You do realised I advised him to take the 4.40GHz i3 530 overclocked bundle for £300? But he want to cut cost so me and a few others were simply exploring other options, such as Phenom II X2 555BE, Phenom II X4 955BE etc.

We simply listed possible options and compare the prices, but at the end he would has to decide which one to get himself- build with CPUs running at stock speed (since he doesn't really know how to overclock), or a high overclocked dual-core build.

Mind you I have always thought the overclocked 4.40GHz i3 530 bundle would suit him better (since it's already pre-overclocked and doesn't cost much more than buying the components separately), but stulid suggested he can get a Phenom II X4 955BE build. Refer to my post at #145.

I honestly think he should just take this and be done with it:
i3530.jpg
 
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zalman out of stock and that bundle is 300£ and im considering the amd build cos its quad core but my intel one there looks ok for me....i think?
 
@ marine's bundle build: I dunno it's a fair bit more and doesn't include a 1GB 460 which is a better option now that scone intends to go for a 1080p monitor if I'm not mistaken. Getting the better GPU up front and waiting to overclock later makes more sense to me and will give better initial gaming performance.

Not sure what morlock's problem is. Every overclocker had their first overclock at some point, at which time, by definition, they were a novice. Scone has proven he's smart enough to seek as much knowledge as possible before making big decisions, so I'm sure he'll be just as cautious when it comes to the overclock.

I believe the 'OCUK value' cards aren't really their own brand, but rather just their way of saying we'll give you whichever cheaper brand we have kicking around and want to get rid of. I think they usually end up being Palit ones. Whilst you'll be fine with it, i think it's worth getting the special offer Asus one - only £3 more and you know exactly what you're getting and get an extra year's warranty (might not be worth the paper it's written on though if you only plan to keep it 2 years!). Asus probably has a slightly less cheap quiter fan on it too.
 
Liampope said:
Not sure what morlock's problem is. Every overclocker had their first overclock at some point, at which time, by definition, they were a novice. Scone has proven he's smart enough to seek as much knowledge as possible before making big decisions, so I'm sure he'll be just as cautious when it comes to the overclock..
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yes thank you and ill get the asus then yeh.
 
Scone said:
zalman out of stock and that bundle is 300£ and im considering the amd build cos its quad core but my intel one there looks ok for me....i think?
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One thing you have to consider is while more games are starting to use more than two cores, most of them still don't so a 3.20GHz Quad-core would be used like a 3.20GHz dual-core in those games. The way I see it, the i3 530 overclocked from 3.0GHz to 4.40GHz (+47% speed) would have similiar performance to 3 cores, even in games that don't use more than two cores...so in a way it is a better all rounder.

And also considering you are not using a high end graphic card, a highly clocked dual-core will performance better than a stock Quad, as the GTX460 will hit the GPU bound earlier than the 4.40GHz hitting CPU limitation; whereas in games that only uses two cores with the 3.20GHz Quad being used as a 3.20GHz dual-core with the possibility of holding back the GTX460 in CPU demanding games/scenes.

As for the Zalman out of stock...may be you can wait for it back in stock if you are not in a hurry, or may be get it elsewhere? It's out of stock quite often, but that just means what a great case it is at that price.
Here's some videos for you to have a look:
http://www.in.com/videos/watchvideo-zalman-z7-mid-tower-computer-case-7271924.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Ku2zRjsSMM
 
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Marine-RX179 said:
One thing you have to consider is while more games are starting to use more than two cores, most of them still don't so a 3.20GHz Quad-core would be used like a 3.20GHz dual-core in those games. The way I see it, the i3 530 overclocked from 3.0GHz to 4.40GHz (+47% speed) would have similiar performance to 3 cores, even in games that don't use more than two cores...so in a way it is a better all rounder.

And also considering you are not using a high end graphic card, a highly clocked dual-core will performance better than a stock Quad, as the GTX460 will hit the GPU bound earlier than the 4.40GHz hitting CPU limitation; whereas in games that only uses two cores with the 3.20GHz Quad being used as a 3.20GHz dual-core with the possibility of holding back the GTX460 in CPU demanding games/scenes.

As for the Zalman out of stock...may be you can wait for it back in stock if you are not in a hurry, or may be get it elsewhere? It's out of stock quite often, but that just means what a great case it is at that price.
Here's some videos for you to have a look:
http://www.in.com/videos/watchvideo-zalman-z7-mid-tower-computer-case-7271924.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Ku2zRjsSMM
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what games use more than two cores
 
Scone said:
what games use more than two cores
Click to expand...
Almost all games dated before the release of Win7, and majority of mmorpgs don't use more than two, newer games such as as Battlefield Bad Company 2 does. However, a highly overclocked dual-core or a stock speed Quad would most likely make no difference to you if you are only using a entry level card such as GTX460 768MB for the game, as the GPU limitation will hit first before the CPU does. If people were using 5970, Crossfired 5850/5870, GTX460 1GB SLI/GTX470SLI/GTX480SLI, then a overclocked Quad such as Phenom II X4 or i5/i7 would provide noticable increase in performance. Like I mentioned before...the i3 530 at 4.40GHz would be more than enough, unless you are using a card at speed level higher than a GTX480.

There are however some (very few) poor console ports that run better on Tri/Quad than dual-core, but this is beause of poor porting, not because of dual-core not fast enough.
 
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im getting a 1gb and could i overclock the i3 to play games such as bfbc2 and fallout new vegas or get a quad core e.g phenom ii x4,i5.
 
Scone said:
im getting a 1gb and could i overclock the i3 to play games such as bfbc2 and fallout new vegas or get a quad core e.g phenom ii x4,i5.
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If you are going for a stock speed CPU build and do the overclock yourself, I think you'd better going the Phenom II X4 955BE build as it is around the same price as build a i3 530 build; however if you are not comfortable with overclocking CPU yourself, just grab the i3 530 overclocked 4.40GHz bundle.
 
Marine-RX179 said:
If you are going for a stock speed CPU build and do the overclock yourself, I think you'd better going the Phenom II X4 955BE build as it is around the same price as build a i3 530 build; however if you are not comfortable with overclocking CPU yourself, just grab the i3 530 overclocked 4.40GHz bundle.
Click to expand...
what about my old intel build with the 20£ cooler as i dont wanna overclock too much just so i can get along 4 awhile plus add the 1gb 460?
 
Asus GeForce GTX 460 1024MB DirectCU GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £172.71
(£146.99) £172.71
(£146.99)
AMD Phenom II X4 Quad Core 955 Black Edition "125W Edition" 3.20GHz (Socket AM3) - Retail £117.49
(£99.99) £117.49
(£99.99)
MSI 870A-G54 AMD 870 (Socket AM3) DDR3 Motherboard £77.98
(£66.37) £77.98
(£66.37)
Corsair XMS3 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMX4GX3M2A1600C9) £76.36
(£64.99) £76.36
(£64.99)
Coolermaster Elite 430 Case - Black £41.99
(£35.74) £41.99
(£35.74)
Corsair CX 400W ATX Power Supply (CMPSU-400CXUK) £32.99
(£28.08) £32.99
(£28.08)
Western Digital Caviar Blue 500GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (WD5000AAKS) £29.99
(£25.52) £29.99
(£25.52)
Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus (Socket AM2/AM2+/AM3/775/1156/1366) £19.99
(£17.01) £19.99
(£17.01)
Samsung SH-S223C/BEBE 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £13.99
(£11.91) £13.99
(£11.91)
Sub Total : £496.60
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £10.50
VAT is being charged at 17.50% VAT : £88.74
Total : £595.84
 
Asus GeForce GTX 460 1024MB DirectCU GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £172.71
(£146.99) £172.71
(£146.99)
Asus P7H55-M/USB3 Intel H55 (Socket 1156) DDR3 microATX Motherboard £79.99
(£68.08) £79.99
(£68.08)
Intel Core i3 530 2.93GHz (Clarkdale) (Socket LGA1156) - Retail £79.89
(£67.99) £79.89
(£67.99)
Corsair XMS3 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMX4GX3M2A1600C9) £76.36
(£64.99) £76.36
(£64.99)
Coolermaster Elite 430 Case - Black £41.99
(£35.74) £41.99
(£35.74)
Corsair CX 400W ATX Power Supply (CMPSU-400CXUK) £32.99
(£28.08) £32.99
(£28.08)
Western Digital Caviar Blue 500GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (WD5000AAKS) £29.99
(£25.52) £29.99
(£25.52)
Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus (Socket AM2/AM2+/AM3/775/1156/1366) £19.99
(£17.01) £19.99
(£17.01)
Samsung SH-S223C/BEBE 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £13.99
(£11.91) £13.99
(£11.91)
Sub Total : £466.31
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £10.50
VAT is being charged at 17.50% VAT : £83.44
Total : £560.25
 
Argon Extreme Intel Core i3 530 2.93GHz @ 4.40GHz Overclocked Bundle £264.00
(£224.68) £264.00
(£224.68)
Options applied to the above product:
Akasa AK-CCX-4002HP Venom CPU Cooler (Socket LGA775/LGA1156/LGA1366/AM2/AM3) £35.99
(£30.63) £35.99
(£30.63)
Asus GeForce GTX 460 1024MB DirectCU GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £172.71
(£146.99) £172.71
(£146.99)
Coolermaster Elite 430 Case - Black £41.99
(£35.74) £41.99
(£35.74)
Corsair CX 400W ATX Power Supply (CMPSU-400CXUK) £32.99
(£28.08) £32.99
(£28.08)
Western Digital Caviar Blue 500GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (WD5000AAKS) £29.99
(£25.52) £29.99
(£25.52)
Samsung SH-S223C/BEBE 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £13.99
(£11.91) £13.99
(£11.91)
Sub Total : £503.55
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £12.50
VAT is being charged at 17.50% VAT : £90.31
Total : £606.36
 
Two more great specs - cant go wrong with either! Toss a coin :)

1 thing though - almost everyone rates the samsung F3 HDDs over the WD blue, so probably worth the extra few quid.
 
Ooh and another one - you'll have to do a coin tossing league to decide :)

If you can spend the 600 on that last pre-OC'd i3 build that would certainly save you the time and effort of doing the overclock yourself (or rob you of the experience if you look at it negatively :)) If it's worth £35 (allowing for the better cooler included) to you to get the pros to do it go for the bundle!
 
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