Spec me a PC £650

wiggyuk · 20 Mar 2009 at 14:06

Hi all, some of you may of been following my previous post asking for your guys opinions on a spec, see the below spec that we came up with.

The thing is there seems to of been some mix up between myself and the insurance and I now have an extra £100 to spend so now I have a total of £654.67, so can you see where I can improve this spec ?

I also apply for free shipping

ro55o · 20 Mar 2009 at 14:12

A better graphics card, cahnge the 4850 to the 4870 on offer

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-120-XF

Change the motherboard to a P45 aswell.

ro55o · 20 Mar 2009 at 14:24

dmxdex2020 · 20 Mar 2009 at 14:36

You dont need a ep45 board unless you want crossfire.

Pred · 20 Mar 2009 at 14:50

Do you also need to add Vista/XP to it?

wiggyuk · 20 Mar 2009 at 14:56

ro55o said:

Is the HDD you picked above better than the Western Digital I picked in my setup.

Pred said:
Do you also need to add Vista/XP to it?

No I have the operating system.

dmxdex2020 said:
You dont need a p43 board unless you want crossfire.

Its a P45 they have suggested above mate not P43.

I strugling to make up my mind here, I really would like a new monitor about 22" I was looking at the "Asus VH222H 22" Widescreen True HD LCD Monitor" that looks like a nice monitor although I dont know much about monitors I currently have a 17" LG monitor from about 10 years ago, so would it be worth downgrading some of the above and add the monitor or just go with the above and wait till I have a spare £150 to spend on a new monitor ?

ro55o · 20 Mar 2009 at 15:08

Is the HDD you picked above better than the Western Digital I picked in my setup.

Sorry, I thought that was the one you had picked, I would have the WD or samsung over the hitachi.

The P45 board does have the added advantage of crossfire, but the main reasons for it over the P35 is that it will be more stable, it's newer tech, so generally will have better support, especially since abit are going out of business. Should also allow for better overclocking.

wiggyuk · 20 Mar 2009 at 15:14

ro55o said:
Sorry, I thought that was the one you had picked, I would have the WD or samsung over the hitachi.

The P45 board does have the added advantage of crossfire, but the main reasons for it over the P35 is that it will be more stable, it's newer tech, so generally will have better support, especially since abit are going out of business. Should also allow for better overclocking.

Cheers Ro55o I was looking at the review for the Gigabyte P45 board on the OC website and the guy says he had a problem when using this board in a Antec 300, the wires are a struggle to fit onto the board does anyone have any experience of this ?

ro55o · 20 Mar 2009 at 15:22

To fit the asus in I've had to drop the graphics card to a 4850, which will be fine at this resolution, only a few games will struggle to max out.

I've swapped the CPU to the AMD, it's cheaper and will give better performance in gaming. It means you can have the cheaper motherboard aswell. I'm also sure that the gigabyte board is fine taking the AM3 CPU without a bios update, but it's something you can check with ocuk.

A bigger monitor is so much nicer for gaming, I went from a 20" to a 24" and the difference is huge. It would have been better to be able to include a better graphics card, but the 4850 shouldn't have any problems, other than crysis and GTA4 at the highest levels, don't get me wrong it will still manage to high details on both, especially with the CPU overclocked.

I didn't include a CPU cooler as it would take it over budget, but according to others the stock cooler is good enough to take a small overclock. If you want a cooler then just go for the artic freezer

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=FG-000-AR&groupid=701&catid=57&subcat=1395

wiggyuk · 20 Mar 2009 at 15:36

ro55o said:
To fit the asus in I've had to drop the graphics card to a 4850, which will be fine at this resolution, only a few games will struggle to max out.

I've swapped the CPU to the AMD, it's cheaper and will give better performance in gaming. It means you can have the cheaper motherboard aswell. I'm also sure that the gigabyte board is fine taking the AM3 CPU without a bios update, but it's something you can check with ocuk.

A bigger monitor is so much nicer for gaming, I went from a 20" to a 24" and the difference is huge. It would have been better to be able to include a better graphics card, but the 4850 shouldn't have any problems, other than crysis and GTA4 at the highest levels, don't get me wrong it will still manage to high details on both, especially with the CPU overclocked.

I didn't include a CPU cooler as it would take it over budget, but according to others the stock cooler is good enough to take a small overclock. If you want a cooler then just go for the artic freezer

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=FG-000-AR&groupid=701&catid=57&subcat=1395

The reason I picked the Q6700 over the AMD in the first place is because I do a lot of 2D & 3D drawings which are quite system hungry, I am not a huge gamer to be honest I tend to use the Xbox360 when it comes to games, so would you still reccomend the AMD ?

Also I think the HDD will be too small, it looks like I will have to go with the original spec plus the upgraded graphics card and motherboard and buy a monitor later on.

ro55o · 20 Mar 2009 at 15:45

Yeah, leave the monitor out until you get a bit more money down the line, then when that comes you'll have the PC to match.

wiggyuk · 20 Mar 2009 at 16:01

ro55o said:
Yeah, leave the monitor out until you get a bit more money down the line, then when that comes you'll have the PC to match.

Cheers Ro55o, nice one mate.

wiggyuk · 20 Mar 2009 at 16:22

Ok this is the spec I have gone for, I am quite excited about getting this bad boy together, what do you guys think.

Will it be better than my current setup

, AMD 3800, 1536mb Ram, Ati X1950 XT.