Spec me a system based around the GeForce 8800 GTX

[DirtyMonkey]

Not really put together a system for a while so have not done much research into whats new on the market.

Someone has asked me to put together a system based on GeForce 8800 GTX as the graphics card.

Have a budget of £700 which does not include Keyboard/Mouse or Display. But does need an OS. The display is going to be a Samsung LE32R86 - 32".

Main requirements are :

Needs to play the latest games such as Crysis, Quake Wars and Spore.
Will be doing a bit of work in Corel Draw and photo editing
Watching DVDs

I really want to make sure that all the bits will work nicely together, no need for Vista, XP is fine for the OS.

Cheers in advance
DM

 

[semi-pro waster]

Perhaps a little bit unbalanced by the requirement for an 8800GTX but should still be a decent system with some overclocking potential.

Gigabyte GA_P35C_DS3R (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 & DDR3 Motherboard £69.99
(£82.24) £69.99
(£82.24)
Hitachi Deskstar T7K500 250GB SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM (0A33423) £33.99
(£39.94) £33.99
(£39.94)
Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition inc. SP2 - OEM - 1Pk (N09-01528) £47.99
(£56.39) £47.99
(£56.39)
Corsair HX 520W ATX2.2 Modular SLI Compliant PSU (CMPSU-520HXUK) £57.99
(£68.14) £57.99
(£68.14)
OcUK GeForce 8800 GTX 768MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - OEM £254.99
(£299.61) £254.99
(£299.61)
Akasa AK-ZEN-01-BK Zen Black Case - No PSU £26.99
(£31.71) £26.99
(£31.71)
Intel Core 2 Duo E2160 "LGA775 Conroe" 1.80GHz (800FSB) - Retail £44.99
(£52.86) £44.99
(£52.86)
Samsung SH-S203BEBN 20x20 DVD±RW Dual Layer Serial ATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £16.99
(£19.96) £16.99
(£19.96)
OCZ 2GB (2 x 1GB) PC2-6400C4 Dual Channel Platinum Revision 2 XTC Series DDR2 (OCZ2P800R22GK) £36.99
(£43.46) £36.99
(£43.46)
Sub Total : £590.91
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £10.95
VAT is being charged at 17.5% VAT : £105.33
Total : £707.19

 

[lolage]

Perhaps a little bit unbalanced by the requirement for an 8800GTX but should still be a decent system with some overclocking potential.

Gigabyte GA_P35C_DS3R (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 & DDR3 Motherboard £69.99
(£82.24) £69.99
(£82.24)
Hitachi Deskstar T7K500 250GB SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM (0A33423) £33.99
(£39.94) £33.99
(£39.94)
Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition inc. SP2 - OEM - 1Pk (N09-01528) £47.99
(£56.39) £47.99
(£56.39)
Corsair HX 520W ATX2.2 Modular SLI Compliant PSU (CMPSU-520HXUK) £57.99
(£68.14) £57.99
(£68.14)
OcUK GeForce 8800 GTX 768MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - OEM £254.99
(£299.61) £254.99
(£299.61)
Akasa AK-ZEN-01-BK Zen Black Case - No PSU £26.99
(£31.71) £26.99
(£31.71)
Intel Core 2 Duo E2160 "LGA775 Conroe" 1.80GHz (800FSB) - Retail £44.99
(£52.86) £44.99
(£52.86)
Samsung SH-S203BEBN 20x20 DVD±RW Dual Layer Serial ATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £16.99
(£19.96) £16.99
(£19.96)
OCZ 2GB (2 x 1GB) PC2-6400C4 Dual Channel Platinum Revision 2 XTC Series DDR2 (OCZ2P800R22GK) £36.99
(£43.46) £36.99
(£43.46)
Sub Total : £590.91
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £10.95
VAT is being charged at 17.5% VAT : £105.33
Total : £707.19

Thats pretty much what im going to buy, ive put tonnes of research into it and it seems that spec is the best for the money. Heres what im buying. (hopfully)

 

[DirtyMonkey]

Thats great guys - thanks for your input.

By unbalanced I assume you mean that because of the high cost of the graphics card the other components have to be a bit cheaper (i.e. less powerful) to come in at the target budget.

 

[semi-pro waster]

Yep, the graphics card is a hefty chunk of the budget compared to the other parts but the CPU should overclock well anyway to match up better and the rest of the parts support its overclocking potential decently.

//edit you may need a different cooler but 3ghz or more is not uncommon for that CPU since it has a 9x multiplier and the Ram is more than capable of the 333mhz needed to reach that.

 

[DirtyMonkey]

what cooler would you reccommend for that - even if it meant going a bit over budget

 

[semi-pro waster]

The Arctic Freezer 7 Pro is decent enough on a tight budget and comes with good thermal paste pre-applied, the coolers that are notably better tend to cost ~£30 and you usually need to buy the paste separately.

 

[DirtyMonkey]

sweet - any other similar motherboards you'd recommend in place of the gigabyte one?

I'm looking at possibly the ABIT IP35-E Intel P35 LGA775 Motherboard (MB7-ABIT-IP35E) can you see there being any problems with that?

 

[semi-pro waster]

I'm not sure if it clocks as well as Gigabytes traditionally do although being a P35 based motherboard it should have quite a few options anyway.

 

[Mattus]

You've chosen an 80GB hard drive? I'd go for a bigger one - hard drives are so cheap and games like Crysis are gonna take 5GB+ of space. HD space is also important if you're photo editing.

 

[semi-pro waster]

You've chosen an 80GB hard drive? I'd go for a bigger one - hard drives are so cheap and games like Crysis are gonna take 5GB+ of space. HD space is also important if you're photo editing.

I take it you are talking to lolage here? The specification for DirtyMonkey's friend includes a 250gb hard drive.

 

[DirtyMonkey]

thanks for all the advice guys.

Went for the gigabyte hard drive in the end. upped the processor to a 2.2GHz at the req of the guy who wanted the system and increased the HDD to 320GB Western Digital 16MB SATAII.