spec me for £600-£700?

Ernie101

Ernie101

Ernie101

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25 Jan 2008
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43
A friend wants to put a new computer together for around £600-£700 and we are unsure as to what is best to have for this price range.

He needs:
cpu
HSF (for overclocking)
ram
mobo
gfx card
psu
case (he likes the fractual cases)
HD (x2 raid)

He wants to be able to play games like bf3 etc. We just don't know whether to go AMD/Intel or nvidia/ATI and what the best bang for your buck is atm.

Thanks for any help :)
 
Asus ATI Radeon HD 6950 DirectCU II 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card with FREE Deus Ex PC Game £191.99

Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £167.99

Gigabyte Z68XP-UD3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard Gigabyte Z68XP-UD3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £99.98

Corsair Hydro H60 High Performance Liquid CPU Cooler (Socket LGA1366/1155/1156/775/AM2/AM3) Corsair Hydro H60 High Performance Liquid CPU Cooler (Socket LGA1366/1155/1156/775/AM2/AM3) £62.99

OCZ ModXStream Pro 500w Silent SLI Certified Modular Power Supply OCZ ModXStream Pro 500w Silent SLI Certified Modular Power Supply £52.99

Samsung SpinPoint F3 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (HD103SJ) Samsung SpinPoint F3 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (HD103SJ) £44.99

BitFenix Merc Alpha Gaming Case - Black BitFenix Merc Alpha Gaming Case - Black £32.99

Corsair XMS3 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMX4GX3M2A1600C9) Corsair XMS3 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMX4GX3M2A1600C9) £31.99

Sony Optiarc AD-5280S 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM Sony Optiarc AD-5280S 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £18.98

Total : £726.31

Just a starting point. If you don't want to spend that much consider getting this mobo

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-364-GI

And this Heatsink

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HS-001-GD
 
YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £167.99
1 x Asus GeForce GTX 560Ti DirectCU II 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card **Supplied with FREE Batman: Arkham City PC game** £157.99
1 x Gigabyte Z68XP-UD3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £99.98
1 x OCZ ZS Series 750W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £63.98
1 x Fractal Design Core 3000 Midi Tower Case - Black £54.98
2 x Samsung SpinPoint F3 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (HD103SJ) £44.99 (£89.98)
1 x Kingston HyperX Genesis Grey 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1600C9D3X2K2/8GX) £39.98
1 x Gelid Tranquillo CPU Cooler (Socket 754/939/940/AM2/AM2+/AM3/LGA775/LGA1155/LGA1156/LGA1366) £23.99
1 x Samsung SH-S222AB/BEBE 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £17.99
Total : £716.87 (includes shipping : FREE).



8GB RAM. 2 great Hard drives. PSU and motherboard provides option of SLI at a later date
 
Last edited:
I'm the 'friend' (finally managed to dig up account details)

Thanks a lot for the responses.

RAID - I've never built a machine without some kind of striped array, and I guess I've always worried about what performance would by like without it.

I see both of you have recommended SB. I don't know much about sockets these days, but is it a good idea to be getting a 1155 socket in terms of upgrade-resilient mobo? Going for a dual channel intel setup seems to me like I'm backing myself into a corner a little?

On the same theme, why do people not recommend something like a Phenom X4, and a an AM3/AM3+ mobo, saving around £80 on the cpu, and £60 on the mobo, and having the ability to upgrade to X6, BD etc if I wanted to? If I clocked the X4 to 4.0ish wouldn't that be more than adequate, and quite a bit of cash saved?

Again, thanks for the info and responses.
 
because the 2500k ****es all over BD in almost all applications and certainly in gaming.

Plus if I understand things correctly you'll be able to drop some of the ivebridge chips into those boards.
 
~lynks said:
why do people not recommend something like a Phenom X4, and a an AM3/AM3+ mobo, saving around £80 on the cpu, and £60 on the mobo, and having the ability to upgrade to X6, BD etc if I wanted to? If I clocked the X4 to 4.0ish wouldn't that be more than adequate, and quite a bit of cash saved?

Again, thanks for the info and responses.
Click to expand...

as pointed out BD release has been very disapointing to say the least, and the reason people are spec'ing the 2500K is that its the best processor to get for the budget specified.

if you want to save money then let people know what you would prefer to spend.
 
Looking at a bunch of different benchmarks, I'm starting to see why intel are recommended so often. How can this be true:

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/362?vs=288

The higher-clocked X4 looses to the 2500K even on single threaded tests! wtf amd.

So the 2500K is much better, but take the price difference and spend it on graphics, and take into consideration the fact that AM3+ is going to be far more upgrade-proof than 1155.

Add the fact that this machine is going to spend a chunk of its life hosting an mmorpg server (thousands of threads).

And I'm still leaning towards AMD. Can anyone talk me out of it? Maybe explain why the 2500 beats the X4, even when the X4 is higher clocked?
 
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