Spec me happy - £1400

Calibrag

Calibrag

Calibrag

Associate
Joined
19 Dec 2007
Posts
13
First off, apologies to all of those thinking "just read the 100 other spec threads" :D

I'm after a pure gaming PC, but with little desire to overclock so need the best stock speed for the cash. I used to overclock a lot, back in the days of AMD single core 1800+ etc but have little time now :(

I've £1400 to spend in total (inc VAT) but do not require a monitor, keyboard or mouse. I'm leaning towards the cookie cutter Q6600 / 8800 GTX, but would not be averse to an AMD / ATI combo. Any questions, comments, or indeed insults? Oh and specs too! Merry Christmas and thanks in advance :cool:
 
I sense the specs coming in soon for you, but from a lot of the other similar spec threads to this one, I think it's quite likely that you won't be spendin much more than £1000 on this rig if you've already got the peripherals and the screen.

Although I guess if you wanted to it'd mean you could splash out on a very nice high quality case as well, if the spec isn't costing more than 1K :)
 
Last edited:
Asus DRW-1814BLT 18x DVD±RW SATA Dual Layer Lightscribe ReWriter (Black) - Retail £16.99
(£19.96) £16.99
(£19.96)
GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC2-6400C4 800MHz Ultra Low Latency DDR2 Dual Channel Kit (GX22GB6400UDC) £24.99
(£29.36) £49.98
(£58.72)
Asus P5K-E WiFi Intel P35 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £84.99
(£99.86) £84.99
(£99.86)
Intel Core 2 Quad Pro Q6600 "Energy Efficient SLACR 95W Edition" 2.40GHz (1066FSB) - Retail £136.99
(£160.96) £136.99
(£160.96)
OcUK GeForce 8800 GTX 768MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - OEM £214.99
(£252.61) £214.99
(£252.61)
Samsung SpinPoint T 500GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD501LJ) £56.99
(£66.96) £56.99
(£66.96)
Tuniq Tower 120 CPU Cooler (Socket 478/754/939/940/AM2/LGA775) £27.99
(£32.89) £27.99
(£32.89)
Lian-Li PC-7 PLUS II Aluminium Midi-Tower Case - Black £49.99
(£58.74) £49.99
(£58.74)
Corsair HX 620W ATX2.2 Modular SLI Compliant PSU (CMPSU-620HXUK) £74.99
(£88.11) £74.99
(£88.11)
Sub Total : £713.90
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 : £126.85
Total : £851.70
 
Hello Calibrag and welcome to the forums. I completely agree with closeratio, you could get a very good system for under £1000. How is the system below work out for you,

Specification-4.jpg


Now, if you were ever to want to overclock in the future, I have kept that in mind. If you kept everything at stock, you should be extremely satisfied with the performance anyway.

Merry Christmas to you too. :)
 
Last edited:
Welcome to the forums, this isn't all that different to the specifications above but a bit of personal preference used for the case, motherboard and hard drive. I've also added a soundcard but there is still a fair bit of room in the budget if you want to get more hard drives etc. :)

Intel Core 2 Quad Pro Q6600 "Energy Efficient SLACR 95W Edition" 2.40GHz (1066FSB) - OEM £131.99
(£155.09) £131.99
(£155.09)
Western Digital Caviar SE16 500GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (WD5000AAKS) £55.99
(£65.79) £55.99
(£65.79)
Abit IP35 Pro (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £104.99
(£123.36) £104.99
(£123.36)
Corsair 4GB DDR2 XMS2 PC2-6400C5 TwinX (2x2GB) £64.99
(£76.36) £64.99
(£76.36)
OcUK GeForce 8800 GTX 768MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - OEM £214.99
(£252.61) £214.99
(£252.61)
Samsung SH-S203NBEBN 20x DVD±RW SATA Dual Layer Lightscribe ReWriter (Black) - OEM £16.99
(£19.96) £16.99
(£19.96)
Arctic Cooling MX-2 Thermal Compound £3.99
(£4.69) £3.99
(£4.69)
Tuniq Tower 120 CPU Cooler (Socket 478/754/939/940/AM2/LGA775) £27.99
(£32.89) £27.99
(£32.89)
Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Gamer 7.1 Sound Card - Retail £51.99
(£61.09) £51.99
(£61.09)
Antec P182 Super Midi Tower Case - No PSU (Gun Metal Black) £74.99
(£88.11) £74.99
(£88.11)
Corsair HX 520W ATX2.2 Modular SLI Compliant PSU (CMPSU-520HXUK) £57.99
(£68.14) £57.99
(£68.14)
Sub Total : £806.89
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £12.95
VAT is being charged at 17.5% VAT : £143.47
Total : £963.31
 
Your basket
Product Name Qty Price Line Total
Corsair HX 620W ATX2.2 Modular SLI Compliant PSU (CMPSU-620HXUK) £74.99
(£88.11) £74.99
(£88.11)
Abit IP35 Pro (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £104.99
(£123.36) £104.99
(£123.36)
GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC2-6400C4 800MHz Ultra Low Latency DDR2 Dual Channel Kit (GX22GB6400UDC) £24.99
(£29.36) £24.99
(£29.36)
Pioneer DVR-212DBK 18x DVD±RW SATA Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM £17.99
(£21.14) £17.99
(£21.14)
Thermalright Ultra-120 Extreme CPU Cooler (Socket AM2/LGA775) £34.99
(£41.11) £34.99
(£41.11)
Intel Core 2 Quad Pro Q6600 "Energy Efficient SLACR 95W Edition" 2.40GHz (1066FSB) - Retail £136.99
(£160.96) £136.99
(£160.96)
Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound (3.5g) £5.99
(£7.04) £5.99
(£7.04)
Sharkoon Silent Eagle 2000 120mm Fan - 3/4 Pin £6.99
(£8.21) £6.99
(£8.21)
Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 500GB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (ST3500320AS) £61.99
(£72.84) £123.98
(£145.68)
OcUK GeForce 8800 GTX 768MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - OEM £214.99
(£252.61) £214.99
(£252.61)
Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeGamer Fatal1ty Professional Series 7.1 Sound Card - Retail £76.99
(£90.46) £76.99
(£90.46)
Sub Total : £823.88
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £9.95
VAT is being charged at 17.5% VAT : £145.92
Total : £979.75

pick your own case, its your pc

there is 2 hdds there incase you want to raid, drop one if you want
only speced 2gb of ram as i have on idea what OS you want, get another 2GB if you use a 64bit OS.

the HX520 will run that PC so change the HX620 to the 520 if you want.

not really sure how good sound card is so if you know it is a bad one drop it and tell me that it is bad so i dont recommend it to anyone again
 
jak731, that soundcard is rather good but I wouldn't buy it as a matter of principle because a) it is branded Fatal1ty and anything with such a stupid name doesn't deserve to be bought and b) it doesn't appear to be that much better than the ordinary X-Fi Gamer as to justify the extra cash. That said I know very little about soundcards as well so I could well be wrong here. :)
 
Thanks so far everyone. As closeratio said, all the specs so far are coming in some £400+ below my budget. I may do a spec myself in a bit for you to critique, as I'm getting an idea of the kind of minimums I'm after. The monitor I have at the moment is a 20" Samsung SyncMaster 205 BW. Perhaps the question should be, should I spec a computer for £1000 and buy a 24" monitor with the rest, or spec a more powerful computer and upgrade the monitor in a year or so when the size difference for the money will be greater?

I also see a lot of recommendations for the OcUK GeForce 8800 GTX. The price is great, but if I have the budget surely an 8800 GTX with higher core and memory speeds would be better? I like the Abit IP35 Pro board, is that SLI compatible? Thinking about a second 8800 GTX in 6 months when the prices are lower due to the new 9000 series.
 
Last edited:
dont forget you can overclock the OcUK GTX :)

I wouldnt spend more than £800-£900, use the rest for a nice monitor as you say

The P35boards dont support SLi you need nVidia based boards for Sli but its not worth it tbh.
 
all p31, p35, x38 and x48 chipset based MBs are not SLi compatible. you need a nvidia chipset for sli. intel chipsets can support crossfire though (it depends on each MB)
 
Thanks for the specs everyone. Think I will stick with my existing monitor and upgrade at a later time. How's this for a spec? (2.1 speakers for the Mrs' iPod, Sennheiser headset for me).

Product Name Qty Price Line Total
Pioneer DVR-212DBK 18x DVD±RW SATA Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM £17.99
(£21.14) £17.99
(£21.14)
Intel Core 2 Quad Pro Q6600 "Energy Efficient SLACR 95W Edition" 2.40GHz (1066FSB) - Retail £136.99
(£160.96) £136.99
(£160.96)
BFG GeForce 8800 GTX OC2 768MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail £249.99
(£293.74) £249.99
(£293.74)
Abit IP35 Pro (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £104.99
(£123.36) £104.99
(£123.36)
Corsair 4GB DDR2 XMS2 PC2-6400C5 TwinX (2x2GB) £64.99
(£76.36) £64.99
(£76.36)
Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound (3.5g) £5.99
(£7.04) £5.99
(£7.04)
Tuniq Tower 120 CPU Cooler (Socket 478/754/939/940/AM2/LGA775) £27.99
(£32.89) £27.99
(£32.89)
Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Gamer 7.1 Sound Card - OEM (30SB073000002) £43.99
(£51.69) £43.99
(£51.69)
Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 500GB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (ST3500320AS) £61.99
(£72.84) £123.98
(£145.68)
Antec P182 Super Midi Tower Case - No PSU (Gun Metal Black) £74.99
(£88.11) £74.99
(£88.11)
Corsair HX 620W ATX2.2 Modular SLI Compliant PSU (CMPSU-620HXUK) £74.99
(£88.11) £74.99
(£88.11)
Creative I-Trigue 3000i 2.1 Speaker System £62.99
(£74.01) £62.99
(£74.01)
Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium 64-Bit Edition DVD - OEM - 1Pk (66I-00788) £59.99
(£70.49) £59.99
(£70.49)
Sub Total : £1,049.86
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 is being charged at 17.5% VAT : £186.34
Total : £1,251.15
 
You say you have little time to overclock. I would remove that heatsink and the AS5, and save yourself £20 odd by getting the Arctic Cooler 7 pro, it has better thermal paste than AS5 and it would still allow you to overclock to 3GHz atleast if you so wanted. I would also get a HX520 as it would be more than enough for that system. Perhaps change the GTX for a new GTS? Everything else looks good :)
 
Personally speaking I'd just buy the cheapest 8800GTX and attempt to overclock it if necessary because I'd rather have the cash in my pocket and a card that possibly didn't make it to the speeds of a pre-overclocked model (although most probably will) than the fairly minor difference that an extra 50mhz on the core and 100mhz on the Ram (or whatever it is) will make.

Other than that it looks good to me, I don't think you could go too far wrong picking various parts from any of the specifications given. :)
 
Given the budget I would slap in a LG GGW-H20L which is a Blu-ray writer and HDDVD reader... I suppose you said you wanted the rig for games so maybe not necessary but nice to have.
 
Cheers guys. Last one, I promise ;) Realised my current monitor is a 20" not 22", so a nice new 24" would be rather good! Changed the PSU as recommended, but I think I'll stick with the BFG 8800 GTX. Removed one of the hard drives (I only game, I don't have lots of music or video) to cut costs. I like the look of the Tuniq cooler, but that Arctic Cooler 7 looks scary :p £100 over budget, but hey it's Christmas right?

Product Name Qty Price Line Total
Pioneer DVR-212DBK 18x DVD±RW SATA Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM £17.99
(£21.14) £17.99
(£21.14)
Intel Core 2 Quad Pro Q6600 "Energy Efficient SLACR 95W Edition" 2.40GHz (1066FSB) - Retail £136.99
(£160.96) £136.99
(£160.96)
BFG GeForce 8800 GTX OC2 768MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail £249.99
(£293.74) £249.99
(£293.74)
Abit IP35 Pro (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £104.99
(£123.36) £104.99
(£123.36)
Corsair 4GB DDR2 XMS2 PC2-6400C5 TwinX (2x2GB) £64.99
(£76.36) £64.99
(£76.36)
Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound (3.5g) £5.99
(£7.04) £5.99
(£7.04)
Tuniq Tower 120 CPU Cooler (Socket 478/754/939/940/AM2/LGA775) £27.99
(£32.89) £27.99
(£32.89)
Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 500GB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (ST3500320AS) £61.99
(£72.84) £61.99
(£72.84)
Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Gamer 7.1 Sound Card - OEM (30SB073000002) £43.99
(£51.69) £43.99
(£51.69)
Antec P182 Super Midi Tower Case - No PSU (Gun Metal Black) £74.99
(£88.11) £74.99
(£88.11)
Creative I-Trigue 3000i 2.1 Speaker System £62.99
(£74.01) £62.99
(£74.01)
Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium 64-Bit Edition DVD - OEM - 1Pk (66I-00788) £59.99
(£70.49) £59.99
(£70.49)
Samsung SM-245B 24" Widescreen LCD Monitor - Black £279.99
(£328.99) £279.99
(£328.99)
Corsair HX 520W ATX2.2 Modular SLI Compliant PSU (CMPSU-520HXUK) £57.99
(£68.14) £57.99
(£68.14)
Sub Total : £1,250.86
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £24.99
VAT is being charged at 17.5% VAT : £223.27
Total : £1,499.13
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom