Spectacle me a gaming rig (for Oblivion ~1k budget)

[Seether]

Good folk of OcUK,

I am in the market for a new base unit that will comfortably run Oblivion in 1280x1024 with all graphical whistles & bells enabled (full draw distance, distant lands, HDR, etc.) while never/rarely dropping below 30fps.

The rig will mostly be used for gaming, but sometimes for office applications or multimedia work. Budget for this is around £1000.

I need:

• CPU
• Motherboard
• Graphics Card
• RAM
• Hard Drive ~250Gb
• Case
• PSU
• Possibly an aftermarket cooler
• DVD-RW Drive

Thanks in advance and I will try and respond to suggestions whenever possible.

EDIT: Forgot to add, I am willing to do some overclocking if necessary, but am by no means an expert and this needs to be taken into account.

 

[Seether]

Thanks for your suggestions so far guys, they have been very helpful. I'm glad to see you have both suggested ATi cards, as I seem to have been sold by them. I've read that their Oblivion performance is better than the nVidia offerings, and they also allow HDR + AA at the same time.

I have borrowed suggestions from both your builds and have bodged one together myself...

AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 3800+ (Socket 939) - OEM (CP-152-AM)
£169.95

DFI LanParty UT NF4 Ultra-D (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-014-DF)
£79.95
I have lumped with the DFI Ultra-D. Even though it is not SLi/Crossfire compatible, I can't ever see myself buying a second video card to go along side the first.


OcUK Value 2GB (2x1GB) PC3200 184pin DDR Memory Dual Channel Kit (MY-006-OK)
£94.95
I like this RAM because it's cheap, but will it hold me back when trying to get the best out of the 3800+ CPU, as I hear they overclock very well?

Antec P180 SPCR Advanced Super Midi Tower Case - No PSU (Black) (CA-049-AN)
£79.95
One of the nicest cases I've seen - great find! I went for the black though, even though its a few quid more.

Western Digital Caviar SE16 250GB 2500KS SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD-046-WD)
£55.50

Arctic Cooling Freezer 64 Pro CPU Cooler (Socket 754/939/940) (FG-000-AR)
£15.95

FSP Sparkle FX600-GLN Epsilon 600W ATX2.0 PSU (CA-002-SK)
£69.95
How does this compare against the Tagen? Its a higher wattage, but is 600W really needed with only one graphics card?

NEC ND4570 16x16 DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM (CD-030-NE)
£24.95

PowerColor ATI Radeon X1900 XT 512MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-060-PC)
£264.95
Would it be worth paying the extra £60 or so for the XT-X? I wouldn't be against this, even though it would push me over budget, so as the returns justified it.

Subtotal £856.10
VAT £149.82
Total £1,005.92

Any further comments or suggestions are most welcome.

 

[Seether]

Going to make a few changes to the spec I posted. Have decided to go for a less expensive case and motherboard, and slightly improved RAM.

AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 3800+ (Socket 939) - OEM (CP-152-AM) - £169.95

Western Digital Caviar SE16 250GB 2500KS SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD-046-WD) - £55.50

Arctic Cooling Freezer 64 Pro CPU Cooler (Socket 754/939/940) (FG-000-AR) - £15.95

FSP Sparkle FX600-GLN Epsilon 600W ATX2.0 PSU (CA-002-SK) - £69.95

NEC ND4570 16x16 DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM (CD-030-NE) - £24.95

PowerColor ATI Radeon X1900 XT 512MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-060-PC) - £264.95

Corsair 2GB DDR XMS3200C2PT TwinX (2x1GB) CAS2 (MY-079-CS) - £119.95

Lian-Li PC-7 PLUS Black Aluminium Midi-Tower Case (No PSU) (CA-054-LL) - £48.95

Asus A8N-E nForce4 Ultra (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-088-AS) - £59.95

Subtotal £830.10
VAT £145.27
Total £975.37

How does this look for a final build? My only concern is the Asus mobo. How will this compare against the more expensive DFI Lanparty Ultra-D from the previous spec? Remember that I'm not a serious overclocker and I'm not really interested in SLi.

Comments welcomed.

 

[Seether]

REFERENCE DESCRIPTION QUANTITY PRICE COST REMOVE
CP-142-AM AMD Opteron UP 146 San Diego 2.0GHz 1MB Cache 939
£129.95 £129.95
How does this compare to an A64 x2 3800+? Do they o/c as well?

CA-000-TG Tagan TG480-U01 480W ATX2.0 SLi Compliant Silent PSU
£54.95 £54.95
Will 480W be enough to power all my bits? I know nothing about power requirements of modern systems.

MB-018-DF DFI LanParty NF4 SLI-DR EXPERT (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard
£124.95 £124.95
I really can't justify spending an extra £70ish for SLi that I will likely never use, unless this board has something else special going for it that I don't know about. I'll be overclocking some, but not sure I need all the options that this expert will offer.

GX-027-GW Gainward BLISS GeForce 6800 GS "Goes Like Hell" 512MB GDDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-027-GW)
£149.95 £149.95
This seems a cheap alternative to the x1900xt that I've been looking at, but does it in anyway compare and most importantly, will it allow Oblivion with all whistles and bells?

CA-054-CM CoolerMaster Stacker STC-T01 - Silver Trim (No PSU)
£89.50 £89.50
Have looked at these and am not too keen. They are far too big for what I need (I appreciate this is good for cooling though).

MY-002-MK Mushkin 2GB DDR XP4000 Redline Extreme Performance Dual Channel Kit (2x1GB)
£199.95 £199.95
Is there going to be much of a benefit over the pc3200 ram that I specced?


FG-000-AR Arctic Cooling Freezer 64 Pro CPU Cooler (Socket 754/939/940) (FG-000-AR)
£15.95 £15.95

HD-046-WD Western Digital Caviar SE16 250GB 2500KS SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD-046-WD)
£55.50 £55.50

FG-024-AK Akasa AK-183-L2B Ultra Quiet 120mm Fan - 3 pin (FG-024-AK)
£8.95 £26.85

CD-027-NE NEC ND4551 16x16 DVD±RW Dual Layer LabelFlash ReWriter (Beige) - OEM (CD-027-NE)
£23.95 £23.95

OS-001-MS Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition inc. SP2 - OEM - 1Pk (N09-01528) (OS-001-MS)
£51.95 £51.95

Subtotal £923.45
VAT £161.61



Total £1,085.06

how about that?

Thanks for your help, all suggestions are very helpful!

 

[Seether]

I personally don't like the layout of the BIOS on ASUS mobos, with its sections across the top, left to right. Plus the buttons to change the settings on your selected options is different, plus and minus, instead of the arrows on other boards.

As your getting a cpu that is pretty much begging to be overclocked, I really do think you should spring for the DFI. If your not overclocking though, all boards are pretty much the same these days...oh and about SLi, theres no point getting an SLi board if your getting an ATi card, two ATi cards needs a Crossfire board.

Is the DFI LanParty UT NF4 Ultra-D really worth the £23.50 extra over the Asus A8N-E nForce4 Ultra though? I'm not bothered about the menus, and I'm not trying to set the record for the best 3800+ o/c. I would like to hit 2.5Ghz with it though. Will both boards allow this?