which one?

[RCR]

Hello folks this is my first post

im looking to build a budget gaming system, i have narrowed it down to 2 CPU's to build round so i just wanted to see some opinions on them to help me decide.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CP-318-AM&groupid=701&catid=6&subcat=1942

VS

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CP-360-IN&groupid=701&catid=6&subcat=1275

also if you can think of any around the same price that i have missed then let me know.

thanks all

 

[RCR]

thanks for the quick responses guys, i had heard the 2500k was a great chip, but i saw the 8120 with its 8 cores etc and thought maybe i should check it out. ive been out of the "loop" for a while so i thought i would come on here and ask as i couldnt find any benchmarks that tested the two so Thanks to cmndr andi for the link which has nailed on the choice for me, the i5 2500k it is. Now to check out other bits to go with it, so beware there will probably be more threads knocking about asking for help making up my mind

 

[RCR]

well the reason i couldnt make up my mind was because of having heard about the i5 for a while now, and the bulldozer being the newest thing out and the 8 cores i thought the bulldozer may be better. As i say ive been out of the loop for a while so this is just from my point of view. But it looks like i'll be picking up an i5 2500k while its on offer, hopefully with some other bits before wednesday, as i say im VERY indecisive. I just want to get the best for my money really, which i guess is understandable. Then after all that ive just got to buid it, ive only built a computer once and that was about 6 years ago, so wish me luck

 

[RCR]

well keyboard mouse monitor case speakers & DVD rw are bareable for now, atleast untill next pay day or two anyway, so im after cpu (which we have sorted) mobo ram & graphics card at the moment. I have an ocz stelth xtreme 600w psu (which i bought after blowing up a few cheap ones on my current system) its about 4 months old so i think it will be ok, what do you reckon? im looking to spend £400.

 

[RCR]

Your PSU is fine... I will have a look at mobo's etc and and post back in a sec... Are you planning on overclocking btw? also do you like to use xfire /sli configurations?

Edit: is the £400 you mentioned just for mobo ram and graphics or does it include the CPU as well?

The £400 is for the cpu as well.
As for overclocking, ive never even attempted it before, not that i didnt want to, just that i didnt want to mess it up and fry somthing. From what ive heard about the 2500k it is very overclockable so maybe at some point i will have a bash.

Xfire and Sli dont interest me too much really, i probably dont understand it fully to be honest but i think id rather spend money on one good card rather than two not so good cards. plus its more that could go wrong. as i say thats just my opinion with limited knowledge

 

[RCR]

Yea, that PSU is a decent one, so stick with that.

Is the DVD-RW and IDE or SATA one? (as not too many current-gen boards still support IDE drives)

Do you have a hard drive you can re-use? (since new ones are rather expensive after the floods in Thailand)

Also, do you need to buy a new OS?

ahhh the dvd-rw is IDE, so if i need to i'll get a cheap and cheerful sata one.

i have a hard disc i can re use which is not too old

as for OS my other half should be getting me w7 home for my birthday in a couple of weeks so im ok for that too.

 

[RCR]

Ah, yea you will be needing a SATA DVD drive then, for a new one they cost ~£20. This one is a good option.

Good to hear you have a hard drive and OS sorted out With Windows 7, just make sure you get the 64 bit version.

Now for the spec, how does this look?

If you need to get it closer to £400 you could drop the RAM down to a 4GB kit like this one - you won't really see a performance hit in games.

thanks cmndr_andi for having a gander for me, this is looking good.
i think i would go for the 8gb of memory as i wasnt expecting to have to get a dvd rw as well so without that it still would have been under 400.

a quick question about memory what is Intel Extreme Memory Profile all about and is it worth spending an extra 8 quid to get http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-300-CS

starting to push the budget a little but as its on offer i thought maybe its worth a look at only 8 quid

 

[RCR]

Extreme Memory profile is a feature that allows you to quickly setup the rated timings of your RAM within the BIOS. Since when you install new RAM in a motherboard it always sets it to some default safe settings which are slower than the rated settings. You need to go into the BIOS and adjust the memory multiplier and timings so they match what they are rated for. XMP will save you about 2 mins on the initial setup and is nice to have if you aren't too comfortable changing stuff in the BIOS (though you still need to go into the BIOS to turn on XMP).

The vengeance memory is nice and XMP is useful, but it has some really annoyingly large heatsinks which will reduce your options for CPU coolers if you decide to overclock, therefore I wouldn't recommend going for it.

well im not to confident with bios settings and suchlike but im sure all the advice i need is right here on the forum, and its good to learn these things, so i'll probably go for the ram you suggested.

so finally onto the graphics card how does the card you suggested bare up against similar priced nvidia cards? is it all about amd cards these days when comparing to the same sort of price of nvidia cards

Sorry to turn this thread into a build thread by the way

 

[RCR]

Y yo buy Revision 1 board ?

Don't skimp ... £50 extra is a small price to pay in the grand schema of things

can you elaborate on that, whats the difference? i just want to see if the differences are anything i would be interested in. however £50 extra is pushing the budget i was trying to stick to a little too far i think.

 

[RCR]

Haha, but we love build threads

Yea, we'd be happy to walk you through the steps in the BIOS to set your memory. In fact, here they are:

- When the computer first loads up and you see the "Gigabyte" logo, press the <Del> key.

- After doing this you should eventually arrive in the main BIOS menu, select the "MB Intelligent Tweaker (MIT)" option.

- Go to the "Advanced Memory Settings" page

- On this page locate the "System memory multiplier" option, at default it will be set to "[Auto]".

- Change this setting until the value of the greyed-out "Memory Frequency (Mhz)" just below the "System memory multiplier" changes to say "1600MHz".

- Now on the same page, look for the "Channel A Timing Settings", press <Enter>.

- On this new page change the first four values, the ones under the "Channel A Standard Timing Control" subheading (CAS Latency Time, tRCD, tRP, tRAS) to:



- Go back to the previous page and repeat the previous step for the "Channel B Timing Settings"

- On the same "Advanced Memory Settings" page, check that the "Profile DDR Voltage" is set to "1.5V" - which it should be at default (if it isn't you will need to go up one page and then into the "Advanced Voltage Settings" and finds the "DRAM Voltage" setting and change it to "1.5V").

- Press F10 and save the new settings

- Exit the BIOS




As for an Nvidia alternative to the HD 6850, that would be the GTX 460 1GB. It is a really nice card and in some games it is faster than the HD 6850, though it is slightly more expensive at the moment (as there are currently some really great deals on 6850 card). Here are the GTX 460 1GB cards available on OCUK.

Here is a direct performance comparison of the HD 6850 and GTX 460 1GB in a range of games with the cards at stock clockspeeds.

ive book marked the guide for when my bits turn up cheers for that

now were down to the final furlong before i click the buy button

after looking at the prices of the 2 cards in the nvidia section ive whittled it down to a 4 cards of 2 prices, (again pushing the budget a bit, just dont tell the other half)

so we have
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-204-XF&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=
vs
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-140-OK&groupid=701&catid=1914&subcat=1830

and

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-115-MS&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=
vs
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-160-EA&groupid=701&catid=1914&subcat=1830

and the original one you linked
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-269-AS&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=1866

and ultimately what im after is which would you buy in terms of value for money, this will make up my mind.

 

[RCR]

well thats it settled then.
thanks to everyone who helped out this indecisive chap
im sure i will be back again to pester you guys about other stuff in the near future, especially when it comes to setting it all up and maybe a play with some overclocking haha.

its nice to get some real good advice without being called a noob or being flamed

right then, im off to buy the bits.

 

[RCR]

hey guys, just thought id give you an update.

got all my bits shoved them all in the case, it started first time no probs. ive set up the ram as cmndr_andi said and it all seems to be working sweet cant thank you guys enough. i just need to put some real games to the test now other than tf2 which im kind of addicted to, but it looks a lot better with everything on max , i might have a bash at bf3.

the only thing left to buy is a monitor got my eye on http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MO-062-AC&groupid=17&catid=949&subcat= it looks cheap and cheerful