your advice needed!

kj89 · 11 Jul 2011 at 13:01

hey ho ladies

need some advice on a new semi build.

im currently running:
Asus P5ND SLI
Q8200 quad core
4gb kingston RAM
(none of the above OC'd)

but now that there are some big titles coming out such BF3 and MW3 im looking to build a new computer to keep up with the times.

i have no clue about the i5/i7 series but thats what i have been told to aim for.
i have all the other components (case,hdd,gpu, soundcard and so on)

im looking for mobo,processor and ram but i have no clue on whats what nowdays lol. im on a tight budget(£450max) as work is a bit slow at the moe.

i would highly appreciate any information on good hardware and things i should keep away from.

thanks for taking the time to read this.

kj

Swordfish · 11 Jul 2011 at 13:10

I'm not the person to answer fully but I do suggest you read the forum rules.

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/faq.php?faq=vb_faq#faq_vb_read_and_post

Plec · 11 Jul 2011 at 13:21

As above - you need to edit out the retailers name.

I would consider looking at OcUK bundles - the forum owners - link - then we can advise you.

EDIT: Here's an example OcUK overclocked bundle - link

hybrid572 · 11 Jul 2011 at 13:27

Mentioning competitors is against forum rules. Besides, the competitor you mentioned is actually more expensive than OCUK. OCUK provides excellent customer service, and the OC'd bundles are top rate.

My recommendation to you would be to buy an MSI P67A-GD53 motherboard - £105 (fantastic board), 4GB - £30 (2x2GB, 1600MHz, it's all you need) of Corsair XMS3 RAM, and the i5 2500K - £160 (best gaming CPU there is), and an aftermarket cooler such as the Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro Rev 2 (£20).

All of the above together would be £315, and overclocking the i5 2500K on that board is literally a matter of pushing the Genie button and letting it do its magic. OCUK do pre-OC'd bundles, but why pay more when you can push the button yourself?

kj89 · 11 Jul 2011 at 13:41

my apologies for that, edited and removed.

thanks plec i was having a little gander at them just now.
also thanks Hybrid going to read a few reviews on that board you mentioned.

is it really not worth forking out the extra cast for a i7?
and is it really that easy to oc on that board?

thanks in advance

Plec · 11 Jul 2011 at 13:44

kj89 said:
is it really not worth forking out the extra cast for a i7?

If your main use is for gaming and general apps use then no, the i7 is not worth the extra cash.

kj89 said:
and is it really that easy to oc on that board?

Yes, it takes about 5 seconds in the BIOS for a moderate overclock of ~4.2GHz - usually upto 4.4Ghz.

You may need to do a bit more tinkering as you approach 4.5GHz but a lot of people have just adjusted the multiplier and they're off (it's better practice to set things manually and to get to know your BIOS though...).

My opinion is buy the components separately - if you can type you can overclock a 2500K system

kj89 · 11 Jul 2011 at 16:10

First of all. thanks to everybody who has helped so far

i was doing a bit of research on that board plec and iv seen some very good write ups about it, but i was also looking at the Asus P67 Sabertooth Intel P67 is there much diffrence in your view?

thanks in advance

anuraj · 11 Jul 2011 at 16:17

kj89 said:
First of all. thanks to everybody who has helped so far

i was doing a bit of research on that board plec and iv seen some very good write ups about it, but i was also looking at the Asus P67 Sabertooth Intel P67 is there much diffrence in your view?

thanks in advance

Apart from the thermal cooling I don't think there's a difference from the deluxe.

Plec · 11 Jul 2011 at 16:25

kj89 said:
was also looking at the Asus P67 Sabertooth Intel P67 is there much diffrence in your view?

Personally, i think some of the P67 boards are great bang for buck - and if you're not going to use the additional features on the Z68 then the P67 is a great choice. Plus, the P67s are nearing their final revisions so most of their problems wil have been ironed out - some Z68 boards are just showing theirs...

You may want to look at the MSI range - these P67s have had great forum feed back and are exceptional value.

I'm going to quote a very well informed forum friend to save me writing out the added Z68 features compared to the P67:

cmndr_andi said:
The main benefits of Z68 are:

-You can use video output from the IGP which is on the sandy bridge CPU (not all Z68 boards support this)
- You can use Intel Quick Sync technology to transcode certain videos types very quickly and in high quality (again, requires a Z68 board which can access the IGP)
- Allows overclocking and the IGP features mentioned above (CPU overclocking not possible on the earlier H67 chipset)
- Using Lucid virtu you can make use of Intel Quick sync even if you have a discrete graphics card installed (with H67 you needed to use the onboard graphics output for this tech to work)
- SSD caching (great to use a small/cheap SSD to speed up the performance of a mechanical primary HDD - more info here, however if you can afford to buy an SSD 60GB or larger then I would ignore this caching technology and just uses the SSD as the primary drive)

If you think you will make good use some of these feature then you may want to go for a fully featured Z68 board