I Want A New Pc...

[nb88]

Hi guys,

My pc is on the brink so i'm in desperate need of a new one, and i'd like to build one myself, but don't know too much about what to buy, what is compatible etc. I want a micro ATX PC so its a little smaller - but is it more hassle to build?

I want something fast, capable of playing games like Call of Duty 4 very well and i'm willing to spend up to around 450 pounds. Something like a dual core 2.6ghz+ processor, 4gb ram, a good graphics card, etc.

I already have a hard drive and dvd drive so dont need them. And i'll have to buy vista 64 bit aswell to use the ram i want. I've been looking on ebuyer but wondering what other shops are good for buying components? Also, i want a nice case (one of the cube ones that sits on the desk) and a mATX motherboard, or just a smaller normal case. And it needs to be very quiet as my old PC was annoyingly loud.

Any help would be appreciated

[Haz]

Smaller the case, higher the price.

Shuttles are small but they are expensive, and they need a decent air flow to keep them cool, so they aren't quiet.

Personally I can't fault overclockers.co.uk for sales, but their support have been known to dick people around.

They have decent prices and delivery is pretty good.

[Krisboats]

Have you already got the screen sorted? If you have let us know what it is and its resolution so we can aid you better with the graphics card. though at the minute i'd say the best bang for buck graphics card for around £100 is an 8800gt, with the new ATI 48** series being the best (price:performance) at a slightly higher price.

[nb88]

Yeah my screen is a samsung TV, 1680x1050 max res.

Decided i'm gonna keep my current case now so I just need a normal ATX motherboard. Also bought a tagan power supply (1300W) from a friend so im sorted to build a beasty PC. Can anyone recommend a good motherboard? I want 2 pci-e (sli) slots, and preferably good sound (optical port if possible). And also a good graphics card to run SLI - im thinking the ATI radeon x1950 pro would be good. Then i just need RAM, i guess ill just get corsair extra value 4gb,

Cheers.

[munkee]

tagan..... shudder

[Haz]

Sounds good, but dont make the same mistake I did and buy an SLi Mobo, and then an ATi graphics card. SLi is for nVidea cards only, Crossfire being ATi's equivelant.

Decide now whether youw ant to go with ATi for a while, or with nVidea, and in the end you'll pay less if you do decide to double up. You'll need to ultimately buy a mobo for either manufacturer, you can't have both. Although whilst running a single card, it makes no difference. Also, if you did go crossfire with that card it wouldn't really be worth it, it's old technology, and byt the time you want dual cards, you'll more than likely be better of buying a single up to date card.

So I would recommend

Intel E6750 @ 2.66Ghz

Asus P5N32-E SLi Motherboard

Corsair XMS2 PC2-6400CS

nVidea 8800GT - pretty much any manufacturer here, very good cards for the money

Which is roughly £350 for all

Or if you wanted to go for ATi,

Intel X38 mobo

ATi Radeon 4850 - again, pretty much all of them are good, read reviews and stuff

Same RAM+processor

Should still come to around £350

Add Vista to that for 60 odd quid and voila.

[nb88]

tagan..... shudder

Whats wrong with tagan? I thought they were some of the best power supplys...

Sounds good, but dont make the same mistake I did and buy an SLi Mobo, and then an ATi graphics card. SLi is for nVidea cards only, Crossfire being ATi's equivelant.

Decide now whether youw ant to go with ATi for a while, or with nVidea, and in the end you'll pay less if you do decide to double up. You'll need to ultimately buy a mobo for either manufacturer, you can't have both. Although whilst running a single card, it makes no difference. Also, if you did go crossfire with that card it wouldn't really be worth it, it's old technology, and byt the time you want dual cards, you'll more than likely be better of buying a single up to date card.

So I would recommend

Intel E6750 @ 2.66Ghz

Asus P5N32-E SLi Motherboard

Corsair XMS2 PC2-6400CS

nVidea 8800GT - pretty much any manufacturer here, very good cards for the money

Which is roughly £350 for all

Or if you wanted to go for ATi,

Intel X38 mobo

ATi Radeon 4850 - again, pretty much all of them are good, read reviews and stuff

Same RAM+processor

Should still come to around £350

Add Vista to that for 60 odd quid and voila.

Thanks I think i'll go with Nvidea. Am i right in thinking that SLI is Nvidea, and Xfire is ATI's version of the same thing? So a SLI motherboard will support 2 nvidea cards, but not ATI?

Also my power supply has a big fan on the bottom, instead of on the back, and in my case the PSU fits at the top (my old psu had a fan at the back so it came out of the case). But how will i set this one up in my case? Just have the fan facing my components inside the case?

Cheers

[Haz]

You are correct in your analysis.

I think you should find the PSU will only fit in one direction. So put it in that way and unless you encounter any problems witht he actual fitting, you will be fine.

[nb88]

What do you think of this?

[Haz]

I personally wouldn't spend double the price of the motherboard on a graphics card.

I'd drop about 100 on the mobo and 100 of the video.

[Muel]

With that sort of spec I'd be wanting to go 64 bit aswell, so your all set for upgrading in the future.

[JonMack]

With that sort of spec I'd be wanting to go 64 bit aswell, so your all set for upgrading in the future.

Core 2 Duos are 64 bit...

[Muel]

I was certain it said 32bit on the OS. :$

[nb88]

I personally wouldn't spend double the price of the motherboard on a graphics card.

I'd drop about 100 on the mobo and 100 of the video.

Aren't motherboards generally cheaper than graphics cards anyway? That mobo seems to have everything I need, and the gpu seems a good price for what you get, i might get another and SLI them in the future... I'll probably keep looking at components till the weekend and then order... any other problems with the stuff in that list?

Also should the processor fan supplied be sufficient? Think ill replace my case fans aswell...can anyone recommend some quiet fans?

[Haz]

Yeah, mostly they are, but it's largely in terms of future proofing. If you waited a year before going SLi, you will find you wont really have as many upgrade options as if you had the faster mobo.

The intel coolers are OK on the whole, not the coolest or the quietest.

I run a Zalman on my e6600 as it has a fair overclock. Seems to keep it happy at about 40degceg.

Yeah, spec looks good otherwise.

[Krisboats]

I personally wouldn't spend double the price of the motherboard on a graphics card.

I'd drop about 100 on the mobo and 100 of the video.

What the hell does that even mean? You want him to drop 100 what? If its pounds then he'll struggle getting a motherboard for -£40 and that price for a graphics card is about what you want to pay if your just a casual gamer. A £30 graphics card is more of a waste of money than an expensive one because the cheap ones are good for f**k all. He's also specifically said he wants to play cod4 on an almost high definition resolution so that card should just about handle that game at full settings with a decent frame rate.

Only thing i would say is it might be better dropping to an energy efficient Q6600 rather than the Eseries processor as you really won't see much difference between the two. Unless your gonna be hammering massive sessions of supreme commander with several thousands of units per side you won't need a cpu faster than a mid range dual or the trusty q6600's. The energy efficient Q6600 will be cheaper on the leccy bill though and should run cool too, so it'll be quiter. Its also cheaper than the dual core your loking at getting.

[JonMack]

What the hell does that even mean? You want him to drop 100 what? I

By "drop" he means "spend".

[Haz]

*drop - read: spend. Slang 'drop 100 notes', 'spend 100 pounds'

I just think you could spend more on a motherboard, and feel more of a difference than spending £100 on one 8800GT as opposed to a £130 8800GT.

If I was in his situation, I would look at spending

£100 mobo

£100 graphics

£150 processor

£50 memory

£60 OS

[JonMack]

Anyone know much about the hackintosh scene If so, how much would I be looking to spend on a decent specced comp for that?

[munkee]

*drop - read: spend. Slang 'drop 100 notes', 'spend 100 pounds'

I just think you could spend more on a motherboard, and feel more of a difference than spending £100 on one 8800GT as opposed to a £130 8800GT.

If I was in his situation, I would look at spending

£100 mobo

£100 graphics

£150 processor

£50 memory

£60 OS

£70 mobo / £150 graphics / £150 processor / £100 memory much better split

you will be really hard struggled to find any decent timed memory at only £50

ive been running this: http://overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-114-OC for 2 years now and it still comes in at £64 and i wouldnt say the timings are that great. On a side note..it managed to get my 1.86ghz e6300 to nearly 3.5ghz overclocked and cost me near £100 back in the day to buy so its well worth forking out a bit extra.

Forgot to mention assuming your going to be running something like 4gb here :-p so x price by 2

Edited August 6, 2008 by Spacemunkee

[Haz]

Except now he doesn't have an OS, so it's essentially all useless.

[0llie]

www.novatech.co.uk

[Krisboats]

£70 mobo / £150 graphics / £150 processor / £100 memory much better split

you will be really hard struggled to find any decent timed memory at only £50

ive been running this: http://overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-114-OC for 2 years now and it still comes in at £64 and i wouldnt say the timings are that great. On a side note..it managed to get my 1.86ghz e6300 to nearly 3.5ghz overclocked and cost me near £100 back in the day to buy so its well worth forking out a bit extra.

Forgot to mention assuming your going to be running something like 4gb here :-p so x price by 2

DDR2 memory timings don't really matter a great deal though. Nowhere near as much as they did with ddr1. More Mhz is a lot better than better timings. For point of relevance my 800mhz £30 ram got my £45 e2000 to 3.3Ghz on the stock cooler Is 200mhz really worth forking out an extra £80?

Spending £50-70 is the sweetspot for a motherboard though, definately not £100 as there just isn't any need unless you want the built in wifi and stuff rather than using a plug in one. I'd spend around £100-£150 on graphics too because thats where you see the most gain with current games.

[Dr. Nick Riviera]

but he's only running 1680x1050. i've got a cheap ATI sapphire 512mb card and it's fine for 'casual' gaming. if it was the next res up, then you'd need to look into more wallet damage.

[Krisboats]

but he's only running 1680x1050. i've got a cheap ATI sapphire 512mb card and it's fine for 'casual' gaming. if it was the next res up, then you'd need to look into more wallet damage.

Casual gaming is people willing to spend £80-£100 because they want the game options up to high, hardcore gaming is classed as people who pay £400 odd pound for a graphics card only to sell it off and get a new one 2 months down the line. They want full settings and as much AA/AF/HDR as possible with a ridiculous framerate. A cheap card is just for multimedia, watching flms, going on the net and dabbling for 20 minutes in a 4 year old game that they got from the bargain bin at currys.

1680x1050 is a resolution big enough to push most graphics cards in modern games. Take crysis for example. My graphics card is an x1900xt clocked to just slightly over x1900xt speeds. It remains one of the fastest DX9 only cards available yet in modern games it struggles a bit at 1280x1024. It flies through things like half life 2 but thats not a new game. I'm looking at selling it and upgrading to an ati 4850 or 4870 as soon as my student loan comes through so i can get properly into level design using the cryengine 2.

I'm classed as a casual gamer