Getting a new PC in a few months. Need advice.

Post by **lordmissus** » Fri Sep 11, 2009 4:57 pm

Case:			Xclio CoolBox Black Midi Tower Case with Grill Front Panel -w/o PSU, £28.69 inc VAT
PSU:			520W Corsair HX Series Modular PSU, ATX, EPS12V, whisper quiet, 5 year warranty, £72.44 inc VAT
Motherboard: 	Gigabyte GA-P55-UD5 Intel P55 Motherboard, £165.08 inc VAT
CPU: 			Intel Core i5 750, S 1156, Lynnfield, Quad Core, 2.66GHz, DMI 2.5 GT/s, 8MB Cache, 95W, Retail, £149.67 inc VAT
RAM: 		4GB (2x2GB) Corsair TwinX XMS3, DDR3 PC3-10666 (1333) 240 Pin, Non-ECC Unbuffered, CAS 9-9-9-24, £63.37 inc VAT
VPU: 			1792MB MSI GTX 260 Lightning Black, 2100MHz GDDR3, GPU 680 MHz, Shader 1400 MHz, 216 Cores, + 3D/Batman, £169.04 inc VAT
HDD: 			500 GB Western Digital WD5000AADS Caviar Green, SATA 3Gb/s, IntelliPower, 32MB Cache, NCQ, £37.54 inc VAT
Optical: 		Sony DRU-870s 24x DVD+/-R, 12xDVD+/-DL, DVD+RWx8, £20.11 inc VAT

Monitor:		22" Viewsonic VX2260WM Black Wide HD LCD, £137.98 inc VAT
Kbd/Mouse: 		Microsoft Basic White Value Pack 2.0 USB, English (UK), Keyboard and mouse, £10.34 inc VAT
Speakers: 		Logitech S220 Black 17W RMS £19.91 inc VAT


Total:		£874.17
prices based on the components listed at scan.co.uk


Should probably find that VPU without the 3D glasses and Batman game elsewhere on another site. I want neither of those things, and they are just driving up the price I pay to get that VPU.

So, this is only ~£30 more than the original machine I planned to build as listed in my first post... but it's perhaps 6x more powerful.... really good value for money. I'm pretty sure I can reduce thsi price somehow... now I really do need to start pushing it. I'm thinking about trying to find faster RAM, also having more (8GB as opposed to 4GB).. I should probably spend a bit more to get a better quality keyboard/mouse since this is going to be a gaming machine.

Looks like I'm going to be saving up for 4 months instead of 2 then. I'm sure some of these components will go down in price by the time I've saved up this amount though... so perhaps I can make a slight improvement at that time, or still settle with this config and pay a little less...

I'd say that by improving the hardware listed here that I will put in the machine, £900 would be a reasonable price. I won't be going over that amount, however. £900, give or take ~£5, will be the absolute maximum price I will save up the money to pay. I don't want to be saving up for a whole year to buy my new computer

You might be wondering why I have chosen that motherboard if some of the cheaper ones have all the same features I need (including i5 support)... this motherboard supports the i7, which I might consider upgrading to in the future. £20 extra is worth it if I want better upgradability.

What do you people think of this config? Anything I could get cheaper without reducing functionality/performance? (or reducing it only slightly while reducing the price much more).

Post by **odditude** » Fri Sep 11, 2009 9:12 pm

all p55 motherboards should support 1156 i7s, so that's not a valid reason for your extra expenditure on that particular board.

what's the voltage on that memory? make sure it's under 1.65V; otherwise you'll fry the CPU. (older kits introduced in the X38/X48 days ran upwards of 1.8V.)

you can definitely find gtx260s for half that price - you're paying almost double to get the glasses. you can probably stick to a normal 896MB model, too.

kode54 · Post by **kode54** » Sat Sep 12, 2009 1:53 am

lordmister wrote:So until Win7 is released, I'll still be fine on XP for even the latest of the latest games?

Yeah, XP will be fine, but when you get 7, you'll have to perform a fresh install. At least with Vista, you can upgrade in-place, not that many people would recommend that.

diminish · Post by **diminish** » Sat Sep 12, 2009 10:11 am

I don't know how it is with other HD Audio chips, but I get clearly better sound quality with Realtek ALC268 in Vista/Win7, so no WinXP for me anymore. Also:

Realtek ALC268 DataSheet 1.3 wrote:3. System Applications
• Windows Vista premium desktop and notebook PCs

Post by **lordmissus** » Sun Sep 13, 2009 1:39 am

Ok, thank you all for the help. I think I might request that this thread be closed though, since all activity seems to be in the thread I created on byuu's forums.

In response to odditude's question about the RAM (which I think is not relevant now, since I posted a revised list at byuu's forum, so this response is in reference to the current DDR3 1600 RAM I've chosen), yes the ram operates at 1.65V. At least I think. I couldn't find where it said that on Scan, but I found what appear to be the same RAM, on another site, stating that it runs at 1.65V.

Post by **grinvader** » Sun Sep 13, 2009 8:56 am

About that - for an easier time, you might want to check if the mobo supports either XMP or EPP, and grab accordingly profiled ram.

franpa · Post by **franpa** » Thu Nov 05, 2009 1:07 pm

Hi, I'm thinking of upgrading to the following parts, mostly to improve emulation performance in demanding emulators like PCSX2 (uses 2 cores at most) and Desmume.

The parts are as follows:

Asus P5Q-SE2 $121
Intel Core 2 DUO e8500 $225 (will overclock to around 3.6ghz)
4gig (2x2 gigabytes) 1066mhz Patriot Viper RAM $119

What do you think?

I.S.T. · Post by **I.S.T.** » Thu Nov 05, 2009 2:44 pm

Just overclock what you have. your CPU is fine, you have ZERO need for a new motherboard, and the RAM... well, i'll let you be the judge of that.

Post by **odditude** » Thu Nov 05, 2009 2:47 pm

before spending $450 to get a chip that's just a minor speed bump based on its overclockability, try actually overclocking your current setup.

franpa · Post by **franpa** » Fri Nov 06, 2009 3:16 am

I know I don't really need the upgrade, I am not a fan of overclocking either. I don't know if I'll work up the courage to overclock to 3.6... I will overclock to the speed of the e8600 though.

My plan is to sell my existing Motherboard/CPU/RAM to my dad for $150~. off-setting the cost of a new motherboard for me and some of the cost of a new CPU. The RAM isn't really needed as I already have 2gigs of standard 800mhz ram but my dad has 2gigs of 533mhz standard ram and I think he would benefit from the 800mhz. I've never owned or used premium memory before as none of my previous motherboards could support them according to various memory makers that I contacted, at least not without some extra effort aside from plug 'n play.

My dad is using:

Pentium 4: 3.00ghz HT
Asus P5LD2
Transcend Standard 2gigabytes 533mhz RAM

Post by **odditude** » Fri Nov 06, 2009 2:53 pm

franpa wrote:I know I don't really need the upgrade, I am not a fan of overclocking either. I don't know if I'll work up the courage to overclock to 3.6... I will overclock to the speed of the e8600 though.

My plan is to sell my existing Motherboard/CPU/RAM to my dad for $150~. off-setting the cost of a new motherboard for me and some of the cost of a new CPU. The RAM isn't really needed as I already have 2gigs of standard 800mhz ram but my dad has 2gigs of 533mhz standard ram and I think he would benefit from the 800mhz. I've never owned or used premium memory before as none of my previous motherboards could support them according to various memory makers that I contacted, at least not without some extra effort aside from plug 'n play.

My dad is using:

Pentium 4: 3.00ghz HT
Asus P5LD2
Transcend Standard 2gigabytes 533mhz RAM

you're still spending a lot of money for a minor speed bump.

Gil_Hamilton · Post by **Gil_Hamilton** » Sat Nov 07, 2009 2:41 am

odditude wrote: you're still being franpa.

franpa · Post by **franpa** » Sat Nov 07, 2009 2:58 am

well the alternative for an extra $388 is:

Intel Core i7 920 $379
Asus P6T $285
6gig 1600mhz DDR3 Patriot Gamer $189 (or $145 for signature)

But I also want to get a ps3 which is 500$ >.>

for PC I'm after the processor that offers the best performance boost for single and 2 threaded programs in terms of raw performance, I don't think i've ever touched or seen a program that can handle more other then the O/S it self.

funkyass · Post by **funkyass** » Sat Nov 07, 2009 4:21 am

If you don't feel like over clocking... then you also don't need the upgrade.

You also really don't need the PS3.

I suggest retirement savings.

franpa · Post by **franpa** » Sat Nov 07, 2009 5:20 am

I'd rather be entertained while I lack arthritis then to wait till I suffer from it and can't play games comfortably -.-

Post by **odditude** » Sat Nov 07, 2009 7:10 am

franpa wrote:well the alternative for an extra $388 is:

Intel Core i7 920 $379
Asus P6T $285
6gig 1600mhz DDR3 Patriot Gamer $189 (or $145 for signature)

But I also want to get a ps3 which is 500$ >.>

for PC I'm after the processor that offers the best performance boost for single and 2 threaded programs in terms of raw performance, I don't think i've ever touched or seen a program that can handle more other then the O/S it self.

no, the alternative for you, the overclocking-averse, would be a i7-750/860 + ASUS P5P55D family + 4GB/8GB DDR3 1333.

and if you'd bothered reading darkbenny's thread you'd already know why.

Post by **grinvader** » Sat Nov 07, 2009 9:00 am

Maybe his dad really wants his current setup and he feels obligated to buy those new thingies to replace it ?