Build Advice Building a new PC on a high budget, (Epicly long post...)

Ebuyer is good too. Aria's Superspecials section is all win though Do you need data security at all?

 

XFX AVP Edition 5870's were 250 the other week. I was like but they had already sold out. Since then I've signed up to the email alerts

 

Not really, as force of habit I back all my needed data up daily (I upload it, stick it onto an external hdd and also onto a usb stick) I got stung once about 6 years ago and since then, all my works is copied all over the place all the time, I'm kinda happy handling that myself rather then going for a raid 1 solution and the like. Only way I'm losing any significant data in the future is in the event of a massive solar flare

oh that reminds me JaredC01, you can leave a bluray drive out of my budget, have no interest in one.

 

the SSD side would be an M225 256gb (vertex is £100 more for the same thing) you cant compare an hdd to an SSD as in every thing loads Right away (i had an corsair S128 and the system was fast as well but the m225 i have now is faster by an lot, Steam or EA downloaded games unpack or install very fast now) Do not install Any chipset drivers if your useing an SSD as it most likey disable the TRIM support {keeps the SSD at top speed} but you looking at around £500 for an 256gb SSD i was luck i got them when they was £410, whe you get the SSD update it before you use it unless it all ready has up to date firmware on it (@masterjonny any faster SSDs are only needed for servers, vertex or M225 way more then any home user or gamer needs and No RAID is needed one of these )

2 5870 cards are faster then 1 5970 and you can disable the CF if it has issues 5970 you can't, as the 5970 is down clocked an little to keep temps down (think of it more like 2x5850 but just an little bit faster) i my self is getting the GTX480 but only due to drivers (and 1 of them is faster then an 5870 normally and considerably faster then an 9800GX2 that i have now), more then any thing want an card that works when drivers are updated ati i cant trust that games are going to be fixed or work at all or need to reload windows to install the driver (still seems to affect an small user base like one of my friends, ATI needs an ATI driver wiper tool)

the CPU overclocking will be done in the bios you only need to change 2 settings if its doing 3.20-3.33 that can be done in the bios called CPU level up pick the high one, 3.8 needs 4-5 settings set and DDR3 1600 ram but i think it can be done with 1333 ram (set to Manuel > BLK 191, muti 20, vcore 1.3 {try get this as low as you can use prime to test pc stable} CPU PPL 1.89, ram 1.63 if your using 1600 ram, enable Load line calibration as well), the 930 does overclock better then an 920 that i have right now (920) so even 4ghz is not that hard it seems but 3.8 you should be able to keep the vcore right down mine Quite happy at 1.28 @ 3.8ghz

above is assuming its an Asus motherboard, Gigabyte motherboards seems good just Never used them (i norm replaced them but they was 5-7 year old pcs and cheap)

 

P6X58D PREMIUM seems a good board not read a bad review, people happy over at extreme and plenty of gold star reviews just been waiting for bit/cpc to review it

 

Where did you get the info about 12 gig's damaging the CPU?

I know Intel restricts the memory used on these motherboards from running higher than 1.65 V due to the memory controller being located on the Core i7 CPU itself. Thus higher RAM voltages run the risk of damaging the CPU itself, but this applies to any amount of ram used.

Thanks

 

£2500, hmmm well



dual, Quad core i7 xeon's yes 8 cores in SMP
8GB of ram, with buckets to expansion left
5870

seriously, if you compile and game with heavy multitasking then this would be the machine to build.

 

I can't seem to find the thread where I was reading about it (though it was on XS), but here's the basic reason why it happened:

The memory controller has no type of temp probe or safety feature built into it, so there's no fail-safe system built into the chip. When running 6 DIMMs of RAM, the memory controller is working harder to handle having all 6 DIMMs populated. The RAM is powered by the memory controller, so the higher the voltage the higher the heat produced and strain on the parts, especially when running the RAM at the 'high end' of the spectrum (1.65v). So when you add 6 DIMMs, the heat and stress on the memory controller is greater than it is with 3 DIMMs... Combine that with an overclock, which stresses everything on the processor to some degree, and you end up with a dead memory controller.

It's not guaranteed, but it has happened. IIRC the overclock wasn't anything spectacular on the chip that died either, so with any overclocking I'll stick with 3 DIMMs populated.

Toploaded, I'll start putting it all together... I'll use Scan since it's what I'm comfortable with, but you can find the same parts at another place if you would like.

 

New budget is 2000, including a higher quality monitor.

 

Starting off with a monitor...

Dell U2410 S-IPS - £586.33

The HP L2475W is also a great choice (S-IPS as well), though I can't seem to find a direct link from HP for it. Someone chime in by all means if you've got a link...

Now, for the computer...

With the budget being about 500 pounds less than original, I'm going to go against an SSD. They're very expensive for what you get space wise, and a good high-speed mechanical drive is still 'fast enough' for most people (including myself).



The Monitor: Dell U2410 is an S-IPS model with great reviews... One of the best 24" monitors out there.

The case: The ATCS 840 is a great case with plenty of room for everything you could want to put into a system. There are cheaper cases if you don't want to spend as much, but a good case will stick with you through a couple of builds.

The PSU: Same PSU I'm running (and the same one I recommended), and it should do well for any upgrades you plan on for a LONG time to come... 5 year warranty on top of that.

The DVD Drive: Just a cheap DVD drive... Should work well enough.

The HDDs: One Spinpoint F3 1TB for the boot drive... Wicked fast for a mechanical drive (beats a VelociRaptor even), and should store all of your games and programs without any issues. One Spinpoint F3EG (EcoGreen) for storage / scratch disk to hold the rest of your data. It's a green drive, so the speed won't be as fast as the boot disk, but it's still fast enough to handle any storage needs.

The GPU: Sapphire Vapor-X 5870 should suit your needs while staying very quiet. Upgrade to a second one down the road as needed.

The CPU: i7 930, already explained before.

The Mobo: Gigabyte GA-EX58A-UD5, has a 5 year warranty, USB 3.0, SATA 6.0 Gbps, and all the bells and whistles you could need, for a good price. Future proof and marginally more expensive than the non USB 3.0 / SATA 6.0 Gbps model.

The RAM: I said Dominator RAM is more enthusiast RAM than the typical RAM, but it was only a few pounds more expensive than the 'normal' RAM, and it should run cooler.

Total:
£2121.64 inc VAT

Slightly over budget, but worth the stretch if you can manage it. If anyone has any input, by all means...

Edit: Forgot the cooler and wireless... You already know which cooler you've been looking at, go for that one or the H50. Either will work well enough. As for the Wifi adapter, any of them will work... Pick up a USB one as suggested higher up if you want it to be portable from computer to computer and not waste a PCI-E slot.

 

if i was dumping 2K on a machine an extra £500 wouldn't be a worry considering the performance increase.

 

This might go against what some other peopel have said but this is what i'd get with that money.

cpu-Core i7 930
Mobo - Asus P6X58D
GPU - GTX 480
RAM - 6GB Corsair XMS3 Classic 1600MHz Cas 8
HDD- samsung F3 1TB
SSD - 80GB intel SSd Gen. 2
case - Silverstone FT02B
CPU cooler - AKASA Freedom Tower
PSU - Corsair HX1000
Sound card - Asus Xonar D2x v.2
OS - Windows 7 professional 64bit

peripherals
Logitech G19
Logitech G500
Logitech Z5500

All that comes to £2536

The reason for the samsung f3 is because SATA3 isn't woth the price its comes with nowa days, in the future when i gets cheaper, then get a sata3 HDD but until then get a Sata2 and save your self some cash.

I know people are gonna be thinking "what the hell is a Fermi doing in his list!" but i chose it because its cheaper than the 5970, NOT because im some Nvidia fanboy.

take what you want from that list but i think thats a kick as machine.

 

Few things about your setup geoboy:

1. It's WAY over budget. Total budget is £2000 give or take £100. That price is to INCLUDE a high quality monitor.

2. 480GTX isn't worth the cost compared to either the 5870 or the 5970. It's not considerably faster than the 5870, and it gets beat by the 5970 by a decent margin. The 5870 is still the best performance for the price, and unless you're running a 30" @ 2560 x 1600 you will be able to max out pretty much every setting in every game with one 5870. Even with a 30" the card performs beautifully.

3. The SSD doesn't have enough storage space for all of the applications he wants to install on it (I will say the games can be shifted to the mechanical drive, but it defeats the purpose unless you're only using the SSD for loading Windows, in which case it's a waste of money).

4. He's already got Win 7 64-bit Ultimate, no need for an OS in the list.

5. He doesn't need a keyboard or mouse, and he will mostly be using headphones for audio.

That aside, your setup isn't bad...

 

On 2k budget a £500 moniter is overkill

 

Awesome guys, thanks, lots to digest there, guess I came to the right place.

Sorry some got confused, originaly I did put 2500, but that was including a keyboard and mouse (which themselfs will come in at at least 100) and also when I was *sure* I was getting a 5970 and maybe a i7 960. Chopping it down to 2000 means I can get the rig at least a month earlier, then no doubt a few months down the line I'll take the extra 500 and invest in 2nd GPU. This thing is already going to be leaps and bounds above ANYTHING I've used before.

As for 500 being way to much for a monitor, I don't think so for me. As stated above I'll build on it in future, and for me the monitor quality is just one of the most important things and I want something very high quality from the outset. Both Burnouts21 and JaredC01's recommendation of montiors was exactly the kinda thing I was going for, I'll probably pick between those two.

Thanks to JaredC01, Burnout21 and geoboy333 for the build recommendations. I can see why Burnout21 recommends a more beefy CPU for the compiling aspect, but again as I'm coming from a place where it can take over a day (sometimes many more!) to compile a Source engine map, so I'll already be blown away by the increase in speed. I think the plan CPU wise is to go with the I7 930 for now, then in a year or so sell it on and upgrade maybe.

Burnout, I'm interested to know why you think on a rig that beefy and geared towards multitasking, only 2GB's of ram is really needed?

 

He has 4 sets of the 2GB corsair ram, coming out to 8GB total.

 

Oh, yeah, heh.

The duel CPU's in interesting, I never even really heard of that before. Something I should probably read into.

 

what about that? Total is £1438 inc next day delivery.

 

Sounds fair enough, was reading a article over on toms hardware about ram 3,6 and 12 gig all showed about the same performance in a number of tests. Best ram spec 1600 get the lowest latency you can CL8 or lower. In the end 6 gig was sweet spot for price performance.

 

Just like to add, I have two 920 i7's, both D0's. The first does a fairly happy 4GHZ on a P6T SE, the other does a more nifty 4.2ghz on an EVGA X58LE. In a genius stroke swapped the chips over and they clock the same on the different boards.

So, decided I could sell one of them (the one that gets to 4ghz) and replace it with a 930, because the sites are saying the 930 clocks further. So buys one, can't get more than 3.9 ish out of it on either board, its also a retail, and had not been opened when I bought it.

Whilst some 930's probably clock higher, don't buy into the myth that a 930 will automatically go higher than a 920. Review sites should provide more of a disclaimer before they make blanket startements like the 930 is superior. Stock speeds, yes it is, overclocking, YMMV.