Righto, my 5 year old pc seems to be going the way of the dodo so I have decided it is time to get a new one. As stated in the thread title my budget is around £1000-1200 as I'd like it to last for some time. I will use it for gaming, photo/video editing, coding and general processing tasks. I've already taken a quick look at septembers buyers guide but since I already have a PSU (850W), Hard-drive, DVD/Bluray drive and peripherals I thought I'd have a go coming up with my own build I quickly pieced this together: CPU: Core i7 2600 - £229.40 CPU Cooler: Be Quiet Dark Rock Advanced C1 - £43 Memory: 8GB (2x4GB) Corsair DDR3 Vengeance (1600) - £50.16 Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z68XP-UD3P - £125.62 SSD: 240GB OCZ Vertex 3 - £335.09 Case: Fractal Design Define R3 - ~£70 Total: ~£853 Questions: 1) I am completely out of the loop when it comes to graphics cards so any recommendations (~£250) would be appreciated. 2) Cheaper alternatives to the Vertex 3 would be nice, I don't mind losing a bit of performance. I've also heard of BSOD issues with the vertex 3s, anyone experienced this? 3) Is going i7 rather than i5 worth it, or could I save myself £80 without losing much performance? Thanks all
Gtx 570 for a £250 card. http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/cpus/2011/01/03/intel-sandy-bridge-review/1 Decide for yourself whether 2500k or 2600k. Personally I think the price hike is way too big. Also you want a "k" version as they have unlocked multiplier for overclocking. http://www.scan.co.uk/products/256gb-crucial-realssd-m4-25-sata-6gb-s-ssd-mlc-flash-507mb-s-write-290mb-s-new-version And slightly cheaper RAM http://www.scan.co.uk/products/8gb-(2x4gb)-corsair-ddr3-xms3-pc3-12800-(1600)-non-ecc-unbuffered-cas-9-9-9-24-15v
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/25gb-evga-gtx-570-hd-40nm-3800mhz-gddr5-gpu-732mhz-shader-1464mhz-480-cores-2x-dvi-dp-hdmi-plusfree- 2.5gb £299 i have one coming myself...
Get the i5 2500K, it's almost the same performance. For the graphic card, if you are into gaming, I would recommend a Radeon HD6950 with 2GB, I bought it for 210€, and you can easily unlock it into a 6970 ( http://www.techpowerup.com/articles/overclocking/vidcard/159 ), that is nothing less then a GTX 570 in performance, and have more memory.
You might have some clearance issues with the vengeance RAM. I had to use a coolermaster hyper 212+ because of the height of the heat spreaders. Get the K version of the CPU as stated above for better overclocking potential. I bought the 2600k without doing enough research on the benefits of the 2600k over the 2500k. This was because I thought that an i7 would be much better than an i5 processor. The main purpose of my build was Gaming and the extra features of the i7 (like hyperthreading) are rarely used by me and so I am not utilizing the full potential of the CPU. In retrospect I would have been better off with an i5 2500k as I would have saved some money, which could have gone towards a better motherboard, higher capacity PSU, better CPU Cooler, etc. The 570 would be an ideal card for your budget and the performance is not too far behind a GTX 580.
Thanks for all the suggestions guys, I think a 570 looks like a good bet and I think the crucial M4 should help me shave a £ off the build. Would it be worth getting low profile ram, it might alleviate clearance issues? Thanks for the tip on the 2600, I kind of feel like I am missing the reason why the i7 is so much more expensive.
Vengeance comes in Low Profile form! It's literally called 'Low Profile' and comes in various colours including black, blue also a lower voltage arctic white. I have some G-Skill Sniper myself that operates fine a tad over 1.25v.
Yeh, you can buy the Low Profile Vengeance RAM, which will definitely alleviate the clearance issues you may have with the chosen CPU cooler. The LP Vengeance DIMMS run at 1600MHz at 1.35V and cost around £50 for two 4GB sticks.
Learn summit new every day ! I have seen RED LP pictured in CPC, however i cant find it ANYWHERE !? Fitted my white LP to my media pc yesterday, looks lovely, black PCB's too. I would highly recommend any of the vengeance LP memory, sure the normal vengeance looks a bit better, but unless your using waterblocks/corsair H series closed loops you will struggle to get them under most popular heatsinks.
^^You have to compromise with your cooling solutions with the regular Corsair Vengence, which is why I'm using the CM hyper 212+. It does a good job at 4.2GHz, but I would need a better cooler if I want to go over that. I might get some of the white LP vengeance as it is quite cheap and maybe get a silver arrow to allow further overclocking .
So this is what I'm currently planning on getting, anyone got any other suggestions? In particular some thermal paste; last time I build a PC arctic silver was the thing to get, is that still the case?
Right now, the IC Diamond thermal paste is probably the best one to get. I've heard that it performs a couple of degrees better than the artic silver, although I'm not 100% sure.
I like that build but man, I'd definitely get the 2500k over the 2600. That £80 could be far better spent elsewhere!
Excellent, thanks. I'm torn, I'd quite like to keep the build for quite a long time and I almost feel like the 2600 may be worth it. At the same time £80 seems rather steep, what do you think I should spend the money on instead?
If you get the 2500k you could buy either a Thermalright Silver Arrow or Noctua NH-D14 cooler, which are the best air coolers out there.
