I have been agonising over building a new rig for, it must be four months now, having saved up £500, and then blowing it on a mix of Blu ray player and games (damn your weekly sales Steam, D2D and Good Old Games!!!). I exagerate a little, but that is generally the direction in which most of the cash flowed, though I did pre order Windows 7, so I did get one vital component. The main reason for my procrastination was due to the release of the Core i5s, and whereas I felt the Phenom IIs were the way to go on a budget (specifically the X3), I was curious enough to want to see what to expect from the i5s. I was going to build all brand new, and with a budget of around £500, the only feasible route was AM3, but then I had an epiphany and reconsidered an earlier option. Rather than build a whole new rig, taking up yet more space, I've resolved to save cash, space and effort, and upgrade the rig I have, meaning I can stretch to a Core i5 set up. I'm looking at: - Gigabyte P55M-UD2 1156 MATX - Intel Core i5 750 2.66Ghz (Lynnfield) - G.Skill Ripjaw 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel All are recommended by Bit-Tech in their latest Buyers Guide for November, and will come in at £300. These will be supported by my existing bits: - 600W Seasonic S12-600 + TIES - Creative Fatal1ty X-Fi - Asus 8800GT - DVD burner - Antec 180 or 190 (used to be the Custom PC recommended high end case, and even though the door came off, it's always pretty damn cool) My aim is to manage with what I have, save up a bit more, and get a new GPU later on, perhaps when Fermi is released, and upgrade as and when I need to. My main concern is whether or not my existing kit (specifically the Seasonic and the Antec case) will be able to house, and sufficiently power my intended new kit. I think it should be ok, but I would just like some advice as to whether this is a sound idea. For complete disclosure, I am currently running the bits you see outlined above, plus a DFi Lanparty 939 socket MB with a dual Core 3800+ Athlon 939, and 2 GB of DDR2.
Sorry miss read your post. - ignore It would be fun to be able to delete you own thread.. at least 1-2 minutes after posting one.
The Seasonic will be fine to power your new kit. Good choice waiting until Fermi arrives to pick up a GPU.
They are indeed. There seems to be a trend to purchase the cheapest P55 motherboard available to get the cost of a Core i5 build down. However if the motherboard has all the features needed then it is probably up to the job.
Except Gigabyte is somewhat king of the decent clocking cheap MATX boards so I would say it is a decent choice on a budget It will do 4ghz just like any other board.
I'm not looking to go for an overclock, though I remain open to the option. What motherboards might you recommend then?
Asus,Msi are preferable. However that Gigabyte board is actually fine and can do atleast 3.8GHz with minimal extra voltage. For 300 pounds your getting above Core 2 Quad Extreme £800 territory performance so its quite the upgrade for the money.
