Hardware PC Hardware Buyer's Guide July 2011

Whine, whine, AMD, whine, whine, bang for buck, whine, whine, alternative, whine, whine.....etc, etc.

Every month you say the same thing. Come on, gives us a better argument.

 

a gtx590 is a multigpu setup

I guess you meant the 6990
I still believe, that it's simply better value to go for either 6950 or 6970 in xfire. especially the 6950 for example: in xfire will consume much less than 590 and will take much less power, and performance is similar I guess + in triplemonitor gaming it will have the edge due to more memory.
both the 590 and 6990 are too difficult to cool anyway + amd-s power management is much better so you are not relying on software to keep your card from blowing up...

 

i know hence 'normally'

 

^^^this^^^

although i do think it would be better to do an alternative system from the other side alongside the monthly choices (if just to make the 'intel worse than skynet' brigade shut up) i also believe that bit-tech are just trying to show us there recomendations on how to spend your cash if building a pc and therefore there really is no need for an alternative.

and before anyone ask's im not a fanboi of anything, im always open to alternatives

 

Exactly, its showing you whats best for the money at the time regardless of manufacturer. Someone who desperately wants an AMD or intel system will buy one regardless

 

yeah, can't wait to get some bulldozer competition to intel so that we might see better pricing for cpu-s
also of note, the gtx560ti is a great card, but a quick search shows that a 2GB 6950 is only about 10-15£ more expensive. Is it not be worth it to go for this instead? (also, the 1GB is cheaper still)

if the prices would be similar with 570 and 6950, then it would really be a difficult decision and depends on the game (570 usually a little bit faster i think). here I don't really see a difficult decision at all

 

Sorry Yes I meant 6990. Either way the 580 single card would have been better anyway because it was better allround than the AMD "alternative"

 

It's July, why are you lot still recommending P67 boards with Z68 boards cost just about the same?

 

Yup, they're about a tenner more (at least here in Germany) and I suppose "Intel Smart Response" alone shoud be worth that.

Appearently Z68 isn't pushed by the Mobo manufacturers though.
Bit also never managed to complete their "(P)Review" test what-is-the-intel-z68-chipset with the second mode for Virtu (Discrete Card out) which does the concept a lot more justice from a gamers point of view than the tested "Internal Graphics output".

To be fair though, other review sites have not tested a lot of Z68 either...seems to be regarded as a dead horse by the industry. Now that pricing has adjusted however, I think it's getting quite attractive.

 

I don't know which to grab, the msi p67a-gd53 or the asus maximus.
When will the review for the maximus be coming out?


Oh by the way Thanks for the buyers guide!

 

Tend to agree on the Z68. Both the gaming workhorse and premium player would probably be better with a Z68 and for gaming workhorse just use the SSD as a cache. 64gb is really too small for a boot disk, particularly a gamer who'd like his games to run using the SSD. Why not have the best of both worlds?

 

It's an interesting article, but I have a few questions.

1. Why is the 'affordable all rounder' so expensive? I don't believe that a budget PC should cost upwards of £600 with OS, monitor and peripherals. Really, I'd be looking at £400-500 complete (with OS and peripherals) for a 'budget' all round spec.
2. Why use an MATX board in an FT02? If you're going to recommend an MATX motherboard, at least do the decent thing and stick it in a smaller case, otherwise you've got limited slot space and board space for no reason.
3. Again, what's the point of the GTX590 as a recommendation? £600 for a card that's outperformed by GTX570 SLI, which costs £150 less, and don't have slightly delicate VRMs (so should overclock further). I don't recommend the 6990 either, as it's as fast as two 6950s, which are £150 cheaper than it. Frankly, I'd recommend two 2GB 6950s in crossfire.

That'll do for now I think.

 

this question gets discussed to death and quite frankly im probably not the only fed with seeing it as even the bit-tech staff have stopped answering questions along these lines.

 

Back on the money with the premium components for the premium player rig

 

In regards to why the Llano chips didn't make it in... this site still caters to enthusiests where possible, which is always going to mean discreet graphics. Unless bit-tech makes a new less expensive category, thats pretty much the way it's going to be.

In regards to the H67 board... the Gigabyte GA-Z68MA-D2H-B3 is $10 more expensive, and the freezer 7 can be dropped (net $20 less); the i3 can't be overclocked and sandy bridge runs so damn cool that a better cooler is pointless.

Lastly, I saw 2x4GB of PC12800 (1600mhz CL9 1.5v) on sale last week for CAD $60. For that price (or even $80) it's a no brainer.

 

Hi,
Where did you see the sale? Also wondering where you buy your stuff as I am in Calgary as well.

 

wrong thread, need moar sleep.

 

Which Micro-ATX motherboard do you recommend people? Has to be a good overclocker, or is overclockable and mirco atx a conflicting idea.
Also what kind of cooler could I fit in their for the CPU?! (Assuming I use a micro atx case ofc)

 

Too true. I have a Patriot Inferno 60gb and it makes me think, when looking at my work pc in particular, wtf man? Seriously. WTF? Giga what the fu......... ?

 

Everyone's idea of affordable is different.