So after a couple of weeks of deliberation and help from you guys on Bit-tech I've decided on my Core i7 build. ATCS 840 i7 920 Asus p6t mobo Corsair Dominator DDR3 1600 NVIDIA 285 GTX CORSAIR CMPSU-850TX 850W Thermalright Ultra 120 heatsink SAMSUNG Spinpoint F1 HD103UJ 1TB 7200 RPM any comments?
yes except for the RAM, you need dual channel DDR3 for that motherboard, trichannel is only for the new Intel CPUs
Well, right off the top of my head, the case youre buying comes with a 500w power supply, so unless youre planning on going dual GPU setup, I dont think youll need to get the separate one. The other thing that springs to mind is...well how large is your budget? Because from what Ive read, going ddr3 ram with the new Phenom II processors only means something like 2-5% performance increase, considering the rather larger price difference. As in, the 6gb of ddr3 costing 143 pounds, and 4gb of DDR2 costs 57 pounds: http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/4GB-(2x2GB)-Corsair-TwinX-DDR2-XMS2-PC2-8500-(1066)-240Pin-Non-ECC-Unbuffered-CAS-5-5-5-15-EPP Of course, it doesnt matter if youre going all out for a high end system, in which case Id recommend going with a Intel Core i7 processor instead of the AMD lineup. Also your video card is in the low mid range. Its definitely something youll want to choose carefully, as your video card is propably the single most important component affecting the gaming experience youll have. If you could let us know your budget Im sure there will be many a suggestion towards a great gaming rig
I think you could do better on the motherboard and, consequently, on the RAM. Right now there's no really any reason to buy DDR3 RAM. Although it's come down in price you're still paying through the nose for next-to-no performance increase. Also, that DDR3 kit will only do you good on a Core i7 build, since the Core i7 is the only CPU currently running triple channel memory. If you'd use that kit with anything but a Core i7 you would force the CPU to access the memory in single channel mode, which costs performance. Here are a few suggestions: Motherboard: http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Asus...(x16)-DDR2-1066-667-800-SATA-II-SATA-RAID-ATX or http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Asus...)-DDR2-1066-667-800-SATA-II-SATA-RAID-ATX-VGA Memory 4GB: http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/4GB-...8500(1066)-240Pin-NonECC-Unbuffered-CAS-5-EPP Graphics card: http://www.ebuyer.com/product/150577 or http://www.ebuyer.com/product/155496 Hope this provides some inspiration. You can possibly find better prices elsewhere.
The i7 is most useful for gaming purposes when considering GPU setups that are currently considered to be terrifyingly powerful (i.e. non-i7 CPUs do not become the bottleneck until moving to setups like Tri-SLI). Granted that they do everything else faster, but for all intents and purposes, especially with a down-to-earth budget of £1000, you'd be much better off going with a Phenom II or Core 2 Quad-based system. - Diosjenin -
Yea, thisll give you some idea as to what a i7 system would cost you: CPU: i7 920 245 pounds. http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Intel-i7-920-Socket-1366-(B)-Nehalem-266GHz-Cache-8MB-Retail If you do go with the i7 you can use the ram you had originally picked out, althou I dont know enough about ddr3 to say wether those latency valules are good or not. ram: Corsair XMS3 DDR3, PC3-12800, 140 pounds. Motherboard: Asus P6T Deluxe, 236 pounds. http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Asus-P6T-Deluxe-Intel-X58-Sok-1366-PCI-E-20-DDR3-1066-1333-1600(OC)-SAS-SATAII-ATX Video Card: BFG Tech GTX 285 OC 1GB: 310 pounds http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/1GB-BFG-Tech-GTX-285-OC-PCI-E-20-(x16)-Mem-2484MHz-GDDR3-GPU-666MHz-240-Cores-2x-DL-DVI-I-HDTV Well, thatll give you some idea of the cost youre looking at for a system like this, already were at around 930 pounds for those parts, and thats with the slowest i7 processor. Ill admit that Ive not looked at i7/ddr3 systems enough to really pick the very best parts, but itll give you some idea of what to expect. Id recommend checking out the articles "What hardware should I buy" they really give you a great idea of the price range for a full setup. The total cost really depends on if you need to buy such things as a case/PSU/monitor etc. or if youre just upgrading certain parts or keeping some from earlier setups. You should look at this setup they gathered for right under 1000 pounds: http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2009/02/03/what-hardware-should-i-buy-feb-2009/5 Its a really solid machine they put together there, and unless youre willing to spend enough to get the case/psu/hard drives/optical drives/OS for the parts listed above, thats propably your best bet.
It should be added, that Core i7 processors generally are not more powerful than Core 2 processors in gaming scenarios. At least it's been confirmed in many tests, that you don't get a boost in gaming when building a (quite more expensive) Core i7 system instead of a Core 2. Core i7 is a great processor, but its strengths are currently more in the massively multi-threaded application area than in the gaming area.