Hi everyone, I'm thinking of building my first custom pc (i want it to be capable of playing most modern games at a reasonable level, nothing special lol), i've had a look around and heres the parts i'm thinking of getting Motherboard: ASUS P5KPL 1600 Processor: Intel E8400 Core 2 Duo RAM: 4GB DDR2 800 HDD: 320GB SATA-2 7200rpm 16MB Cache GFX Card: Nvidia 9600gt 512mb PSU: 400w the total price comes up to about £370 I was just looking for opinions on whether that is a decent system for that price? or whether anyone had any recommendations for alternate parts etc. Sorry if theres not enough information, i'll post some more info if required. Thanks in advance to anyone who replies.
Welcome! Drop the E8400 for a E7400 - you'll save some cash and the cache doesn't make that much difference. The E73/4/500 is cheaper and will do upwards of 4GHz when overclocked. Don't buy the P5KPL! It's a G31 board and will certainly limit your overclocking - opt for a P43 or even better, a P45. 4GB of DDR2 1066 is only £2 more than 800MHz and gives you some performance overhead to play with! How much are you paying for that 320GB hard drive because a 500GB is now ~£40 (Western Digital Blue from CCL). Drop the 9600 GT and find yourself an ATI Radeon HD 4770 512MB or if you can stretch, there is a 4870 1GB from overclockers for £110! Which 400W PSU? In our buyers guide next month we've got a full system for under £400 - check it out early next week It depends how confident you are with overclocking though.
I would change you graphics card to 250. What 400w psu are you getting? Which ram make are you getting? i would change that board to a asus p5q pro or a biostar HP45. The e8400 is quite a bit better at gaming than the e7400, and you can clock the e8400 the 4.4ghz, while the e7400 goes to 4ghz. You may also want consider a good aftermarket cooler like titan fenrir.
4GHz.. 4.4GHz - meh to be honest for the extra cost. Intel's 45nm process certainly doesn't "guarantee" anything over 4 for any CPU tbh, and it demands a particularly expert hand to command stability - one this gentle on his first build won't have. Plus, the 250 is simply a 9800 GTX+, which the 4870 is faster than - the 512MB models are the same price and the 1GB Powercolor from OCUK is certainly faster. For someone on such a budget too, the Fenrir is also quite expensive, despite its excellent cooling performance.
Yes but e8400 gives same gaming performace as i7 because of the extra cache. The 250 now costs £80 why i recomended it before any one recomended the 4770. you can't get to 4ghz on a stock cooler. You could buy a e8200 has the extra cache and can go to 4ghz, and they are going for £100 now. http://www.kikatek.com/product_info.php?products_id=66946&source=froogle Forgot to ask what case and what brand HDD are you going to buy?
Thanks for the really quick responses. I'm paying about £35 for the hard drive, i'm not too bothered about the capacity as I have a 1tb nas where all my files are stored, but for that price, i might aswell go for the 500gb one, thanks for the info. I haven't really looked for a specific power supply as i didn't think it would really matter what brand it was, i was just wondering whether 400w would be enough. I'll have a look around and get back to you, unless you have some good suggestions? Again with the RAM i wasn't sure that specific brands would make a difference, I heard that most brands actually use the same chips anyway, don't know if thats true. bagman, what's a 250? In case you haven't noticed, i'm a bit of a noob lol. thank you both for the info.
bagman, I haven't looked for a case yet, as for the hard drive, I was thinking a samsung as the only other brand drives i've used are WD and they both failed.
Well for case it all depends on how much you want to spend. As for your psu you have to buy a good one as other wise a dodge geniric psu can cost you your whole pc, so get this one it shouls serve your needs well http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/450w-FSP-ATX-450PNF-PSU-ATX21-ATX12V-PCI-E-SATA-Ready. And finally your HDD you should get a samsung good make but make sure it is a spinpoint f1 like this one http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/320-...inpoint-F1-SATA-300-7200-rpm-16MB-Cache-89-ms. a 250 is a type of graphics card i would recomed to you http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/512M...DDR3-GPU-745MHz-128-Cores-DL-DVI-I-D-Sub-HDMI. as for ram i recomend corsair or crucial you can buy corsair from the scan website and you can get crucial on there own website.
Depends what games - more multithreaded games prefer more cores and that's certainly the way to go, but as the i7 uses the same general execution engine as the E8400 - anything up to two threads and not dependent on memory will be similar. I disagree that in general the E8400 is better than E7400 and I dare anyone to tell the difference at 4GHz. Not to mention the E7400 is only £84 - for a guy on this kind of budget, it doesnt make sense to go for an E8. Where did you get the GTS 250 512MB for £80 in stock? - that Palit card is pre-order And a 4870 512MB will blitz it at £98 and have a far better benefit to gaming than a few MB more cache or MHz on the CPU. Most GTS 250 512s are £90, and for the price difference of a GTS 250 512 + E8-something, you can get an E7something and a HD 4870 512 instead FSP .. bleh! Corsair CX400W please - in stock at £39 http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebProductID=893128
okay, i've had a look around at what you've recommended, and heres my (heavily) revised spec: MOBO: Asus P5Q3 (http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Asus...1066-1333-1600-1800(OC)-SATA-II-SATA-RAID-ATX) CPU: Intel E8400 (http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Inte...30-GHz-1333MHz-6MB-Cache-9x-Multiplier-Retail) GFX CARD: Saphire ATI 4870 (http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/NEW-Sapphire-...s=65:15|66:2|39:1|240:1318|301:1|293:1|294:50) PSU: 400w Corsair (http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebProductID=893128) RAM: 2x2gb corsair ddr3 pc3-10666 (1333mhz) (http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/4GB-...1333)-240-Pin-Non-ECC-Unbuffered-CAS-9-9-9-24) HDD: 320 GB Samsung HD322HJ (http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/320-...inpoint-F1-SATA-300-7200-rpm-16MB-Cache-89-ms) CASE: still not given it much thought, i'll have a look around, i don't want to spend much on the case (like £40-£50 or even cheaper if there is anything). altogether this comes to about £450, £80 more than my previous spec, but i presume would be worth it. I chose the corsair psu mainly because i've heard of the brand, do you think the other 50w i would gain from the other psu suggested would be necessary? just one thing, seen as though the motherboard i've chosen, has a 1600 fsb, would i be able to overclock the cpu to 1600? also i've heard a lot about the CPU:RAM ratio thing. with the current spec, i think i would have a 2:1 ratio (RAM:CPU). because the cpu is running at 1333mhz it's actual FSB speed would be 333mhz (because the cpu is 'quad pumped' or something), and the ram is running at 1333 its FSB would be 667 (because it is double data rate). Does this ratio thing even matter? would it be faster if i had 1600mhz ram with the processor running at 1333mhz? or would the processor just bottleneck the ram, so it wouldn't make any difference if the ram was 1333mhz or 1600mhz? Thanks again for all your help.
CASE: Antec 300, can be picked up for about £45 from ebuyer, maybe cheaper elsewhere, a good case for the price.
I am not sure about that mobo but i know this one is very good http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Bios...DDR2-1066-12006-667-800-SATA-II-SATA-RAID-ATX. But that means you will have to change your ram to http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/4GB-...)-240-Pin-Non-ECC-Unbuffered-CAS-5-6-6-18-EPP. As for your case i would opt for something like this http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Cool...w-o-PSU-(New-Improved-Version)-Scan-Exclusive or http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Antec-Three-Hundred-Black-Midi-Tower-Case-w-o-PSU. But the cooler master requires that you buy 1x120mm and the antec reqires you to buy 2x120mm fans. You don't have to worry about the ram to ratio thing because when you overclock you always unlink them as the ram would not be able to keep up with the cpu, and it is also easier that way. also with the new board you shoul be able to reach 530mhz which is 2000+ to put perspective to your 1600
i've looked at what you recommended and it seems good, it also saves me a little bit of cash. So heres my third try lol MOBO: Biostar TP45 (http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Bios...DDR2-1066-12006-667-800-SATA-II-SATA-RAID-ATX) £79 CPU: Intel E8400 (http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Inte...30-GHz-1333MHz-6MB-Cache-9x-Multiplier-Retail) £125 GFX CARD: Saphire ATI 4870 (http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/NEW-Sapphire-...s=65:15|66:2|39:1|240:1318|301:1|293:1|294:50) £98 PSU: 400w Corsair (http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebProductID=893128) £40 RAM: 2x2gb Corsair ddr2 PC28500 (1066mhz) (http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/4GB-...)-240-Pin-Non-ECC-Unbuffered-CAS-5-6-6-18-EPP) £40 HDD: 320gb Samsung 7200rpm (http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/320-...inpoint-F1-SATA-300-7200-rpm-16MB-Cache-89-ms) £33 DVD DRIVE: Sony 22x DUAL LAYER DVD RW SATA (http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&item=370213989759) £21 CASE: Antec 3000 (http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Antec-Three-Hundred-Black-Midi-Tower-Case-w-o-PSU) £46 OS: Windows Vista Home Premium (http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/SEALED-Micros...s=65:15|66:2|39:1|240:1308|301:1|293:1|294:50) £70 thats a final full spec and it comes to £563.13 including all postage costs. Any comments or does that seem ok? i was just wondering, could i buy this system or one equally as powerful for the same amount ready built? or how much more would it cost ready built? just asking as the reason i was builing it myslelf was to save money and i just want to know how much i would save. also i looked at the antec case on scan.co.uk and it says that it already comes with fans, just thought i'd let you know
If you want to get all from Scan then change DVD to http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Opti...DVDDL-DVDplusRW-x8-RWx6-12xRAM-SATA-Black-OEM £17.24 and the GFX card to http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/512M...R5-GPU-750MHz-800-Cores-2x-DL-DVI-I-HDTV-HDCP £97.99 The Windows Vista you linked on ebay is an upgrade-only version. If you need a copy that you can install then you would be looking at an OEM from Scan for about £90. The motherboard is out of stock and delayed. Next best would be the Gigabyte EP45-DS3L at £82.53 http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Giga...x16-DDR2-1066-1333-1600-SATA-II-SATA-RAID-ATX Total cost with delivery is £588.01 based on getting Vista from Scan. £565 if you go for the ebay copy. Extra cost is due to the motherboard being about £4 more expensive. You could save more by changing the CPU to the E7600. It's 3mb cache rather than the 6mb that the E8400 has, but saves you £25 and both are 3Ghz chips. Of course if you are overclocking then the E8400 can reach 4Ghz with sod all effort.
thanks for the info fibblesan, just one thing on the vista i linked to on ebay, it says this below where it says that it is an academic upgrade version: "For your information, the academic versions are the same as the retail version you are to purchase in retail stores except that it's listed as an "Academic Price." The packaging box, CD, manual, etc. are exactly identical as the retail versions. The only difference is the special academic price. Can also do a full install from a new / formatted hard drive" so would that be ok? just asking as it would save me £10 were i to go for that one over the one £90 one on scan. not much but i'm trying to save where i can lol I think i'll stick with the e8400 if it is easier to overclock as i've never really overclocked anything before. is it as simple as going into the bios and changing the mulitplier or fsb values? or changing some 'jumpers' (think that's the right term) on the motheroard, i think i remember seeing this on an old asrock motherboard i had. also, with the motherboard you suggested, it accepts ddr3 ram @ 1600, would i see any noticable performance increase if i were to buy that ram over the ddr2 @ 1333? bagman, i've just looked at the case on scan again and i've realised you're right as you need another 2 fans, thanks. i picked these ones out from scan (http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/120m...ve-Bearing-Ultra-Quiet-(17dBA)-Retail-Package) for £4.59 each.
okay, made a few changes, this looks like it should be ok to me Mobo: Gigabyte EP45 (http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Giga...x16-DDR2-1066-1333-1600-SATA-II-SATA-RAID-ATX) £83 CPU: Intel E8400 (http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Inte...30-GHz-1333MHz-6MB-Cache-9x-Multiplier-Retail) £126 Graphics: ATI Radeon 4870 (http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/512M...R5-GPU-750MHz-800-Cores-2x-DL-DVI-I-HDTV-HDCP) £98 PSU: 400w Corsair (http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebProductID=893128) £40 RAM: 2x2gb Corsair XMS3 Dominator DDR3 1600mhz (http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/4GB-...0-(1600)-240-Pin-Non-ECC-Unbuffered-CAS-9-DHX) £63 HDD: Samsung 500gb (http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/500-...int-F1-SATA-300-7200-rpm-16MB-Cache-89-ms-NCQ) £44 DVD DRIVE: Optiarc 24x DVD-RW (http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Opti...DVDDL-DVDplusRW-x8-RWx6-12xRAM-SATA-Black-OEM) £17 CASE: Antec 3000 (http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Antec-Three-Hundred-Black-Midi-Tower-Case-w-o-PSU) £46 FANS: 2x 120mm Akasa (17dBA) (http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/120m...ve-Bearing-Ultra-Quiet-(17dBA)-Retail-Package) £9 OS: Windows Vista Home Premium (http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/SEALED-Micros...s=65:15|66:2|39:1|240:1308|301:1|293:1|294:50) £69 altogether including postage this comes to £607.29 including postage I intend to overclock the processor to 3.6ghz by changing the fsb from 333 to 400 (it has a 9x multiplier), this gives a good performance increase without me requiring any special cooling equipment. and as the fsb will be 400, i will give the ram a mulitplier of 2 (1600 ddr2 with an actual fsb of 800). I think i've got all that right. just one final thing, do you think the 400w psu will be enough? i think i've asked this before, but just want to be sure.
The psu will be powerfull enough to run that pc, you will in the futre be looking to overclock the cpu to at least 4ghz. there is one more thing you shoud get as it is vital for your overclocking. http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Akas...ad-Duo-with-92mm-side-blow-fan-Intel-push-pin Welcome to the forums pie.
If you felt confident enough, you could install windows 7 RC on your PC and pre-order windows 7 home premium for £50. Just upgrade once it arrives. This does also depend on how much you trust the RC and if you are in the right country to get the discounted pre-order price.
