Hardware PC Hardware Buyer's Guide - April 2010

Our monthly PC building advice shows you how to spec up a PC that'll give you the best performance for whatever budget you have. Read on to see how Nvidia's GTX 470 and GTX 480 has changed things, and what's the best hardware to buy at the moment.

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/buyers-guide/2010/04/13/pc-hardware-buyer-s-guide-april-2010/1

 

Thanks guys! Just been waiting to put an order in for a few parts and value your excellent judgement on the components.

 

Cheaper CL9 DDR3 for the enthusiast overclocker setup
http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/...12800/1600MHz/G.Skill/F3-12800CL9D-4GBRL.html

Also really happy to see that the 750 is still the one to get in my price area. Make me feel much better about buying one last month.

 

From reading this guide, it seems everything is going up in price, are we going backwards in therms of technical abilities? Are the competition between companies demanding too much from the chip manufacturing process, making the customers pay for it?

Great guide, Looks like Intel + ATI is currently the way forward.

 

what'd be the best 890GX matx m/b available now or do you know of any to wait for?

 

Antec's 902 has eight PCI brackets in back, so you could use that for your folding case...

- Diosjenin -

 

Hmmm, i start seeing that waiting another 2 months isn't going to make my build cheaper...

How does the Core i7-860 fare against the Core i7-930 for gaming?
(as they are similar in price, and gaming is my heaviest main application.)

 

860 is cheaper setup

930 is the better overclockers but costs £100 more to do correctly

Costs are going up alot recently, glad I brought my ram when I did £110 for 4gb is really high

SSD prices made me lol they are insane for what they are. £1700 for a base unit for a pc is getting beyound resonable( decent moniter + OS keyboard mouse) your talking £2300 for a complete pc. Unless you skimp some place but who's gonna pay all that
money to run it on anything below a 24inch screen


maybe redo premium player to money no object. As it's close to it already

 

Wait to see what 890FX has to offer.

890GX though is Asus.

 

zero difference. tri-channel can pull ahead in memory intensive benchmarks, that's it. as "the guide" wrote, LGA1156 i7 offers great performance and won't break your bank.

 

So the buyers guide remains as follows: buy the best Intel and ATi components you can

 

For the affordable all rounder an unlocked Phenom II x2 550 (aka x4 B50) is a better option as you're getting a full fat quad core for the price of cache strapped Athlon II x4.

 

How does overclocking the i3-530 affect the GMA HD integrated graphics performance? I'm considering swapping out the Radeon GFX and the i5-750 and using just the i3 in a Gigabyte GA-H55M-USB3 mobo.. That brings it more in line with the affordable all-rounder price, while allowing me to swap in a i5-750 and discrete GFX when the need takes me.

How do you think that will compare to the all-rounder, performance-wise? How does the GMA HD fare against the GTS 250 with/without overclock?

 

Greetings!

For gaming the i5 750 seems the best choice.
Not many games use the HT feature of the i7 and with it enabled you get 10-15ºC more.

 

If your only gaming on your pc anything above the 750 is wasting
money that would be better spent on graphics card

You won't gain performance from anything above it

hyperthreading adds 10c on the stock cooler perhaps on a fenrir it's more like 3-5c max

 

Rollo - I turned off HT to test temperatures on my 930. I have a Titan Fenrir cooler. At 3.2GHz, 1.15V, with HT on my load temps were 56C. With HT off, my load temps were 48/49C.

 

We did point out in the text that it's an option but unlocking is never guaranteed and I wouldn't like to make it appear so for those unknowing of it for this reason:

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/hardware/2010/04/13/amd-removed-core-unlocking/1

Also, it does push the budget up a bit and we're trying to hit the £400 mark.

 

maybe this has already been brought up, but i'm surprised you recommend the i7-860 over the i5-750 in your gaming workhorse. i know it's intended for excellent all around performance, but does the 860 give 40% more performance, even in heavily multi-threaded apps, to warrant the 40% increase in price? i'd settle for 25% more performance,but in most situations it doesn't get 15%. just seems like a real waste of money unless all you ever do is cinabench, and even then it wouldn't be worth it for me.

 

I hope the GF470/480 drop significantly in price, I would still by the Radeon 5870 over the GF480 even if they were the same price. there is nothing worse than too much noise

 

The reason for price rises here while prices are falling in the US is down to the exchange rate; ie the pound falling against the dollar while the dollar strengthens against the pound, the yen and most other currencies. This a trend likely to continue throughout the summer and into autumn.