Hardware PC Hardware Buyer's Guide May 2011

Oh yeah, didnt think to check there.

Most tests seem to put the 6850 slightly over the 460 and BT were willing to spend a little more for it on the Enthusiast OCer (compared to the Affordable All Rounder's 460) so I assumed it was better; though Physx, Eyefinity etc obviously come into it.

 

@ Sloth

In all honesty, my preferences were pretty much what everyone else would have used the relevant builds for. The only thing I did change on the Gamer was the PSU since I couldn't get one due to stock shortages but I used the recommendation in the CPC mag which sometimes wierdly differs from the Bit-Tech recommendations. The enthusiast wasn't recommending a SSD at the time so I added one in and dropped the GPU spec to keep within the budget.

You can see the build specs and pics in my project log.

 

After looking online, I managed to improve the All Rounder but get the price down to £407.52

Improvements:

Changed the 430W PSU for the Corsair VX450 (recommended for the GTX 460 (I managed to find one for £91.53 ))

Changed the cooler to the Titan Fenrir (as used in the Pentium G6950 overclocking review so you can get the 4.62 Ghz OC)

A lot of the products are cheaper if you know where to look

Finally, which make of the GTX 460 is better? The one I found is eVGA, but what about Zotac/Gigabyte etc.?

 

This is what I managed to get the All Rounded down to:

CPU Intel Pentium G6950 £60.73
Motherboard Gigabyte GA-H55M-UD2H £64.00
Memory Corsair XMS3 4GB DDR3 £30.13
Graphics Card eVGA GTX 460 1GB £117.05
PSU Corsair VX450 £53.07
CPU Cooler Titan Fenrir TTC-NK85TZ £34.99
Case Antec One Hundred £35.15
Optical Drive LG GH22NS40/NS50-AUAA £13.20
Hard Drive MDT 500GB 7200rpm SATA 3gb/s £24.50

Total: £432.82

Notice I managed to save £10 and include a better cooler and PSU

One question though, what make of GTX 460 is best? e.g. Zotac/Gigabyte/eVGA etc.

 

Frio DOES NOT clash with this board.
I have one and the Frio is installed with both fans and 8GB of Corsair Vengeance RAM in slots 2/4 and it fits just fine.

 

Frio DOES NOT clash with this board.
I have one and the Frio is installed with both fans and 8GB of Corsair Vengeance RAM in slots 2/4 and it fits just fine.

 

By clashing, I mean colour wise. The red strips on the cooler and the blue board.

 

Oh...Sorry m8!

 

When CPC first reviewed the GTX 460, they went with the Gainward GLH GTX 460 for performance, cooling and super quiet running. I also think the cooler blew the hot air out of the case as well.

Not sure if that's in your budget though but it is a great card.

 

Nice article, but I'm not too keen on the Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro. It is barely better than a stock cooler, and the price is not low enough to reflect this level of performance. The Cooler Master Hyper TX3 is actually cheaper at US$20 and a better performer on lower power CPU's like the G6950, both in terms of noise and cooling. If you plan on using the same cooler for a higher power CPU later, consider the Hyper 212+ for $30 or less at MicroCenter or go all the way for a Scythe Mugen 2 aka SCMG-2100 for $40 from newegg.

 

I notice you guys spec the Premium Player with a Highpoint Rocket SATA III card but not the Gaming Workhorse - does that mean you're satisfied that the SATA III performance on the P67 chipset s good enough not to be a bottleneck on current gen SSDs? In that case why still spec the Premium Player with the Highpoint card?

 

In the all rounder would it not be better to swap out the GTX 460 for a 5850 as they can be had for around the same price now

 

Hi, I’m thinking of taking the ‘Affordable’ (aka skinflint) option here. Any comments on replacing the G6950 with an i3 530? Also, do Clarkdales OC better with the onboard GFX disabled ? Ta.

 

Hi, I’m taking the ‘Affordable’ (aka skinflint) option here. Any comments on replacing the G6950 with an i3 530? Also, do Clarkdales OC better with the onboard GFX disabled (e.g. more heat generated etc)? Ta.

 

plz link to 1tb hdd @ £30

 

I'd go for the gaming workhorse then add in 8GB of RAM rather than 4GB, if you want to save money down grade the Graphics card a bit but the 560 is a fantastic card

I say the gaming workhorse as the CPU will be doing a lot of the render work with editing and lots of memory is a must.

Soundcard really isn't needed either unless your doing music production on some nice high-end stuff

 

They're not really comparable though, are they? The Gaming Workhorse costs almost £500 more than the All-Rounder, so obviously it's a more capable machine, but query whether Logan needs everything it has to offer. It really depends on budget, but I definitely agree that the i5-2500K is a more solid CPU choice for editing work than the Pentium G7950.

Rather than cut down the Gaming Workhorse, I'd be inclined to beef up the Enthusiast Overclocker (which Logan seems to have forgotten about) by increasing the RAM to 8GB and dropping in an SSD for Windows, Photoshop (or whatever) and current working files, then use the Spinpoint for mass storage. That should easily be doable for under £800, which is a decent saving compared to the Gaming Workhorse upgraded to 8GB of RAM which would come in around £950 for little discernable benefit if he's not gaming. Spend the difference if you can afford and need it on increasing the storage, maybe putting in mirrored 2TB drives for extra data security.

Make sure you get a GPU that is compatible with video acceleration on whatever software you're using, as this will make a huge difference to performance.

 

A lot of games do not support multi GPUs this is something that only help under "Ideal" circumstances and then not much.

 

Got a wee bit of a problem with the recommendation of a 560 TI and the Antec TruePower New 650W, which I've now found out much to my cost that they aren't compatible. After the 560 freezing my pc numerous times during both heavy gaming and watching basic youtube videos, I've found out that it requires the 12v rails to be rated at 30A, but the highest rails the antec has are 25A. It's the only thing I can find that could be causing this problem, and if it is the power supplies fault, why is it being recommended with this card if it doesn't match the cards requirements?

 

You should be able to use one plug from each different cable and then you will be ok. Might have to use the adaptor that came with the GPU so you can use one of the other normal power cable thereby spreading the amps over two rails.