Good day people, Long time reader first time poster, I have decided to take the jump into the pit of darkness and decided to build my own custom PC, after years and years of buying 'tat' from 'insert local PC store name here' I'm heading out on my own and doing it myself. So, I have been reading this forum a lot and notice a lot of people asking for advice on their custom build, my post is exactly the same, below is the build I am looking so any recommendations/tips/flames would be greatly appreciated. Antec 300 Three Hundred Case - £39.12 AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition 3.2 GHz Socket AM3 8MB Cache Retail Boxed Processor - £ MSI 790GX-G65 790GX AM3 DDR3 VGA DVI HDMI 8 channel Blu-ray audio ATX Motherboard - £76.28 Sapphire HD 5750 1GB GDDR5 Dual DVI HDMI Display Port Out PCI-E Graphics Card - £86.06 G-Skill 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 1600MHz/PC3-12800 Ripjaw Memory Kit CL7(7-8-7-24) 1.65V - £69.55 Western Digital WD5000AAKS 500GB SATAII 7200RPM 16MB Cache - OEM Caviar Blue - £30.80 So will this build hold its own in todays gaming scene's for a while or we it be out of date within a month. Look forward to any help provided.
Your build will hold its own. With Intel releasing the Clarkdale Core i5 range on 7 Jan it is hard to guarentee it will not be out of date within a month but I would be surprised if a 2 core with HT could out perform a quad. I do have a couple of suggestions. You may want to consider a 5770 in place of the 5750. Based on the performance of Dirt 2 in DX11 the 5770 seems to be about the minimum spec for DX11. I personally am not a fan of 790GX boards. It seems pointless to buy a board with on-board graphics then not use it. My personal preference is the 790X or 770 based boards. The Gigabyte GA-790XTA-UD4 sells for £111 and comes with 6Gb Sata and USB 3 or if that is a bit pricey there is the Asus M4A79XTD EVO for £80, the MSI 770-G45 for £60, the Asus M4A77TD Pro for £67 or the Gigabyte GA-MA770T-UD3P for £69. The 770 based boards will only support a single graphics card though.
The MSI boards have been well reviewed and there's nothing wrong with onboard graphics as a standby. In fact, I'm considering an AMD build myself atm and would go 785G because it would allow me to wait until Fermi is released to get a cheaper GPU.
There is nothing wrong with onboard graphics, it is just my personal preference. Using it as an interim until Fermi is released and/or the 40mn yields improve isn't a bad idea.
This. Oh, and for a "starter" PC, the selected components are fine. I do second choosing the HD 5770 over the HD 5750. There's almost no difference in price, but the 5770 runs somewhat faster. Also, for a small price increase you should be able to get a bigger HDD. You can never have too much space...
i hate to say it but the ways things are panning out with fermi i doubt there will be a lower-cost version anytime soon. the die size is twice that of the ATi cards, so they will get half the chips from a wafer. means they will have to work hard to get the prices competitive with ATi. or you could just buy the inevitable re-brand of the 8800GTS, it would break tradition if they didnt re-release that one again.
You may be right. Even if Nvidia doesn't come to the party I would expect 5770 prices to settle a bit once the 40mn yields improved. Mind you the 5770 is not unreasonably priced so a price drop of £20 to £30 would be the most that could be reasonably expected.
I don't want to wait for an nVidia card. I just want that release to shake up the 5 series pricing Can I game with a 785G? No. Can I wait to game for another month or two? Probably.... The ATI drivers will be more mature, Eyefinity may have improved and there might be more Vapor-X action. All to play for IMO.
QFT. I agree - i half want nvidia to release something soon so AMD will react pricewise, instead of charging what they want as they are doing now.
Looks like a ok build. That said a i5 set up would cost only a little more and offer a ton more performance?
An i5 would cost £30 to £50 more and it is a better cpu but unless it was used for benchmarking, photo editing or file compression I personally don't think it would make a huge difference. For games, particularly at high resolutions, it is all about the GPU. Edit: The i5 would also perform significantly better than the Phenom II when overcloked.
many thanks for the replies, but for some bizarre reason I seem to be attracted to AMD.. I wont be overclocking as its something I have never done before.
you have got to start some day, extra performace for free and if you go i5 they have a turbo boost which makes overclocking safe so there is nothing to worry about going down that route
