Hello, This is my first post here, but I have already found the discussions and expertise invaluable -- so thank you. I am planning on building for the first time to replace my current PC which came off the shelf four years ago. I have a planned setup (at the bottom), if any of you could have a brief look and let me know if I have overlooked something, it would be really helpful. Here is some background: Budget: I was aiming for £1000 inc. monitor and Windows 7, but it will end up £1100. I could go over for a compelling reason, but don't want to spend cash on performance I don't need. Main uses of intended build: Mainly gaming, particularly FPS and RPG - I would ideally like to manage fairly high quality gaming on new titles for a couple of years and at least mid-quality for a few more. Also itunes library, video-on-demand etc. Possibly some music making. Parts required: whole tower plus monitor and Windows 7 - I will reuse peripherals for the moment. Previous build information (list details of parts): Lots of slow stuff - I am not planning on reusing anything and may reuse the old machine for family internet/email. It could do Fallout3 on low settings but couldn't really cope playably with Bioshock or the first Stalker game. I never bothered to try Crysis on it. I am therefore still playing Halo, Far Cry, Deus Ex etc (perhaps that's a good reason for not upgrading ??) but do need to get into some of the more recent FPS. Monitor resolution: Probably 1920 x 1085 for the moment (see below), but I would ideally like to have capacity for 1920 x 1200 in case of upgrading to a 16:10. Storage requirements: 1TB will be ample for the moment - other than games, it is only really music, photos etc. Will you be overclocking: Possibly, if I am comfortable that I know what I am doing. Probably not essential. Any motherboard requirements (no. of USB, Xfire/SLI, fan headers): The likely upgrade path would be adding a second gpu in crossfire and adding a SSD boot drive. Sata 3 (for the SSD) and USB 3 would be nice. Extra information about desired system: What I have got in mind so far is as follows - MSI-P55A-G55 (I believe that this has Sata 3, USB 3, crossfire support and does its two PCI-e 16x slots as 8/8 when both are populated) Intel Core i5-760 Corsair XMS3 DDR3 1600 4GB Samsung Spinpoint F3 1TB (possibly adding a Crucial 300 SSD in time) Gelid Tranquillo Seasonic X-650 650W Fractal Design Define R3 (the case needs to go in the living room and so must not look like a prop from Battlestar Galactica) DVD/CD Drive (I have budgeted about £15 -- they all seem the same?) Radeon HD6870 (probably adding a second in crossfire in a few months time) Dell U2311H (I can't see any 16:10 IPS panel monitors at a sub £300 price) I guess I might need a couple of extra fans as well. That comes in a bit shy of £1100, looking round at Scan and Aria for prices. I also took some inspiration from the Buyers Guides. I had considered a HD5870 or GTX470 both of which seem to be coming down in price now or (probably) in the near future. But the 6870, being a newer card and with apparently very good scaling in crossfire, seems to be a more future-friendly plan for the medium to long term. Do you agree? Is there anything I have overlooked or any alternatives that would be strongly recommended over what I have planned? Thanks, JHNG
Would you need an IPS monitor if you're solely gaming? You'd probably benefit from lower input lag on one of the "better" TN panels (they're not great, but good enough). For that price, you could reasonably go LGA1366 (i.e. i7-930 or better) if you wanted/needed. As far as SATAIII/USB3, on-board solutions aren't perfect yet. You could get an add-in PCI-E card later on for both, which would out-perform the on-board comfortably. If you could wait until December, you'd be able to add the 6970/6950 to your shopping list. I'm sure Deus Ex would tide you over till then, no? Oh, and hello!
470 is still quicker than the 6870 and you can get a decent aftermarket cooler version for under £200
Thanks for the helpful comments. I think it may make sense to go for a cheaper TN panel in the short term and possibly upgrade to an 1920x1200 IPS at a later stage if prices come down a bit. I could then put some more cash into other parts. Would there be any particular brands to either look for or avoid in people's experience? In terms of going up to an i7-930 build, which I had also considered, is this not overkill for gaming? My understanding was that most games still tend to be GPU limited long before they are CPU limited. On the graphics card, my understanding was that comparing stock cards the 6870 has a slight edge on the GTX 470. Is this right? I was inclined to go for a new stock card on the basis that finding a matching one later for a dual card set up (if I decide to) would be easier. Many thanks for your help on this. JHNG
The i7-930 would be the way to go if you were considering some semi-serious music recording - stuff like that will love the extra RAM and threads that come with the 1366 platform. All depends on your music recording (how many tracks, software, etc). If you reckon that's not going to be a big feature of your future with the PC (or your software is older than 2006), by all means, stick to the 760. The 6870 and 470 are pretty much similarly-priced, and neck-and-neck performance-wise (it's mostly game-dependant), but the 470 uses more power, runs hot, and as a result, makes much more noise. Once you go for a custom cooler, it stops the noise and heat, but bumps the price up, so costs more than the 6870 for the same heat/sound profile (although it'll still use more juice). IPS panels really do shine in visual editing work, but for the rest of us, they're not that necessary. TN panels will give you the edge in reflex-happy FPS games - their response time is much lower (2-3ms, as opposed to 25+). EDIT: Don't forget to bump the RAM up to a 3-stick kit (ie 6GB) if you go for the 930!
Thanks for the input. The music stuff is very unserious so gaming really is the main purpose of the PC. That having been said an i7 build may still be tempting if I can stretch to it. In light of your comments on the gpus I think I will stick with 6870. But I will think more carefully about whether I should be saving cash on the monitor. Many thanks for the help. I am sure I will be back with more questions in due course! jhng
Don't stretch, to far with newer better items, with the items you have now you'll game great, for alittle time to come, upgrade later on don't listen to people that are reccomending stuff to much more expensive unless theres going to be a major bottleneck, I personally think you'll do fine for the time being, but I do reccommend the GTX 470 its better and probably not as expensive as the 6870
If you're planning to go dual graphics with the MSI-P55A-G55, remember that it will do |Crossfire but not SLI. The MSI-P55A-GD65 on the other hand will do both.
