i5 2500k RAM 1600mhz 2GB X 2 MSI GeForce GTX 560 Ti OR HD 6950 Gigabyte GA-Z68A-D3-B3 OCZ ModXStream Pro 700W 1TB Samsung SpinPoint F3 Antec 100 Sony AD-5260S-0B 24x (DVD drive) 1920 x 1080 BenQ G2222HDl - 21.5" widescreen NIC/Dongle w/ long aerial (http://www.cclonline.com/product/39...eless-802-11b/g/n-32-bit-PCI-Adaptor/NET1172/) Corsair A70 Dual fan Cooler A PC build on buget, approx £750, using my spare OS, for a friend looking for a budget gaming PC that he can live with and will last. Anyone comment on any of the stuff, I'm interested to know any thoughts on what I can improve/any bad stuff., eg. anyone know anything about the motherboard, how a Z68 board like this can be so cheap, about £75??? In particular, can anyone recommend a powerful budget wireless NIC? Or spot any gaping holes in the build? Mainly though : the GTX 560ti or HD6950. The Nvidia card seems to win some higher end Direct x11 benchmarks, which makes me think it may last longer in the future, which is a primary concern, that the AMD card will die out soon, but the HD 6950 can of course be BIOS flashed to the HD 6970, and that seems to beat the Nvidia card, hard, in almost everything, but I wonder if that will last? Maybe I'm completely wrong and it longer than the 6970? . Buying both with custom coolers so overclocking is gunna be done, and plan to OC the CPU in years to come. Thanks a lot for any comments
take a look at this http://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/evga-geforce-gtx-560-ti-900mhz-maximum-graphics-edition-crysis-2-batman-arkham-3dmark-1026070
That above deal is very nice. You'd be very lucky to flash a 6950 now + they cost about £200 for being 5-10% faster than the 560ti so they're rather overpriced currently. Nice build though. You only need a 500W PSU for that system so drop that down a little. Also a 23" LG IPS screen for £150 would be a very good upgrade.
I'm getting the 23" LG IPS from Eclipse on friday xD Clicky As far as I'm aware I had the last one in stock. As it's part of my Build order xD But they can usually get the wanted items quickly!
If you could stretch to a 2gb 6950 that would have the most longevity. Games are requiring more and more vram - so if he's not going to be upgrading for a few years a 2gb card would be the best option. I think there is a 2gb 560Ti out now too, but I don't know so much about that.
Had one this week from more computers for £130 delivered...awesome screen. http://www.morecomputers.com/extra.asp?pn=ips236v-pn
Ok, first, thanks all for replies, I really appreciate em About the RAM, if he needs 8GB, or wants to upgrade, there are still 2 free slots, so he can buy more RAM in the future if he needs Thanks for the link to GPU and screen, I'll have a good look (that's one cheap IPS), and one cheap Graphics card tbh XD I won't change the PSU down though, that thing is solid and (believe it or not) £60 from Dabs XD My main question then, is if I could get a HD 6950 - my thought (http://www.scan.co.uk/products/2gb-...dr5-gpu-810mhz-1408-cores-dvi-dp-eyefinity-x6), what the chances that BIOS flasing is going to work? I mean, I've looked long and hard at charts of the GTX 560Ti vs. the HD 6950, and it's clear the 560 wins, (not to insult anyone's intelligence, sure you all know that), but if I could get a full BIOS flash to the 6970, along with Asus' apparently pretty awesome custom cooler, and that's for £215, and 2GB of VRAM, that seems to be a better deal than an approx £180 GTX 560ti? Spose that relies on the BIOS flash working... Or something like this (http://www.scan.co.uk/products/2gb-...ce=google+shopping&utm_medium=google+shopping) a Gtx 560ti, 2 GB of Vram (to be future proof ) and MSI's again awesome cooler? The 560's are meant to overclock better than the HD's too. My main question is which is "more future proof", in your opinion? Which will last longer, and play games comfortably at 1900X1200, with, and eventually without, AA, which will last longer? An OC 560 or an OC 6950? (The Nvidia architechture handles DX11 better, right? That's what I thought anyway... XD But why does the 6950 seem to beat it on 3DMark or Heaven 2.5?) Again, cheers for all the comments, appreciate them
I can't remember the exact statistics quoted to me, and I doubt anyone outside of AMD has ever verified this, but what I was told was that the odds of getting a successful 6950 to 6970 flash are now well under 40%. Think of it like core-unlocking on those old AMD CPUs, but even less likely to work. Go for VRAM size over anything else - green or red won't make a difference in the long run, but having 2gb VRAM as opposed to 1gb will make a huge difference.
