Build Advice New Build Adivce (Under £800)

Not an upgrade any more, as I will be buying a new HDD as well. Chosen to go with cheaper options for most parts (a cheaper motherboard, a cheaper CPU and a cheaper GPU).


Budget:
£800 or less.

I'm looking for everything inside the case (other than the case itself).


Main Uses:
Other than general use:

Gaming
I'll be using it for quite a bit of Gaming, ideally 30-40+ FPS at 1080 for recent games (1-2 years or older): BioShock 1, Mass Effect 1, Batman, Crysis (for which anything above 15 FPS would be fine).

Video Playback
Also will be used for DVD/Blu-ray playback.

Quiet & Efficient
I tend to keep my PC on most of the time (well on sleep if its not doing anything), so I'd like it to be somewhat power efficient and very quiet.


Parts Required:
It's going to be an AMD Phenom II system, looking for:

• Motherboard (~ £110): AMD 890FX/GX (hopefully Bulldozer compatible) *
• CPU (~ £100): A cheaper AMD Phenom II (not 965), possibly Phenom II X2 550 BE *
• GPU (~ £135): ATI HD 5770 1 GB, at least a D-Sub, DVI, HDMI and possibly Display Port *
• HDD (~ £40): 200-500 GB Sata 2 *
• Memory (~ £115): 4 GB Dual Channel *
• PSU (~ £85): Antec New True Power 650
• Soundcard (~ £55): Asus Xonar DX 7.1
• CPU Cooler (~ £40): Titan Fenrir
• DVD multi read/write + Blu-ray (play only) (~ £80) *

* Any recommendations are welcome.

TOTAL = ~£760

Previous Build:
Have Windows 7 Home Premium Retail, so no OS needed. Will buy Office 2010 later on in June when its out, so that fine for now.

Keeping:

• Case (CoolerMaster CM II Advance)

Current PC is very old, not really worth keeping anything else:

• Socket A MB
• AMD Athlon X2 CPU
• ATI HD 2600 AGP
• 2GB Ram DDR 1
• DVD +/- R/RW

Monitor Resolution:
1920 x 1080, Benq 24" backlit LED.


Storage Requirements:
The following HDD's are for data (e.g. documents, music, video), main HDD will only be for OS/Software installs:

• 1 x 200 (Pata - internal)
• 1 x 500 (Pata - internal)
• 1 x 500 (Sata - external - backup)
• 1 x 1000 (Sata - external)

Overclocking:
Won't be overclocking too much right now (a slight overclock here and there), maybe more later on.


Motherboard Requirements:

• Pata: at least 1 connector (for 2 HDDs)
• Sata: at least 4 (including 2 Sata 3)
• USB 3: at least 2
• USB 2: at least 6, possibly 8
• Crossfire (will be good to have in case I ever do want to)

 

If you buy 600 series card and pair it with a 500 series = performance poor

5830 or equivelent ( 4890 270 ) is min I'd recomend for 1920 x 1080. £145 for 5770 is alot of money anything above £120 and your been ripped off. 5830 is avail for £160 if you look around.

At your price level i750 pc based is a doable and would gve better performance

 

Did you start with the budget, or did you start with it being an AMD Phenom II system?

I mean, if you've set your heart on AMD, go for it, but as rollo says you'd get far more bang for your buck from an i5 750-based (or even i7 860-based) system, which are achievable within your price range. Just roughly;

i5 750 - £150
Gelid Tranquillo - £22
Gigabyte GA-P55M-UD2 - £82
4GB 1600MHz DDR3 CL9 - ~£100
Corsair HX650W - £100
Samsung F3 1TB - £55 - Your PATA HDDs are, quite frankly, out of date, especially for something as system-limiting as the main boot drive. For the cost, you'd be a fool not to buy a new one.
ATi Radeon 5850 - £220 - Again, as rollo says, for 1080p you really need something with a bit more kick than the 5770.

Total: ~£735

With the money left over, you could quite easily upgrade to the Core i7 860, which has HyperThreading and all sorts of other advanced features, or to a UD3R USB3/SATA6-compatible motherboard, or even (with an extra £50) to a boot SSD. If you're going to X-fire your GPUs (as rollo said, again, you shouldn't do that with a 5xxx and a 6xxx) you'll need the UD4 or similar, which has the USB3 ports you want and more. Personally, for the ~£70 left over, I'd upgrade to the UD4 or the P7P55D Deluxe for your SATA6/USB3 needs, and an i7 860 if you can squeeze it in.

We'd be more than happy to give you advice purely on specific components if you really want to go AMD, but it's not the most economical way to get your performance.

 

After having checked some prices and reviews of the 5830, I might consider getting that, not too much more expensive than what i was planning, though it was quite expensive when it came out, hence why I didn't consider it (~£200 or even more).

 

For your blu ray, i'd recommend the Lite on drive

got mine from those nice chaps at scan

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/LiteOn-IHOS104-37-4xBlu-Ray-8x-DVD-Reader-OEM-inc-Software

Comes with oem powerdvd 8, which only does stereo rather than 5.1 or above so maybe look at buying some proper software if you plan on watching a lot of movies. Also powerdvd 8 doesn't intergrate with win 7 media centre - you'll need 9 or above to do that

Some reasonable deals on Amazon for around £40 for good blu ray playback software

and then keep the dvd writer as well

 

I'd like to get a Phenom II system. Don't want to buy Intel at the moment.

I don't want to have to re-install Windows, which is why I'm not getting a new HDD yet. I have a broken laptop at home with a new Sata II HDD (it broke soon after I got it), that I can use with my case (has support for 2.5" HDD). I'm guessing the Sata data and power connectors from the 2.5" HDD shouldn't be a problem.

 

I'm not too sure on Lite-on, already had 2 bad experiences with them with CD/DVD R/RWs. First was a Lite-on CD R/RW which stopped working after a year, the second was a Sony DVD R/RW (made by Lite-on - which I discovered after I took the front bezel off after it stopped working, that said Lite-on), this also stoped working, this time within 6 months.

Thanks for the replies so far .

 

I see (well, I don't really see, but it's your money). £1000 could buy an i7 930-based system, which is essentially king of the desktop hill at the moment, and even £750 could buy an i5 750-based system, whereas the Phenom II is a distant third after the i7 and i5 ranges. Might I enquire why you're avoiding Intel?

2.5" HDDs are (unless they're VelociRaptors, which yours isn't, or an SSD, which I'm guessing it isn't) slow, low capacity, and quite fragile, and the PATA connection is different from the molex/SATA cables normal 3.5" drives use (though I guess you'll be able to get an adapter if you don't already have one). I really cannot stress enough how much this system will be held back by skimping on the HDD; it's the bottleneck for most system usage. If you don't want to go to the trouble of reinstalling Windows, simply clone the old installation onto a new drive.

 

I've heard lots of good thing about the Asrock 890GX Extreme 3 board. I know it may sound suspicious, but it was a friend of mine running 6-core processor at pretty high overclock on the board. I also have one on the shelf, but haven't really got around testing it. Anyway that might be a good bet for a mobo.

That combined with 965 and HD5770/5850 should be enough for most.... Might look somewhere else with the power supply, though. Maybe some Corsair 450 W would fit the bill?

 

One i've had has been as as good as gold. Came with a silver and black fascia which was nice!

 

+1 for pure silver's build. 5850 hits the sweet spot for 1920*1080 gaming.

 

I will eventually get a Sata HDD, just not right away. I'd be installing 64-bit Windows when I do, I just don't want to do that right now. I'd like to finish a few games on Steam before that, so I don't need to bother re-installing them again later or have to play them over again (I know I can back them up via steam, but I'm lazy - I don't want to have to backup the 8 games I've already installed - let alone the other games I've yet to install, because my PC isn't good enough for them).

I'm an AMD fanboy, so I'm sticking with them through thick and thin. I also have hopes that their Bulldozer coming next year will make sticking around worth while.

 

I get 30-40 FPS on DiRT2, BFBC2, MW2 and about 20FPS on Crysis with a 9600GSO 512 and a Phenom 9650.
[ Most settings on high @ 1600*900. ]



HP has nice optical drives.
The DVD-RW I've got is great.

 

i was going to place a few helpful comments but you seem set on ignoring them so i wont bother

 

This system build is going to be very poor value for money.

 

+1 for the last 2 responses.

Why did you ask for help only to ignore all advice?
PureSilver has clearly researched an excellent build, under your suggested budget, bettering your initial build. Then your very next post ignores all and states that you will stick with the inferior gpu!

Why not buy the suggested build, use you existing HD drive until you have completed your games (causing a massive conflict in drivers but hey) then when you get fed up with poor performance you can install Windows on your shiny new F3 drive.

 

if you can dont bother with a 5830 or 5770 go to 5850 which is more of a gaming workhorse.

 

I tend to agree that the 5850 will be far better for gaming at 1080. The 5830's performance is closer to the 5770 than the 5850 I believe, so the 5850 is better value.

If you're set on AMD, have you considered one of the new 6-cores? Having that many cores is pretty redundant for gaming, but it's hella cool. The cheaper one is going for £167 on overclockers.co.uk - and I've seen that they can overclock up around 3.6GHz on air.

 

also you WILL have to re-install the OS you cant upgrade everything insude your PC excpet the HDD and have it function correctly.

you will most likely get a BSOD on booting up or if you get further it will be dodgy at best resulting in random crashes and un-responsiveness.

+1 for the 5850 as anything less cant handle 1920x1080 with full details on new releases.

+1 on the F3 too since ist a lot faster than your current drive

+1 on the i5-750 build too as its much faster especially when overclocked compared to the phenom.

 

As always Puresilver did a good research and posted a nice build. I would suggest it is time to be brave and buy an Intel setup and assure you would not be disappointed with it.