So, i'm planning to do a build around April/March - when new stuff is out and older stuff is dropping in price. I kind of need some advice on peoples views what I should be looking at keeping an eye on in the months to come ready for the build due in March/April. The rig will be used for gaming mainly and some general uni work (essays, presentations etc). I will be using the HDD's from my current rig - hopefully find a way to make windows work on new machine without doing too much reinstalling of everything maybe I MAY do some overclocking on the CPU. That won't be 'til the summer though. I don't want an SSD. If by some miracle they have come down in price like mechanical drives were (before the price rise) - then maybe. But i'm not interested. I use too much space for one to be of use and I don't care about boot times. The budget will be £1200, I will however be buying a new monitor too at some point, which will most likely eat into that budget a bit (maybe £100 or more-ish) - Current Samsung 22" will be a little wasted on the higher-end graphics card I intend to get. Things I have currently suggested are around £300-500 (depending on what is chosen). CPU - Decide March/April (Will be Intel) Motherboard - Decide March/April Graphics - Decide March/April (Will be nvidia) RAM - Assuming that current RAM will be compatible, i've chosen the following. Depending on money etc, I may go for the 16GB. If not compatible, i'll just decide in March/April. 8GB Corsair XMS3 16GB Corsair Vengeance PSU - My Antec Quattro 850 is only semi-modular. I'm intending to use BitFenix PSU cables because I like the look of them. So I need a COMPLETELY modular PSU. Corsair 850AX Case - Finding this very hard to decide. I LOVE big cases, but its impractical to have one at Uni. So my original choices of TJ07 (which is bad at air cooling anyway), TJ09, FT02 (although mainly for the rotated mobo giving me concerns) and Level10GT are off the table. I need advice on a good, quiet silent case. FractalR3 seems a little bit boring to me, but if its easy to work with and has extremely good cable management, maybe it's the way to go. CPU Cooler - Depending on compatibility i'm looking at the Kúhler H2O 920 and Dark Rock Advanced BK014 Soundcard - I need suggestions. I currently have (but not using) an X-Fi Fatal1ty Pro Series card. I stopped using it after it kept giving me BSODs (after working perfectly fine for 3+ years) in Vista. I'm going to try it again later this week as i've upgraded to Win7. If it BSODS again, i'll be getting rid. So i'd like suggestions of some good soundcards it used to be a xonar or xfi, but now there is LOOOOADS of each. Not a clue which are the better ones. Extras, case fan(s) etc - Suggestions welcome to replace any loud ones that come with selected components. I Was also wondering with the Kuhler if it is possible to mount one fan on the outside of the case and the Kuhler and other fan on the inside? So it doesn't take up as much space inside. Also i've read around that Delta fans are better for rads, but are they extremely loud also? Any suggestions and help appreciated guys, Cheers
I can't predict the future but the Fractal R3 is such a great case. Might want to find the new revision with USB 3.0 on the front panel though. Also the Corsair AX850 is a great choice, comes with a 7 year guarantee! Fits nice and snug in the R3 to boot.
Pretty impossible to answer this. Tech changes from a day to day basis. For example one day people were saying OCZ vertex 3 ssd's are the fastest and now it's crucial m4's. And that's just over a software update. Imagine the amount of hardware to come out in the next 5 months and changes in price - cough...hard drive.....cough. Lol Save up all them pennies and come back here then
Ahh yes. I know that. However, i'm not asking for the stuff that changes every week. PSU's, Cases, etc are often the same for months. Then another great one will come out. Sometimes a couple at once. and general opinions/facts of the current stuff selected. Obviously nothing can be said about cpu/mobo/gfx because they aren't about. Which is why I don't want to know anything about those. @Blogins Yea, noticed you had the Corsair in your thread. Only lasted 7months?! Unlucky on that one. My Antec gave up after 11months had it rma'd. New still going strong.
How can we comment on psu/ cases etc if we don't know what hardware your using? CPUs / gpus may come out that exceed power usage like never before 1700watts needed or they maybe ultra efficient and only require 400 watt psus. Cases are mainly personal opinion but again if you Get or need a evga sr-3 then you might need a different case. Why waste your time speculating on stuff like that ? Or are you really that bored.
Well guessing by the fact he's looking at March/April time for an upgrade, and with the budget he's on we can at least assume it's going to be an sandy bridge build, or ivy bridge, both of which have very low TDP 77w is the maximum rated for an ivy bridge desktop processor, GPU's well they should be on 28nm fabrication process, but then again that doesn't mean they'll have a reduced power draw, (although they should)
This is a fair comment. I checked some of my components that I bought months ago and in the case of my AX850 PSU the model is the same but the price has actually increased! Of course this goes without saying on my 1TB and 2TB HDD! To think I had second thoughts after buying a 4GB RAM and 2TB HDD combo from SCAN back in March for £85!
It's easy enough advising psu and cases now but what if your requirements change ? The variables are too wide to predict
If you intend to buy new stuff that is out in April time then you're going to need more than £1200 including a good monitor. Why don't you get a decent i5 sandbridge build now, along with a good monitor?
By then i'll have more for the monitor, so its only a SLIGHT possibility it may eat into the budget. Also, a good monitor won't be a stupidly expensive one. The PC is for gaming mainly, so I won't be getting a Dell for instance. Little bit wasted on games I think. So the £1200 would be for the PC. So i'd expect something pretty good, even with the new stuff. Hopefully its not all ridiculously expensive. And even then, current stuff will be cheaper so would be a good time to buy if the new stuff is hideously expensive.
I wouldnt expect all the current stuff to be suddenly cheaper as soon as 'the new' stuff is out in march/april, and thats if it even does come out that early - I doubt it and I really doubt the nvidia higher end GPU's will be out that early... no way!
