Hi guys... Thinking of building a new system and would like some advice... CPU wise... it's a toss up between the core i3 530 2.93 ghz Dual core and the i5 750 2.66 ghz Quad core. Have been looking at benchmarks on Anandtech and theres not much in preformance, but the best part of £60 price difference on Scan.co.uk. Is it worth the extra? As for Motherboard, I'm looking at Gigabyte boards around the £80 mark, as recommended in Custom PC ofc just what's better the H55 or P55 or is it Processor dependant? Finally Graphics Card, ideally I don't want to be spending much than £100, although if I were to opt for the i3 i may be able to stretch the budget... I've pretty much got the rest of the build covered, going to be using it for gaming, but I'm not so fussed about max settings and 100 fps, just something that will handle most modern games without breaking the bank. Any advice would be appreciated Craig
Hiya Craig, welcome to the forum. Regarding CPU 7 motherboards - I have only been looking at the i7's (I am also atm getting a list of specs together for my build), so can't advise you on them. For the graphics card I would suggest having a look at the radeon 5770, im not sure if it will be able to play most modern games, but it is within your budget (the card cost about £117 from scan.co.uk) If you can strech your budget to £169(looking at price from scan.co.uk) for the graphics card then i would suggest having a look at the Radeon HD 5830. Out of curiousity what case and power supply are you intending to buy ?
i would say the 750 is a better investment nice comparison here http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/118?vs=109 what resolutions are you planning to be gaming at ?
i'm probably going to go for a 19" or 20" widescreen so either 1440 x 900 or 1600 x 900 will be the maximum resolution i'm looking at...
I guess it would depend on if you are overclocking and how long you expecting the new build would last you. A i3 530 overclock to 4.0-4.2GHz would be just fast enough keep up with a single 5870 running games in 1920x1200 16xAF 4xAA without bottlenecking it, where as a i5 750 overclock to 4.0GHz+ would fast enough to keep up with a two 5870 and still have some breathing room left. For gaming, if you are only going for a 5770, a i3 530 would be more than fast enough. But I think you should take the future upgrade path into consideration as well. A i5 750 overclock to 4.0GHz would probably able to last until average gamings reach the point require graphic processing power as much two 5870 in the future, whereas the i3 530 overclock to 4.0-4.2GHz on the other hand the CPU would need to be upgraded when you are upgrading to graphic card beyond 5870. And as for the motherboard, H55 is a better chipset for overclocking the 1156 i3/i5 dual-cores, whereas the P55 is better chipset for overclocking the 1156 i5/i7 quad-cores.
If you are not too worried about upgrading, see here: http://www.anandtech.com/show/2921/5 for a 4GHz stable overclock for the i3-530. I'm surprised the stock cooler was up to it - but there you go.
mrhrk01 - i've bought a used antec 900 case that comes with a coolermaster 600w psu. for just under £80 for both i thought that was a pretty good buy shah - my maximum budget is £600 (ideally ) and that is the setup im seriously considering Marine-RX179 - ideally i wud be looking at keeping the system for a couple of years, looking to upgrade the gpu and maybe chuck more ram in the future, so that said, the i5 and a 5770 looks like the way to go i would like to overclock it but i just worry im gonna fry my cpu...although i suppose there are a lot of guides available and i wouldnt have to go too over the top
I understand how you feel, but realistically it's is VERY hard to fry the CPU unless people apply crazy amount of voltage to the vcore...as long as you are not using more than 1.4v for vcore and then work your way down searching for the lowest voltage for vcore that can stablise the PC (no freeze, crash, blue-screen in windows,) and have sufficient cooling (which you got- a antec 900 case, and just need to grab a decent CPU cooler for around £25-£30), you won't really kill it. Also, although overclocking is said to void warranty for CPU...but the truth is they can't tell a CPU that's fried 'naturally' apart from one that's fried by overclocking (as both are most likely died by overheating) if you RMA the CPU on its own, they would be able to tell if you have overclocked it or not (it would different if you bought the entire system from a shop, and they 'might' recover evidence of you overclocking from your motherboard). If you are really worried, then you can leave the voltage tweaking and just use stock/default voltages. I think I'm seen people able to overclock i5 750 to around 3.4-3.6GHz on stock voltage on a decent (but not nessarily expensive) board.
Ok here's the rest of the build and my wallet feels a lot lighter for it 1 x Western Digital 500GB 3.5" SATA II Hard Drive @ 35.24GBP 1 x Intel Core i5 750 2.66Ghz (Lynnfield) (Socket LGA1156) Processor - Retail @ 134.98GBP 1 x Corsair XMS3 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit @ 105.74GBP 1 x HIS ATI Radeon HD 5770 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card @ 119.84GBP 1 x Samsung SH-S223C 22x Internal DVD±R/RW SATA Drive - Black @ 14.68GBP 1 x Gigabyte GA-P55M-UD2 Intel P55 (Socket 1156) DDR3 PCI-Express Micro-ATX Motherboard @ 85.76GBP ----------------------------------------------------------------- Order Total (inc.VAT inc. Shipping): 506.46GBP together with the £79 +£10 postage I paid for an Antec 900 and a Coolermaster 600w PSU for a grand total of £595.46 hopefully money well spent
I wouldn't go for that harddrive. I would get a Samsung F3 they are probably the best harddrives out there atm. All the rest looks good.
I'd have to agree with Bumsrush. Samsung F3 - just that little bit cheaper than Scan.co too (unusually)
Yes change the hdd to Samsung F3. the rest of the build look pretty good except I have no experience of HIS cards.
I have already placed the order :-( most reviews i've come accross say they're decent hard drives and comparisons i've seen say it's a toss up between WD and samsung... it it worth sending it back and getting a Samsung? the HIS was the cheapest I could find although it's recommended in Custom PC's budget build too
There's not a huge amount in it, both WD and Samsung make pretty good HDs. The Samsung F3 edges it however - have a look here.
ahhh could be worse... maybe a future upgrade could be a samsung 1TB + and chuck the WD in my 'gracefully aging' Pentium 4, considering that has an old skool Maxtor 160 gb IDE drive!
You've done well - don't worry Did you decide against getting a custom cooler? There's also this one that's on the budget end. Good luck with the build.
A new CPU cooler, a side fan for my case and a fan controller will be on the cards when I have some more money! But for now stock will have to do...
