My friend is looking for a new system. He wants it to be fast, but not stupidly fast...just a good system at a good price. CPC issue 70 has a nice system under the 'Performance PC' category: Antec Twelve Hundred - £141.95 @ www.ginger6.co.uk MOBO - Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD3R - £158.69 @ www.novatech.co.uk i7 920 - £245 @ www.yoyotech.co.uk RAM - 3GB Corsair XMS TR3X3G1333C9 - £51.87 @ www.scan.co.uk Akasa Nero CPU cooler - £28.47 @ www.scan.co.uk Palit GeForce GTX275 - £199.99 @ www.scan.co.uk Be Quiet Dark Power Pro 650W - £105.56 @ www.scan.co.uk Samsung Spinpoint F1 HD103UJ - £73.01 @ www.advancetec.co.uk Creative X-fi Xtreme Gamer - £66.10 @ www.yoyotech.co.uk Total - £1,071.04 He isn't looking to overclock and isn't looking for all out performance. The things that I was looking at changing were: Antec Twelve Hundred - Lian-Li PC-P50 - purely for looks really, the Antec can be a bit intrusive. I think it's cheaper but I don't know where to buy it. - Help? RAM - get 6GB instead of 3GB, add £51.87. HDD - get two 500GB Samsung Spinpoints - more flexibility. £52 each at Kobaltcomputers.co.uk - where's the best place to buy? Sound card - Creative X-fi Xtreme Audio would be fine - £33 @ kobaltcomputers.co.uk - where's the best place to buy? Any other suggestions? And how much should I leave for optical drives? £40? - Any good DVD writer/roms? Thanks for your help, Sam. P.S. Does anyone know of any companies that will build a system for you? (If you have the parts).
I agree that getting 6GB ram is better than 3, but you would be better buying 3*2GB sticks than 6*1GB and you will probably save a bit of money too. There are some advantages getting two hard disks but given your two choices I would go for one, you can always partition it. Your motherboard will already have semi-decent audio built in, and if you want better have a look at the Asus Xonar cards, that way you can be Creative free That processor seems expensive for a 920, the prices aren't consistent within Yoyotech (I may be reading wrong) but you say £245, the main Intel list says £233 and the product page says £225! Still, assuming that is the newer stepping you could save around £10 from the cheaper price by shopping around or more by going for the older C0 stepping, I got myself one for £145 from ebay DVD burners are much of a muchness really, they are all cheap, certainly less than £40. Just get one that looks nice, or is fast, or cheap, or someone says is quiet, or that is in the bit-tech buyers guide or anything really!
Your friend seems to be using a lot of different companies. Remember that unless your getting free delivery, any savings he was hoping to make by buying it a bit cheaper than someone else could be eaten up by delivery charges. Try to stick to one or two sellers. Peoples opinions will vary about my choice but Scan or Overclockers will should serve you well. +1. Agreed.
you not thinking about getting 6x1gb ram sticks are you? 3x 2gb ram sticks would be alot better. Not worth getting 2x 500gb over a 1tb drive. If you realy need it seperated then partition it. DVDrw are cheap as chips these days, try a pioneer drive i hear they are good. Lite on gives me nothing but trouble.
Don't get the X-Fi unless you like being screwed repeatedly by Creative. Especially in Vista, Asus Xonar cards offer a better music experience and a pretty close gaming experience since EAX is on its way out. I would stick with the 1TB drive - what flexibility would you gain by going for 2x500GB? RAID? RAID 0 on a desktop is really not all that useful (no matter what the benchmarks show; we really don't tax our hard drives enough to warrant its use, imo), and RAID 1 has its own set of problems/controversy... you should go read the RAID 1 thread if you're considering it. If you're not urgently in need of a new computer, you could try waiting for Lynnfield (i5) and P55, due sometime this summer or fall.
I've found Asus ones to be good. I've had too many samsung failures - 4 in 18 months - but only OEM's though. The one retail drive in my other machine is still going strong.
Thanks for the quick replies guys. RAM - Oops, my bad, I'll get 3x2GB. Sound - ok, thanks for that Optical drives - no, I meant to get two for £40. Sorry for missing out that bit. I hear what you are saying about the Hard drives, it was mainly for backup purposes. Different companies - the system first specced was the 'Performance PC' out of issue 70 of CPC. That's why it uses so many different companies. Thanks, Sam.
Eh? Nothing wrong with Creative or the X-Fi Extreme Gamer. Always found it to be a very capable sound card.
You shouldn't need anyone to build the system for you-your're spending enough as it is, and it feels good to know you've done it yourself. It's not as difficult as it first seems and you'll get all the help you'll need on the forum.
Looks like you've missed out on Creative's driver issues (bloatware and lack of updates), how they pressured daniel_k to stop distributing his drivers which made their old sound cards actually work on Vista, and how they barely support any of their products. Oh yeah, compared to the Xonar (or even the X-Fi Prelude from Auzentech) Creative's X-Fi cards are lacking greatly in sound quality. Lower quality components, and issues with popping and crackling sound in Vista. They try to push EAX into every game they can, but in Vista EAX is basically dead. Seriously, google for Creative and you'll find out all about how they abuse their customers in a million different ways.
I consider myself educated. All I can say is I've had no such issues, and their Titanium Fatal1y Pro is sill CPCs number one choice...
go for the asus xonar dx or d2x http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Asus-Xonar-DX-XD-71-PCI-E-Soundcard-Low-Profile http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Asus-Xonar-D2X-Ultra-Fidelity-71-PCI-E-Sound-Card-(New-Version)
Hehe, yeah, especially for the price....although mine....I forked out quite a bit for Not as fast as mine: 4Ghz i7 920 P6T Mobo GTX 295 OC 60GB OCZ Vertex SSD Boot drive 2x750GB HDD Vista 64bit Lian-Li V2110B 6GB RAM @ 1900mhz fully watercooled. X-fi xtreme gamer 2x 20x DVD/RW/ROM Should be here on Tuesday
The i7 920 is about 30 quid cheaper on scan (£216.40). Otherwise it seems a very good system not too far from mine. I especially like the Antec 1200 hundred. I have it and I love it. I also agree get 3x2gb memory. The Akasa Nero CPU cooler is a big beast and just about fits in the Antec but looks good. If you plan to put on a side fan on the case then make sure you orientate the nero to blow out the top fan. If you set it to blow straight out the back the side fan wont fit on.
i would suggest you go for the asus rampage with the included x-fi card and save £45ish over buying the xtreme gamer.
Why would you post this in a thread asking specifically about building a 1.5k computer? You're just flexing your e-peen and honestly, I don't think anyone here appreciates your popping into this thread just to show off your rig which costs significantly more than 1.5k. Maybe if your rig was better than the OPs for a similar amount of money it would belong in this thread, but now you're just being obnoxious. Perhaps you should make your own thread for showing off your own computer when it comes. P.S. I don't think your i7 920 comes at 4GHz
