First of all I would like to say that this is my first post on the forums, so hi to everyone who regually views these threads. Right so as you can tell from the title, I will be doing a build for my friend, he has given me a budget of what he wants to spend, this is just for the tower, so no screen, mouse, keyboard, speakers yet. His Budget is anywhere between £400 and £450, preferablly closer to £400 he said, as this is also his first gaming rig (I managed to convert him from his beloved PS3 lol). I made a list of components not too long ago and I believe its pretty decent for the price range, but could anyone looking at this tell me if there will be any conflicts between hardware or if there will be any bottle necks anywhere. Processor - Intel CPU Core i5 2300 Sandy Bridge Quad Core Motherboard - Gigabyte GA-H67M-D2 Graphics Card - EVGA 1GB GeForce GT 430 DDR3 Ram - Corsair Memory XMS3 Classic 4GB DDR3 HDD - Seagate Barracuda 1Tb 7200.12 Hard Drive ODD - Samsung SH-S223L/RSMS DVD Writer, SATA Power Supply - EZCool Infinity 700W Power Supply Case - Coolermaster Elite 430 the total for this is £407.62, and all of it is off of www.scan.co.uk Im maybe thinking of changing the case as i know that it comes with no case fans already attached to it.
I doubt you'd have any major heat issues with that spec, but fans can be added later if you think it's necessary. The Gainward card of the same model is slightly cheaper with a higher clock. PSU rating is a bit overboard, I'd aim for quality over watts though. The corsair non-modular is a hot seller there for a reason, it's a good power supply from a decent brand for the money. I'd be tempted, though, to cut back on the CPU tech and push the budget for a better GPU, reason being most games are more heavily gpu dependent. That CPU shames my Q9550, but my gaming experience even with my old GTX 260 would walk all over that. the 430 is NOT a high performance card. I'm wondering if even my older 8800GT would be faster too....cpubenchmark.net comparison would support that thought, and that card is 3 years old! If you really want to convert your mate from his PS3, best start with something that can give him at least comparable performance.
hmmm, ok then so what processer would be better maybe a Q8300 Core 2 Quad, or a Phenom II X4 955, these were going to be my other choices, and if the 430 isnt a high performance card what would you reccommend instead then?
The GTX 460 is something of a bargain in the circa £130 bracket (for the right one, 1gb and 336 cores), or the ATI 5770. Some games work better with nvidia, some with ATI. If he's not going to do any folding, there's not much to choose between the ATI and the cheaper 786 Mb 460 cards, depends on the screen resolution. If it's going to a full sized HD tv, the 1Gb cards have the edge I guess. Either of those two processors you mention would be good, or even one of the AMD triple core numbers. Have you already looked at the buyers guide though? Go with the stock cooler rather than the akasa one recommended, and a gtx 460 instead of the suggested ATI one and you're bang on budget.
ok then, and hes gonna be using a 26 inch 1080P monitor, cant remember what make as i cant see it, and ok then with the graphics card, and i actually have a Phenom X3 8650, really like it, and i was looking at the Phenom II X2 550 BE, because i know if you get the right motherboard and are lucky you can turn it into a quad at 3.1GHz per core and for £66.66, thats a bargain, just gotta find the right motherboard for it
It's a bit of a gamble buying a dual core and trying to unlock, personally i'd suggest going for something like this: LN27738 4GB (2x2GB) Corsair XMS3 Classic, DDR3 PC3-10666 (1333) Non-ECC Unbuffered, CAS 9-9-9-24, 1.50V £32.12 £38.54 LN28746 1TB Samsung HD103SJ Spinpoint F3, SATA 3Gb/s, 7200rpm, 32MB Cache, 8.9 ms, NCQ, OEM £33.98 £40.78 LN34240 AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition, Sok AM3, 3.2GHz, 8MB Total Cache, Retail £93.55 £112.26 LN34937 Coolermaster Elite 430 Black, With Side Window with Coolermaster Elite 500W PSU £45.98 £55.18 LN35062 768MB MSI GTX 460 Cyclone OC, 3600MHz GDDR5, GPU 725MHz, Shader Clock 1350MHz, 336 Cores, DVI/ mHDMI £89.46 £107.35 LN35808 MSI 870-C45, AMD 770, S AM3, PCI-E 2.0 (x16), DDR3 1600(OC), SATA 3Gb/s, SATA RAID, ATX £39.45 £47.34 Net Total Carriage VAT £334.54 £13.98 £69.71 Total£418.23 The case comes with a 500W coolermaster PSU which would be fine for those components.
mHDMI is mini HDMI, if you want to use HDMI instead of the DVI connection (which is the same quality for video but can't carry audio signals like HDMI can) then you'll need to buy an adaptor. I don't really know why some manufacturers use mini HDMI... The components are indeed from Scan.
If you went for an LN36782 Athlon X3 instead of a Phenom X4, and a LN26873 500Gb instead of 1T you'd shave £60 off the cost. Probably wouldn't notice a difference in frame-rates either with a GTX460.
While the Athlon X3 is nice if you want to shave a few £ off a build, you might notice a difference in some heavily multi-threaded games and his friend might as well get the best build which he can afford. Also 500GB doesn't last some people very long these days. I've got a fair few films ripped to my computer and I've filled about 1.5TB now...
Aye, fair enough on that. I have found console gamers don't really have much going on with their PCs. . . that's just been my experience.
even though he is a console gamer, he does have quite a few ripped films, on his original hard drive and he also likes to do photography, and then hes also doing cad/cam work at his apprenticeship, soo i think at least 1Tb is the right option really
so after reading all you comments, I believe this would be a lot better for the price than what i said above AMD CPU Phenom II 955 Black Quad Core (£112.26) MSI 870C45 (£ 47.34) Corsair Memory XMS3 4GB DDR3 1600 MHz (£ 36.14) MSI GeForce GTX 460 Cyclone 768MB (£107.35) Corsair Builder Series CMPSU-500CXUK 500W (£ 46.74) Samsung 1Tb Spinpoint F3 (£ 40.78) TOTAL (£390.60) also if I was going to swap that Graphics Card for an ATI one, which would you guys reccomend, im only asking cus as much as i like Nvidia, my mate has a thing for ATI cards
If You look round you can get a ATI Radeon 5850 for £130-£150 that will be well faster than the GT430.just bought another for my rig to run crossfire.
Great rig. Only thing i would change is i would get either the Coolermaster 690II Advanced lite for 3 pounds less or the Coolermater HAF 912 for 2 pounds more.
Funny the different opinions. I'd stay with that posted spec but would plow a few extra quid into the 1Gb 460 card, and with the 336 cores. Check the nvidia site for the full gen on the differences between the three flavours, with that monitor IMO it WILL make quite a difference. I notice the optical drive seems to have dropped off the spec altogether though.....
