Build Advice Specing up a new machine for a friend

My friend has asked me to spec up a machine for him.

His Budget is £700 and he uses it for gaming. He already has a 24'' HP Screen.

So far this is what i have:

HDD: Samsung Spinpoint F1 1TB £77
Graphics Card: Powercolor Radeon HD 4850 Sonic £140
Processor: Intel Core2 Quad Q6600 £158
RAM: OCZ 8GB Gold Series 800mhz £70
OS: Windows Vista Home Premium 64Bit £67
Case:
PSU: Hiper 580W Type-M Black PSU £56
Motherboard:
Optical Drive: Lite-On IHAS120-30 Black/Beige/Silver DVD+RW £17

Could anybody recommend a Case and Motherboard that should hopefully bring it in on Budget? Or if not possible, maybe a few alterations to bring it on Budget.

He wanted a minimum of 500GB HDD, so there's the possibility to swap there but i've read the reviews of how good the Spinpoint is i felt obliged to put it in.

 

Spending £160 on a Q6600 when a Q9450 is £30 more and the Phenom 920 is the same price.

 

Yes but the 9450 is £30 more and the Q6600 can be safely overclocked to around 3-3.2Ghz, i thought that be was a simple choice? Am i wrong?

 

If gaming then get him a decent top end card for a 700 quid rig.

Also why 8 gigs of mem? No need.

Spend the brass where its going to increase his fps.

If he is not clocking get a basic p43/p45 motherboard.

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Giga...CI-E-20-(x16)-DDR2-1200-1066-667-SATA-300-ATX

Would be a good bet id imagine.

Case wise all a fancy case is going to do is eat your budget for faster parts imo!

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Cool...w-o-PSU-(New-Improved-Version)-Scan-Exclusive

Otherwise id say your not too far off the mark, the hiper will be fine for a stock system.

 

A Q9450 at 2.6Ghz is pretty comparable performance wise to the Q6600 at 3.2Ghz.

It's just that the Q6600 has steadily gone up in price while the Q9450 has fallen in price.

 

2nded , i would also go for the q9450, lower tech

 

I wouldn't go with the PowerColor 4850, try to find a sapphire if possible, I've heard some issues with the PowerColor 4850 / 4870's with there memory being being overclocked to far out of the factor and having to underclock them. Also take a look at the Western Digital 640gb Hard Drives, they've started dropping in price and are above 500GB.

 

Right here's what i got.

The Q9450 is not available for the prices you said, if it is please show me where!

HDD: Samsung Spinpoint F1 1TB £77
Graphics Card: Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 4870 1024MB GDDR5 £188
Processor: Intel Core2 Quad Q6600 £158
RAM: Corsair 4GB DDR2 XMS2 PC2-6400 £38
OS: Windows Vista Ultimate 64Bit £50
Case: Coolermaster RC-330 V2 Elite £28
PSU: Hiper 580W Type-M Black PSU £56
Motherboard Gigabyte GA-EP43-S3L £68
Optical Drive Lite-On IHAS120-30 Black/Beige/Silver DVD+RW £17

Any additional thoughts?

 

Why in the world are you buying him Vista Ultimate? Home Premium is where it's at. 50 whatevers seems a bit low though, where are you getting this from?

 

Q9400 at £197
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Inte...e-S775-266-GHz-1333MHz-6MB-L2-Cache-8x-Retail

Phenom II 920 at £160
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/AMD-...Hz-8MB-Total-Cache-FSB-HT-2000MHz-125W-Retail

The Phenom II 920 or Q9400 makes more sense than buying a Q6600 and thrashing the hell out of it to get the same or slightly better performance. Buying a Q6600 was worthwhile when it was nearly £100 cheaper than a Yorkfield but that is no longer the situation.

 

Ah you see people recommended the Q9450 to me not the Q9400 so i wasn't pricing that up!

Is the Q9400 really that much better?

As for the Phenom, i'm not going to lie, my friend who wants the machine is an Intel fan boy.

The Vista Ultimate is coming from PC World, when a machine is bought from them you can get a copy of Vista Ultimate for £49.99.

His Dad owns a Business account with PCW so can get that deal.

 

If I recall correctly the 9450 is EOL. The 9400 has the same clock as a 9450 but less cache so will not perform as well as a 9450.

In their article on Phenom II, Tech Report has included both the Q6600 and the Q9400 in the benchmarks. Hopefully that should provide some solid information to help decide which is better.

 

Don't touch the Q9400, get a Q6600 and whack the FSB up -> http://forums.bit-tech.net/showthread.php?t=149050

 

HDD: Samsung Spinpoint F1 1TB £77
Graphics Card: Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 4870 1024MB GDDR5 £188
Processor: Intel Core2 Quad Q9400 £191
RAM: Corsair 4GB DDR2 XMS2 PC2-6400 £38
OS: Windows Vista Home Premium 64 Bit
Case: Coolermaster RC-330 V2 Elite £28
PSU: Hiper 630W HPU-4M630 £69
Motherboard Gigabyte GA-EP43-S3L £68
Optical Drive Lite-On IHAS120-30 Black/Beige/Silver DVD+RW £17

Right pretty much finalised now,

I have been informed by my friend that his Dad has a Multi User license of Vista Home Premium 64 Bit, so that free's up £50.

I think what is above will be the final setup, comes in at £676

 

Looks sound

 

I have seen some discussion on high failure rates of Hiper PSUs. The HPU-4M630 is manufactured by CWT so should be a good PSU but I thought I would flag it up anyway. I have attached a review of the HPU-4M630

http://www.jonnyguru.com/modules.php?name=NDReviews&op=Story&reid=102

From this review which is reasonably thorough I can't see any major problems with the Hiper but a Corsair TX650 is only a few pounds more and has a longer warranty.

 

I was going for the Corsair TX650 but my friend was hoping to come in below the budget and so didn't want to pay the extra for a psu despite my assurances it's worth it.

I have had a good history with Hiper personally and my Hiper Type-R has seen me well. But thanks for the heads up.

 

40 pounds more for 2MB cache less!?!? HELLO HELLO /me jumps up and down

 

Yes but it performs significantly better according to the above benchmarks...

 

Yep, clock for clock it's faster (which is probably why it costs more )