Hello, just one more quick question: will a HD5830 easily handle the native resolution of 1920 x 1080 of my probable monitor? will it be bordeline? Will it not be able to handle it at all? PS: I am assuming the 460 will have no problems whatsoever in this department
Sorry to bump this thread up again, but I have yet another question (yeah, I'll stop saying "last question" I guess... ): In terms of pure gaming performance, will I see a noticeable difference if I switch 'down' from a Phenom II to an Athlon II Quad Core? Still looking to save a bit of money on the parts, and from what I can gather, it shouldn't have much of a negative impact in games if we're talking upper middle detail settings. I'm also looking to go for the cheaper Gigabyte GA-MA785GMT-UD2H motherboard, which as far as I can make out seems perfectly compatible with the rest of the system, but I would appreciate if anyone could point out any potential incompatibility. For simplicity's sake, (revised) system specs again: Case: Antec Three Hundred Processor: AMD Athlon II X4 640 Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-MA785GMT-UD2H RAM: Corsair XMS3 2x2 Go DDR3 PC10600 CAS9 PSU: Seasonic M12II 82+ 520 W GPU: Saphirre Radeon HD5830 1Go HDD: Samsung Spinpoint F3 S-ATA 500 Go 16Mo DVD/RW: LG GH22NS50
Dont grab a rubbish Athlon II X4 they are really bad quad cores and is a massive step down from the Phenom II This is all due to the Athlon X4 having no L3 Cache. they look good on paper with decent clock speeds and quad core but they are very budget. id grab the MSI 770-C45 as it still the best AM3 board around really. how muhc is the seasonic as you may be able to get something cheaper from corsair. switch the GPU back to a 1GB 460 as the 5830 can not handle 1920x1080 on full details at all. a 5830 is not even cheaper than 1GB 460 anyway or if it is not by much. The 5830 is much much slower though.
I would do something like this for the £1000 budget Gigabyte GA-P55M-UD2 £90 Intel Core i5 760 £150 (fast enough at stock 2.8GHz, easy to get big overclock say 3.8GHz) Gelid Tranquillo £25 Corsair XMS3 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz £75 GeForce GTX 460 1Gb £165 (a 20% Overclock is simple with MSI Afterburner) Samsung SpinPoint F3 £45 Sony AD-7241S £16 Cooler Master Silent Pro M 600 W £70 (Nice modular PSU, 500W OCZ ModXStream is a nice modular alternative for £60) Antec 300 Three Hundred £43 (or maybe the Xigmatek Utgard for £60) Samsung SM2233RZ £230 (1680*1050, but 120Hz and the slightly lower resolution means that you won't have to drop quality settings as quickly in the latest and new games. The likes of Crysis and Metro 2033 will still require coming down from max settings on this PC) Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-Bit - OEM £74 £983
Wow, I didn't even check the L3, just assumed it would be fine. So I should really avoid the Athlon II at all costs then? How about a Phenom II X4 925? The only difference I can see between it and the X4 945 I was going for originally is the frequency 2.80 GHz (925) vs 3.00 Ghz (945). I am basically trying to cut costs somewhere in this build. I should explain that I'm a little limited in choice of components cos I'm going to get it put together by a pro builder, and they require you to buy parts from their site (materiel.net - French). Annoying cos there are certain things I have no problem installing myself (GPU, RAM), but they require you to buy all the key components if you want them to build. For example, they don't stock the MSI board you mention. The Gigabyte board Equally, a GTX 460 1Gb on their site costs about 50 Euros more than the HD5830, hence me sticking with that. I should also have mentioned that I'm looking at 16:10 screens now in any case as I prefer the format, and sticking to 1680x1050 which the 5830 shouldn't have any problems with. In any case, I'm not desperate to have details up to max, just above average is fine for me. (PS preferred monitor at the moment is an Iiyama Prolite B2206WS (TN, 22", 1680x1050, 2ms). I went for the Seasonic cos its modular and had very good reviews (esp on its security features - my laptop recently died due to power surge problems so I'm pretty wary of that). It costs just under 90 Euros (about £75). EDIT: After reading Smugboy's post, I realised I made a really stupid mistake in the title of this thread - I meant 1000 Euros not £ , so thats about £830.
At that resolution a 5770 would be enough. Do they give the choice of a 5770 and would it save you some money?
Yes they have a massive choice of various 5770s (as opposed to the one 5830?). It would save me anywhere from 5 to 25 Euros depending on the model. So, that could well be an option if it isn't too much of a drop in performance (tbh, from reviews, benchmarks, etc, it looks like roughly 10% drop in terms of FPS in most cases...)
Building a PC is pretty straight forward, and quite rewarding (I actually find it quite therapeutic as you can't rush). Also, the knowledge and confidence you gain means you are better placed placed to make upgrades in the future & deal with any faults that might occur. You will also feel more confident about overclocking as you know the computer inside out (literally) and the mystique and fears of playing with a "Black box" disappear. You'll also save cash by being able to buy parts from wherever gives you the best price, and by not paying someone to build it fo you. There is a thorough thread on this site to guide you through "The Newbie's Guide to Computer Building - Version 1.1 - Updated 30 Mar 2010 - Pics!" http://forums.bit-tech.net/showthread.php?t=183202 And there are plenty of helpful folk on forums like this if things go wrong or you need advice. Back to your build at a revised £830. The thread below has a build aimed at a lower budget, while stilling keeping a quad core CPU and a GTX 460 1Gb http://forums.bit-tech.net/showthread.php?t=193469 Going the AMD route with a Phenom II X4 955 and associatated mobo cuts about £80 straight away
for the love of god dont buy a 5830 even if its 50 euros cheaper the 1GB 460 is much much faster. the 5830 is already outdated and you will be upgrading it un less than 12 months i gaurntee it even at 1680x1050. The 1GB 460 is the best choice really it is and skimping on the GPU will effect your gaming performance massively. security features ? on a PSU ?
Here is an example for this budget (with some good variations on this theme in this and the other build thread I linked, especialily around mobo, cooler, case and PSU) AMD Phenom II X4 Quad Core 955 Black Edition - £110 Gigabyte GA-MA785GMT-UD2H - £60 AC-FREEZER7-PRO-REV2 - Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro v2.1 - £17 Corsair XMS3 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz - £75 GeForce GTX 460 1Gb - £165 Samsung SpinPoint F3 1Tb - £45 500W OCZ ModXStream - £57 Antec 300 Three Hundred - £43 Sony Optiarc AD-7240S 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter - £16 Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-Bit - OEM - £74 Total £662 Leaving £168 for a monitor
Guys - see this ^. We need to take into account that a) he is buying the components from the site mentioned (French) and his budget is 1000 Euro, not GBP.
Thanks for the replies, still looking over the options for now. As for building it myself, I think not this time - I would definitely be interested to try, but I'd want to do it on a dirt cheap "test" machine first with all second hand parts rather than go straight in and build this one. Budget is tight at the moment and this is a pretty big expense - still not even sure I can justify it or I would have bought it by now! So really, 1000 Euros is an absolute maximum, and in general I'm looking for components which I can downgrade a little without losing too much in terms of performance/quality etc. Smugboy, that looks like a really good spec list, I'm really surprised all that can be had for £830!! Its just that from my source, seeing as I need the manchine to be built, itll be difficult to squeeze all that in and stay on budget. The specs I posted earlier today come to just over 1000 Euros once all peripherals are counted. ^Bad translation from French, guess I meant safety features, you know that kick in if theres a power spike or sudden drop etc etc and protect the PSU and more importantly the rest of the components PS: a lot of the builds I see on this site include a cooling system - is this for the CPU? And is it really necessary? Aren't the stock coolers good enough?
If you aren't overclocking and are using a decent airflow case e.g. the Utgard, CM 690 II or Antec 300 then the stock CPU cooler will be fine. If you want to overclock the CPU then a better cooler would be advised.
i5 and 2x 460's surely that can fit the budget. "the 5830 is already outdated and you will be upgrading it un less than 12 months" 2 months more like.... if you must go ati go cf 5770
Surely this is an exagerration? It is a DirectX 11 card for one thing. For another I would only need to upgrade in order to play the very latest games at maximum details right? Which is really not a big concern for me - I just want smooth performance at a good level of detail/quality in current games - just above medium say (or even medium at a push) as long as it runs smooth. And if you are right why would you recommend the 5770 which has slightly lower performance? Btw: i need to include everything in the 1000 Euro maximum. That means keyboard & mouse, and I'll need a webcam and microphone also. I have set aside about 60 Euros for all of that...
^ this. The 5830 is overpriced for the difference it would make over the 5770 at your resolution and for the games you play.
the 2 months I refered to was the 6xxx cards coming out - my apologies regardless surely you could spec a system with 2xgtx460's have you tried using tweakers.net? even if you think 2x 460's cant be done certainly 1x460 can and its a much better card with an upgrade path.
