saving for a pc

[solidsteve]

ok guys and girls now the new year is upon us i've been thinking what type of year i want next year and well apart from other things its going to be a very good one

i want to try and blast it off with a few things, a M.O.T being one of them, a nice big tv being the second and a nice pc for my dad the third

now this is what i have come up with so far (after changing it a few times)

Asus P5Q PRO iP45 Socket 775 Motherboard - 32295 - £102.64

OCZ 4GB PC2-8500 Platinum (2x2GB) - 30921 - £63.19

1TB Samsung Spinpoint F1 SATA2 7200RPM - 30998 - £72.39 (x2 of these)

Corsair 650W TX Series PSU - 29099 - £70.21 (£14 less and still enough)

Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 3.0GHz (Retail 775) - 30243 - £126.44

Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 4870 1GB GDDR5 PCI-E - 33728 - £218.44 (better then a 4850)

Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 PRO (Socket LGA775) - 20729 - £13.74

LITEON DVD - ROM / DVD - RW - 27926 (£10.87) - 34465 (£16.04)

52 in 1 Card Reader Black with USB - 24902 - £6.84


Now i havent decided on a case or a os yet for the case i was thinking about the Nexus Caterpillar (28763) my dad said he kind of likes it and likes how its ment to cut out sound

now let me run though what i want the pc to do, it basicly needs to be fast, needs upgradeability, simple gaming (posible top end games like crysis ect) and it needs to be quiet

i havent got a budget but i would like to keep it under control

any suggestions would be helpful right now because i'm just stuck what to do and thanks in advance

[mac124]

Looks pretty good to me, i have played with a nexus caterpillar and they are pretty good, very quiet and have a funky front panel on them too that goes up and down. Oh and they are btx style in that you remove the right panel not the left to build them which means the gfx card is at the top of the case.

Your psu is a bit ott but will allow for plenty of upgrades should you wish too do so in the future nothing really to add other than go for it :D

[Lynx]

I would change the western digital drive for a samsung F1, they are rather fast and rather quiet.

[Monkey]

All looks pretty good to me, and i agree with lynx, the samsung f1 is a very quiet drive

Only think i have to ask is do you need the soundcard?

May be able to shave off a few £££ and just use the onboard one, it should be 5.1 anyway

[solidsteve]

theres a few £££ taken off the sound card is going :thumbsup:

i'll take your advice on the F1 drive but how reliable are they, i kind of forgot to say it would be a family pc :S so it would have to go though a bit of wear and tear

[Lynx]

Ive got one, and its not had a single error on it yet. They are new hat so you cant really say how reliable they are, but Samsungs are generally built very well.

[solidsteve]

my nan has one in her pc but i havent had anything to do with it (which just shows it seems to be ok)

if anything what would you add or take away or even change (just want to go down all the if's and buts)

[Monkey]

Looks like a pretty solid build now mate, only suggestion now is would you be interested in a slightly cheaper PSU

The one youve got is fine just a little overpowered which is always good but you could shave off a few more £££

Pretty minimal though


Have fun building it!

[solidsteve]

ok seems good :p

is there anything you would add to make it more faster / powerfull, it isent really costly at the min so i could happerly add a few things

[Monkey]

If it was mine id get another HDD, or two, id get the 500gb samsung for the OS and possibly two 1tb samsungs in raid

And i was would get a faster GPU, possibly the 4870 or 4870 1gb or a 4870x2

Have a look and let us know what you decide on

[solidsteve]

If it was mine id get another HDD, or two, id get the 500gb samsung for the OS and possibly two 1tb samsungs in raid

And i was would get a faster GPU, possibly the 4870 or 4870 1gb or a 4870x2

Have a look and let us know what you decide on

the 4870 1GB from Sapphire is in, it looks like it would last

hows a ssd for the os sound, OCZ have a 30GB one for £70 or even a Vertex Series its a bit more costly in the short tearm but if i got one of them plus a 1TB drive (for now)

what would you think

[Aaron]

I'd maybe get some faster ram if you're thinking of overclocking. And then, agree with monkey - better gfx card and then just max out the rest on Hard Drives :)

[Lynx]

SSD's are a waste of moeny, very little space and the performance isnt that great, get two 1TB F1's and raid them if you want performance and tonnes of space.

[Monkey]

Ive used 20% of my 1tb drive, mainly music and my work

It would take a long time to fill it

[Lynx]

Ive used 50% of my 1TB hard drive in 2 months.

[solidsteve]

Ive used 20% of my 1tb drive, mainly music and my work

It would take a long time to fill it


filled 60% of mine in a week :p mostly on games

overclocking is out but faster ram would be nice and raid-o on a few 1TB drives might just cut it

[Aaron]

I think that could work very well :)

[Lynx]

I hve 200gb of backed up dvds, then loads of space filled with games. Try resizing shadow storage, that will take up hundreds of GBs otherwise.

[Monkey]

Where do you go to change the size of it?

[Lynx]

Check out that thread about vista problems you never knew you had.

[solidsteve]

ok guys last questions (just edited the first post :p)

what would you suggest for the OS, my dad still likes his xp but i was thinking vista home preminum

and lastly, would you change the chip to a quad (Q6600 / Q6700 or Q9XX) or would you think that will be good for a few years

[Lynx]

Quad core wont be useful for a few years to come, faster dual cores will be more noticibly fast, quad cores are for rendering to be honest. I would get 64bit home premium, as im asuuming thers 4Gb of ram in the system.

[solidsteve]

thank you guys, now its off to pick a case lets see if i can find one he would like

[Monkey]

COOLERMASTER COSMOS S!!! :P

Seriously, the 690 coolermaster is a very nice case