The PC Building Thread

[bsmaff]

Originally Posted by YoungGun_UK

Cool will take a look then, The reason for the CPU cooler, is I've had overheating problems with my last PC, as well as my Laptop.

Do you think that case would be fine then? Wouldn't cause any issues?

You should't experience overheating issues unless you overclock.

As for case you don't need a decent one unless again you plan on overclocking or you have very poor ventilation in your home and you need additional case fans to help the air move around.

[Scutch]

Forgive my question, but what exactly is the point of overclocking? Shouldn't you buy a processor that can do the work you want in the first place rather than counting on it doing more through a push in the back?

Is it worth it?

[YoungGun_UK]

I guess its a way to enhance the performance down the road, rather so it can stay in touch?

[Scutch]

That's fair enough, but how much of a performance hike do we need? I thought the chipsets were decent enough as they were without needing to be bulked up by overclocking.

What do you actually notice by increasing the clock speed that much/little and is it worth it?

[YoungGun_UK]

Not the person to ask


Regarding the GPU's then which 5600 model should I be looking at then, not exactly sure on that.

[bsmaff]

I have always overclocked my processor.
It is just a geek thing really at the end of the day.

You do obviously get a performance increase my processor is a 2600K and runs at 3.2 out the box, I have it running at 4.5GHZ I can get 5GHZ but that runs abit to close to temp threshold for my liking.

Younggun I don't know how you feel about buying 2nd hand GPU's but you can get 5870's dirt cheap on ebay you won't find much better in terms of performance/price.

[Scutch]

Yeah I don't suppose buying second hand cards will hurt. Obviously depending on the seller. If his username is idestroycomponentsthensellthem I'd steer clear.

Which games will you wanting to be playing?

[YoungGun_UK]

Yeah I got no problem with Ebay 2nd hand, as long as it works. 5870 is Radeon isn't it?

Arkham City, F1 2011, PES/FIFA, Hitman Absolution on probably a 22-24' screen etc Im not into FPS which require monster rigs.

How much would you say a reasonable price for it would be?

[bsmaff]

Yes buying 2nd hand GPU's are fine as they are never overclocked or abused just sit inside the computer.

But I would never buy 2nd hand RAM(lack of anti static precausions, and limited life once removed from original packinging), CPU people could overclock them and damage the life span of the processor.

Motherboards are normally alright 2nd hand as they normally come with very warrenty especially if you buy ASUS or Gigabyte as I know both of these come with 3 year manufacturing warrenty. Never had a faulty ASUS but when I had a Gigabyte go wrong I was shocked that I receieved it back with a week.

But make sure you check benchmarks as GPU's are very confusing a 5870 is alot faster than a 6850. It is even faster than a 6870. But you really need to check benchmark scores, and they vary depending on what game engine is used, but in general ATI cards generally have better frame rates than NVIDIA's and cost quite abit less.
IMO though I like the drivers better with NVIDIA cards as they are easier to tweak when games don't come with built in AA.

[bsmaff]

Originally Posted by YoungGun_UK

Yeah I got no problem with Ebay 2nd hand, as long as it works. 5870 is Radeon isn't it?

Arkham City, F1 2011, PES/FIFA, Hitman Absolution, etc Im not into FPS which require monster rigs.

How much would you say a reasonable price for it would be?

Check completed listings on ebay and have a look but should be able to pick one up around £100.

I have a 5870 and I play F1, Arkham Asylam both in Ultra settings on 1920x1080. And when on my TV makes me PS3 in comparison look like a spectrum.

[bsmaff]

Keep an eye on that one.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/HIS-Radeon...item45fda1c2b8

Comes with a cooler as well so would be less noisy.

Looks like completed listings vary from around £90 - £120

[Scutch]

I'd be going for the 560Ti as opposed to a Radeon. Purely due to the comments and reviews it's got.

Maybe I'm going in for the kill when a cheaper card would do a much similar job.

[YoungGun_UK]

Cheers 90 - 120 seems spot on for my budget

Edit:

So finally wheeled and dealed (Harry Redknapp™) and got the following.


Spoiler:

Show Spoiler

2nd Generation Intel® Core i5 2500K 3.30GHz Socket LGA1155
MSI P67A-GD53 Intel P67 (Socket 1155) Motherboard
Corsair XMS3 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9
Samsung 22x DVD-RW SATA Black
Novatech Vulcan Midi Case
Novatech 300Mbps 802.11n Wireless PCI Adapter
500GB Samsung HD502HJ F3 3.5" SATA II Hard Drive
Corsair CX 600W V2 ATX2.2 80 PLUS® Power Supply

And all that comes to £425.28 + £90-120 for the GPU hopefully.

[bsmaff]

Originally Posted by Scutch

I'd be going for the 560Ti as opposed to a Radeon. Purely due to the comments and reviews it's got.

Maybe I'm going in for the kill when a cheaper card would do a much similar job.

No your doing the right thing going for a higher range card.
The 560ti is a very good card and will be future proof till the next consoles are released.
They are pretty good value for £162.

[bsmaff]

Originally Posted by YoungGun_UK

Cheers 90 - 120 seems spot on for my budget

Edit:

So finally wheeled and dealed (Harry Redknapp™) and got the following.


Spoiler:

Show Spoiler

2nd Generation Intel® Core i5 2500K 3.30GHz Socket LGA1155
MSI P67A-GD53 Intel P67 (Socket 1155) Motherboard
Corsair XMS3 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9
Samsung 22x DVD-RW SATA Black
Novatech Vulcan Midi Case
Novatech 300Mbps 802.11n Wireless PCI Adapter
500GB Samsung HD502HJ F3 3.5" SATA II Hard Drive
Corsair CX 600W V2 ATX2.2 80 PLUS® Power Supply

And all that comes to £425.28 + £90-120 for the GPU hopefully.

I would swap your power supply to the xfx you save yourself £3 and it is the same power supply just rebadged.
I would also recommend 8gb of ram if your running window 64 bit. Have you also budgetted for windows?

Apart from that good spec machine. You won't have any problems with games.

[beachryan]

Can anyone help me out a lil. Looking to replace a Radeon 5570, which I have in a quad-core AMD Phenom X4 9750 2.4ghz box.

I'm looking at either the Nvidia 560 or the Radeon 6870. I've had good experiences with Saphire in the past, so would like to use them, but don't have to.

Question on power - if I can run a 5570 just fine (PCI-E) do I need anything extra in terms of PSU to run the others?

[bsmaff]

Originally Posted by beachryan

Can anyone help me out a lil. Looking to replace a Radeon 5570, which I have in a quad-core AMD Phenom X4 9750 2.4ghz box.

I'm looking at either the Nvidia 560 or the Radeon 6870. I've had good experiences with Saphire in the past, so would like to use them, but don't have to.

Question on power - if I can run a 5570 just fine (PCI-E) do I need anything extra in terms of PSU to run the others?

Looking at the price of the 6870 and 560ti you are looking at getting better bang per buck if you get a 6870.
But same with the other person if you get a 5870 2nd hand you can get one for £100 so you save yourself £50 and they are very slightly more powerful than both of them.

[beachryan]

Originally Posted by bsmaff

Looking at the price of the 6870 and 560ti you are looking at getting better bang per buck if you get a 6870.
But same with the other person if you get a 5870 2nd hand you can get one for £100 so you save yourself £50 and they are more powerful than both of them.

Cool, thanks will look into that. And will a standard power supply be sufficient?

[bsmaff]

Originally Posted by beachryan

Cool, thanks will look into that. And will a standard power supply be sufficient?

The wattage of the power supply is all dependant on what you need everyone always well over buys on what they need power wise.
In reality you never need over 600w unless you have 4 graphics cards, 4 hard drives a couple of cd drives and loads of USB devices plugged in.

With graphics cards though it is very important how many amps you get along the 12v rail.
Most modern power supplies no longer get this problem. I would say your current power supply is more than sufficient.

[beachryan]

Originally Posted by bsmaff

The wattage of the power supply is all dependant on what you need everyone always well over buys on what they need power wise.
In reality you never need over 600w unless you have 4 graphics cards, 4 hard drives a couple of cd drives and loads of USB devices plugged in.

With graphics cards though it is very important how many amps you get along the 12v rail.
Most modern power supplies no longer get this problem. I would say your current power supply is more than sufficient.

Did some digging into this - turns out my crappy Dell has a measly 300W power supply - and ATI say they need a minimum 500W one. Bugger.

Will have to wait til next year and upgrade the whole box at once. Will be 3 years old at that point, so probably necessary anyway.

[ToonArmy]

Originally Posted by Scutch

Novatech are actually one of the cheapest. Aria, Scan, OC, eBuyer and even eBay struggle matching prices of Novatech on many of their items. From every component I listed in my spec, only Aria beat Novatech on one item - the Intel CPU. Everything else they beat competitors hands down.

Aria will do price matching if you sign up on the forums and PM one of the Mods.

[Scutch]

Originally Posted by ToonArmy

Aria will do price matching if you sign up on the forums and PM one of the Mods.

Cheers for that, but wouldn't that be a little pointless? Price beating I can understand, but both places offer free delivery so it's purely a preference thing in the end?

Saying that, the processor and graphics card are slightly cheaper on Aria, so it would be a small saving.

[ToonArmy]

Suppose so mate. I've always used Aria and Novatech myself as I find them the best two, plus I live close to Novatech

[YoungGun_UK]

Originally Posted by bsmaff

I would swap your power supply to the xfx you save yourself £3 and it is the same power supply just rebadged.
I would also recommend 8gb of ram if your running window 64 bit. Have you also budgetted for windows?

Apart from that good spec machine. You won't have any problems with games.

How much extra would upgrading the RAM cost? currently at £27

[bsmaff]

8GB of Ram is about £50.
But would be well worth it.

[bsmaff]

Also if you have not checked the benchmarks are now out for the bulldozer processor and they really suck.

Just have a look on google and they are terrible.

[jonneymendoza]

anyone tried water cooling?

[Mart]

Yep, if it's in a bottle you can just put it in the fridge.


No, to answer your question but I know a couple of people that have with no issues. Not sure it's worth it myself, though.

[jonneymendoza]

I'm thinking of trying it

[bsmaff]

Only worth trying and doing if your seriously into overclocking if not there is no need.