Spec me a new PC, Bitches!

Post by **Grimmie** » June 7th, 2011, 11:31

Okay, I've been meaning to do this for a while, but hardware scares me.

Basically I've put some money aside for a new PC, my current one's slowly becoming crashy, and evermore outdated for super duper modern games. I'm going to reformat and re-purpose my current PC into a "Works PC", so I can concentrate on webby stuff on a dedicated machine instead of getting distracted by IM programs, games, videos, porn etc.

So, I'd like a new PC with, minimum:

* A 64bit Processor/Operating system
* Room to add a second monitor in the future
* A case large enough to fit current gen graphics cards
* 6 Gigs of RAM
* A futureproofed, but reliable graphics card
* Wireless adapter
* A widescreen (24" 1920x1200) monitor for use on my current PC - doesn't have to be fast or responsive, just big enough for webby work.

Ideally, links to these products too, as I get very confused by the preceding and ending letter and number combinations which determine gigablort speed, revolutions per minute, and cache money hurtz. I can shop around for best price, so long as I know exactly what it is I'm looking for, from an example.

Obviously stuff like soundcards, mobo, psu too - but the things I listed above are specifics.
Budgeting somewhere below £1,500 - so nothing Chickenz style, but something lovely none the less.

Shada · Post by **Shada** » June 7th, 2011, 11:34

check this thing out:

http://i1002.photobucket.com/albums/af1 ... /Guide.png

for monitors I always go with Iiyama ones, never had a problem. It's recommended you buy in a physical store instead of online to reduce chances of being screwed over by dead pixels.

Post by **Grimmie** » June 7th, 2011, 11:38

Shada wrote:http://i1002.photobucket.com/albums/af1 ... /Guide.png

Mmm.. "Insane". Aren't American hardware prices cheaper than over here?

Shada · Post by **Shada** » June 7th, 2011, 11:40

possibly yeah, but the guide always has a good overview of what the good shit on the market is, so it's great as a starting point

oh and for sound cards just get the most expensive soundblaster you're willing to get. they really are all pretty much the same, I barely notice a difference between my SOUNDBLASTER XTREME PROGAMER and my damn onboard motherboard sound.

Post by **deject** » June 7th, 2011, 12:13

You'll definitely want to get a Sandy Bridge setup, so look for either a Core i5-2500k or a Core i7-2600k, with a good P67 motherboard and 8GB of RAM. As for GPU, I would look at either the GTX 500 series or the Radeon 6900 series, whichever fits your budget better. As mentioned in that guide Shada posted, the 560 Ti and the 6950 are great cards for the price. You can use this to compare relative performance of GPUs.

I'm not super up to date on cases and which ones can accommodate the current trend of OMG XBOX HUEG LOL videocards, and monitors never have been my thing narf.

Post by **deject** » June 7th, 2011, 12:18

Shada wrote:possibly yeah, but the guide always has a good overview of what the good shit on the market is, so it's great as a starting point

oh and for sound cards just get the most expensive soundblaster you're willing to get. they really are all pretty much the same, I barely notice a difference between my SOUNDBLASTER XTREME PROGAMER and my damn onboard motherboard sound.

That's because you are either a) deaf or b) using terrible speakers. While onboard sound has improved a lot, you're still going to get ridiculous amounts of interference from the motherboard. It might not be noticeable with cheap speakers, but if you care at all about sound quality a good soundcard is still a must. Is it worth spending $200/£100 on? Not necessarily, but even an old X-Fi Titanium can be had for relatively cheap and has infinitely less interference.

buzzmong · Post by **buzzmong** » June 7th, 2011, 12:34

Soundcards are worth splashing out on to an extent. The bonus bit is they're quite long lasting bits of kit. My previous card, an Audigy 1, was used for about 5 or more years in a number of machines.

Post by **Grimmie** » June 7th, 2011, 14:33

Sandy bridge?

<img src="http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/4 ... dge416.jpg">

Right, got it.

Chickenz · Post by **Chickenz** » June 7th, 2011, 18:20

Grimmie wrote:Sandy bridge?

<img src="http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/4 ... dge416.jpg">

Right, got it.

I've walked over that bridge...

So have Anham, Pnut and Davius.

For that bridge crosses the river Lossiemouth.

Anhamgrimmar · Post by **Anhamgrimmar** » June 7th, 2011, 20:16

Ah yes,

CRABS GO HOME! or something, isn't it?

No1Jew · Post by **No1Jew** » June 7th, 2011, 21:53

Chickenz wrote:
I've walked over that bridge...

So have Anham, Pnut and Davius.

For that bridge crosses the river Lossiemouth.

Yes i also know that bridge very well. My raft traveled 10ft past it, but was found 1 week later by local fishermen 5 miles out in the North Sea still floating !!!!

No1Jew · Post by **No1Jew** » June 7th, 2011, 22:40

If you have that kind of money to burn I would go with a set up like this. I've included a fairly basic but fantastic value case that I had on my old rig.

GPU - XFX ATI Radeon 6970 2048MB GDDR5 - £259.99
CPU - Intel Core i7-2600K 3.40GHz (Sandybridge) - £227.99
HD - OCZ Agility 3 120GB 2.5" SATA-3 SSHD - £172.99
Mobo - Asus P67 Sabertooth Intel P67 DDR3 ** B3 REVISION ** - £149.98
PSU - Corsair HX 850W ATX Modular SLI Compliant Power Supply - £143.99
RAM - Corsair Vengeance 6GB (3x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C8 1600MHz Triple Channel Kit - £89.99
Disc drive - LG BH10LS30 10x BluRay-RW / 16 x DVD±RW Drive - £88.99
Cooling - Corsair Hydro H70 High-Performance Liquid CPU Cooler - £79.99
OS - Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-Bit - £79.99 LEGAL COPY !!!!!!!
Case - Antec 300 - Black - £49.99

All prices from Overclockers

Total = £1,368

I've not included a monitor in this as I feel that is your personal choice, everyone has a different need and style that is individual !!

TheJockGit · Post by **TheJockGit** » June 7th, 2011, 22:46

No1Jew wrote:
Yes i also know that bridge very well. My raft traveled 10ft past it, but was found 1 week later by local fishermen 5 miles out in the North Sea still floating !!!!

After Here Comes Pete's last visit to Blackpool there is still a floater harassing the shipping lanes in the North Atlantic..

Post by **deject** » June 7th, 2011, 22:56

No1Jew wrote:If you have that kind of money to burn I would go with a set up like this. I've included a fairly basic but fantastic value case that I had on my old rig.

GPU - XFX ATI Radeon 6970 2048MB GDDR5 - £259.99
CPU - Intel Core i7-2600K 3.40GHz (Sandybridge) - £227.99
HD - OCZ Agility 3 120GB 2.5" SATA-3 SSHD - £172.99
Mobo - Asus P67 Sabertooth Intel P67 DDR3 ** B3 REVISION ** - £149.98
PSU - Corsair HX 850W ATX Modular SLI Compliant Power Supply - £143.99
RAM - Corsair Vengeance 6GB (3x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C8 1600MHz Triple Channel Kit - £89.99
Disc drive - LG BH10LS30 10x BluRay-RW / 16 x DVD±RW Drive - £88.99
Cooling - Corsair Hydro H70 High-Performance Liquid CPU Cooler - £79.99
OS - Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-Bit - £79.99 LEGAL COPY !!!!!!!
Case - Antec 300 - Black - £49.99

All prices from Overclockers

Total = £1,368

I've not included a monitor in this as I feel that is your personal choice, everyone has a different need and style that is individual !!

That RAM is not a good fit. Specifically, since it's for Triple Channel operation, you won't get the optimal performance on a Dual Channel setup like Sandy Bridge is. If you're using 3 DIMMs you'll be stuck in Single Channel mode. Triple Channel is limited to the previous Core i7 9xx CPUs that run on LGA1366. Sandy Bridge is only Single and Dual Channel RAM capable. This is why I suggest just going to 8GB. If you really want 6GB in Dual Channel, you'd need 2x2GB and 2x1GB sticks which is just dumb.

The rest of that looks pretty good though.

Post by **FatherJack** » June 8th, 2011, 0:08

I'd go for a simpler cooler with copper heatpipes and a big fan, thinking that liquid gubbins with a separate cool-spot radiator might prove troublesome to install.

Also I'd budget for a gaming-spec soundcard (X-Fi Fatal1ty £100) a Samsung F3 HDD (£45) and a nicer case like a nice aluminium Lian-Li. The Antecs are solid and easy to work in, but I personally don't like having exhaust fans on the top of the case, and some of the lower-spec ones don't have variable fan speed controllers (they use a switch on the back) - which would be laughably crappy for such a nice spec PC.

As well as a cheaper cooler, you could save a bit by using a GTX 560Ti and losing the SSD, giving you more to get that 8GB of RAM and a monitor (Iijama £150). A little USB wireless adapter from someone like Edimax (£8 ) should suffice.

Post by **Dr. kitteny berk** » June 8th, 2011, 4:39

Roight, if I was me, and I had that sort of cash to spuff about, I'd do something like this

CPU: Intel Core i5-2500 3.30GHz £162
Mobo: Asus P67 Sabertooth £150
Ram: Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-15000C9 1866MHz £90
Heatsink: Corsair A50 £29
GPU: Asus ATI Radeon HD 6950 OC 2048MB GDDR5 £225
HDDs: Intel 320 Series 80GB £141 & Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB £74
Optical: Samsung SH-S222AB DVDR £17
Case: Lian Li PC-8NWX £125
Soundcard: Asus Xonar D2 7.1 £94
Wireless thingy: one of them £15-20
Total: £1135-odd.

Options/considerations.
Double up on the ram if you want, it won't get a huge amount cheaper probably.

Didn't bother speccing anything beyond a basic dvd burner as BR drives are fucking spendy for no good reason, easy upgrade later.

There's not such a huge need for soundcards these days, certainly not a feature heavy thing as a soundblaster, but having the sound offboard does improve matters. I specced something nice, just because I like soundcards, but my personal preference would be a Auzen X-Meridian 7.1 2G, which I expect will land the fun side for £150.

Drives, SSD for windows, swap files, stuff you want to be nice and fast. fast HDD for your games etc.

Cases are a pretty personal thing, but I like Lian Li, so yeah.

I didn't bother with an OS, as, well, you don't need telling to buy W7.

Graphics, I just pulled out of my arse, something around that price will work well.

Shada · Post by **Shada** » June 8th, 2011, 10:09

Personally I'd switch to nvidia for the graphics card, unless you guys have a reason for picking ATi?

My reason is ATi cards have given me nothing but trouble with some games - graphical glitches in Mount & Blade, Brink couldn't run out of the box, Thief 3 bluescreens and the problems with Black Ops were often attributed to ATi cards too (though nvidia dudes had them as well). All of these problems were widely reported on forums, so it's not just lone problems on my computer.

Pretty much all of those problems are down to drivers - but the "fixes" involve going pretty far back into older versions of drivers. For instance, Mount & Blade is said stop glitching on like the 9 or 10.xx series of drivers, and Brink stopped fucking up with driver 11.2 installed. I might as well just revert back to the driver that came with the CD.

Post by **Dr. kitteny berk** » June 8th, 2011, 10:14

I suspect (I've not looked) ATI just has the better hardware right now, drivers can be fixed, hardware can't, most ATI issues are dealt with fast anyway, <a href="http://twitter.com/#!/CatalystCreator">this</a> is handy.

I suspect nvidia has similar problems with drivers, least they did when I had nvidia cards, but they do put a lot of money into making games work with their hardware.

Shada · Post by **Shada** » June 8th, 2011, 10:19

Wow, I didn't even know the Witcher 2 was having any problems.

And yeah, come to think of it, my 8800 caused bluescreens with STALKER way back when, and that's why I switched to ATi in the first place. Jeez.

Post by **deject** » June 8th, 2011, 11:43

Yeah both occasionally have issues to deal with. That's why I still recommend buying based on price/performance and features.