5punk

after the recent fail of trying to run bioshock on my pc, i have decided that it's time to get me a new one, even though i have absolutely no money whatsoever to buy one (i'm trying to win the lottery) however, i need to know what to buy, and seeing as you lot know a thing or two about this sorta stuff...

it needs to be;

. powerfull enough for gaming and such

. last "some" time (at least 2 1/2 years)

. not over a €1000 (£678) although i'm aiming for something possibly cheaper

i do not want it to be;

. fancy (i want to save out on anything pretty)

i should add that i know some people that can get some parts cheaper and are willing to put it together freely.

thank you in advance etc.

Mr. Johnson

And I shall watch with interest.

First go:

Mobo: Asus P5B-Plus Fista Edition £82.24
Cpu: Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 £131.59
Memory: 2GB (2x1GB) CorsairTwinX XMS2, DDR2 PC2-6400 £64.20
GPU: 320MB EVGA 8800GTS, PCI-E (x16), Mem 1600MHz, GPU 500MHz £179.99
HDD: 400GB Western Digital Caviar SE, SATA300 £49.69
DVD: Samsung 20x DVD±R Black OEM £18.67
PSU: 520W Corsair HX Series Modular PSU £64.50
Case: Antec P182 Advanced £78.48

Total: £695.09

Places to skimp would be on the GPU and CPU I think, As both are easily upgradable.

Downside is that DDR3 is taking over from DDR2, and no-one is totally sure when the next nvidia gpus are gonna appear.

thanks berk, it's noted.

sometimes, you can truly be a lovely fucker.

Mr. Johnson wrote:sometimes, you can truly be a lovely fucker.

twss

Dr. kitteny berk wrote:Downside is that DDR3 is taking over from DDR2

DDR3 will eventually become the norm, but that isn't going to happen until the prices drop significantly, which is probably 8+ months away.

deject wrote:DDR3 will eventually become the norm, but that isn't going to happen until the prices drop significantly, which is probably 8+ months away.

but as this is gonna be a 2 year machine, I figured it was worth mentioning.

Ignore ddr3, it costs shitloads, shits heat (for ram dacs that is) and the CAS timings could be better.

To save money, look for cheaper than berk quoted, I for one can get a c2d 6750 for £120. It's faster AND cheaper

Case wise, don't skimp. Because if you do get a shitty little plastic thing, you'll curse it every day, noisy, fiddly as fuck to work with, components getting in each others way, just not worth it.

Anyway, proper list, stealing heavily from berk-

Mobo- Asus p5b £60
Cpu- Intel c2d e6750 £120
Memory- (same as berk) Corsair make their own chips, instead of sticking 3rd party stuff to their pcb's, like a lot of companies do. £64.20
GPU- (same as berk) £179.99
HDD- I've always liked Western Digital, alternative could be a samsung spin point 500Gb sataII £60
DVD- (same as berk) £18.67
Psu- (same as berk) Modular is always good £64.50
Case- Antec 900 £65

Total= £632.36

The evga step-up program is of limited use, but its there, plus they are good cards.

Yup, that spec looks good to me.

Mine was just a quicky on scan without much thought etc.

ooh, cheers.

HereComesPete wrote: Mobo- Asus p5b £60
Cpu- Intel c2d e6750 £120

Just realised these might not work too happily together.

Right, I've been looking through ebuyer. Do these look like they'll play nicely together?

CPU Intel C2Duo E6750 2.66GHz 1333FSB (£116)
MUMBO Gigabyte GA-P35C-DS3R (£74)
RAM Cosair DDR2 PC2-6400 XMS2 Non-EEC Unbuf. CL5 (x2, 2GB kit) (£67)
PSU Cosair HX 520W - ATX12V v2.2 APFC (£64)

Corrections, improvements and suggestions on shiny Graphics would be most welcome.

8800GTX. Go on, you know you want too (seems like everyone else did...)

Hmm, I did wonder why you picked such a fast fsb when there's less mobo's that do that, but its the cheapest/fastest one for that kinda price@ebuyer, silly ebuyer.

The mobo and cpu should play fine, you can get a cheaper 1333 mobo, but they are either a bit dodgy, or the value versions, so have less usb's and cooling blocks not fans on northbridges etc. going through all the mobo's would take forever and save maybe £10-15, but its up to you.

Ram, if you can, buy the fastest you can to take advantage of that uber fsb, ebuyer tends to be suck at their high level offers, try this - Overclockers stuff It's on offer for a few more days and is imho well worth it for the extra powah!!!
PSU=can't go wrong, modular looks nice, helps cooling, that's a good psu.

I'm thinking by "suggestions on Shiny Graphics" you're after a gpu as well, it has to be an 8800 asus/bfg/evga, gtx>gts 640>gts 320

HereComesPete wrote:Hmm, I did wonder why you picked such a fast fsb when there's less mobo's that do that, but its the cheapest/fastest one for that kinda price@ebuyer, silly ebuyer.

There's not really much choosing going on to be honest, I'm so out of touch with hardware these days I'm having all on picking stuff that'll even fit together.
Ta for those suggestions though, I'll look in to them.

Stoat wrote:Right, I've been looking through ebuyer. Do these look like they'll play nicely together?

CPU Intel C2Duo E6750 2.66GHz 1333FSB (£116)
MUMBO Gigabyte GA-P35C-DS3R (£74)
RAM Cosair DDR2 PC2-6400 XMS2 Non-EEC Unbuf. CL5 (x2, 2GB kit) (£67)
PSU Cosair HX 520W - ATX12V v2.2 APFC (£64)

Corrections, improvements and suggestions on shiny Graphics would be most welcome.

That's all good, I'd probably be tempted to spend the extra ~£40 and go for some PC2-8500.

PSU I've never used, but I've heard good things.

Graphics?

me, elsewhere wrote:8800GTS 320 - If you're not fussed about DX10/Fista. (they will do dx10, just the memory is limiting for some games)

8800GTS 640 - If you're looking at moving to Fista, but don't want to spend masses of money on a 1st generation DX10 card.

8800GTX - Money to burn, want a huge upgrade now, don't care that the new cards will probably appear by christmas.

Hehe, I just got my new computer bits delivered to work: new mobo, AMD X2 6000+, 4GB Ram

buy a heap of usb hubs/devices. see if you can get it down to 3gb of usable memorys

Dr. kitteny berk wrote:That's all good, I'd probably be tempted to spend the extra ~£40 and go for some PC2-8500.

Where from? Cheapest Corsair 8500 I can find is £130 for 2gb, which brings my total up a little high.

Think I'd go for the BFG 8800 GTS out of those.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/productli ... y=priceAsc

sort by price. i'd skip the ocuk stuff, but the crucial looks a good deal (and their warranty rocks)