5punk

Warning: This is quickly thrown together, builds completely untested, but should work pretty well. YMMV.

I'm not so up to date with graphics at the moment, and the PSU prices are probably wrong by now. Make suggestions and I'll do research and stuff.

Now i5 is out, it looks like we should be able to make a few scalable specs. but there's important stuff to know (I'll reply with a post explaining things)


Ideal:
Mobo:Gigabyte GA-P55M-UD2 (~£87)
CPU: Intel Core i5 750 2.66Ghz (~£143)
Memory:Patriot Extreme Performance 4GB 1600mhz (~£70)

(total ~£300)

Fast:
Mobo:Gigabyte GA-P55M-UD2 (~£87)
CPU:Intel Core i7 860 2.80Ghz (~£226)
Memory:Patriot Extreme Performance 4GB 1600mhz (~£70)

(total ~£385)

Graphics:
Asus ATI Radeon HD 5850 1024MB (£200 from dabs)

Hard Drives:
Samsung Spinpoint F3 1TB (£55-odd) shitting fast, very cheap

PSU:
Just spend £60-80 on a 600W+ PSU, I like enermax and corsair, but choose what you prefer. - Modular is good if your budget can stretch to it.

I'd probably take;
Corsair TX 650W (not modular) (~£65)
Corsair HX 620W (modular) (~£95)


Cases:
Antec 300, Really cheap, Large, plain. (~£35)
Antec 900, cheap, large, fairly ugly. (~£75)
Cooler Master Centurion 534 (~£50) out of production but gettable

Obviously, any ATX case on the market is fine, but these are both 5punker approved.

Prices I've bothered with are from ocuk.

Things:

Right, with the release of I5, intel have brought out a new socket - LGA1156, which annoyingly, is different to socket LGA1366.

Currently it seems that LGA1156 is a more budget offering, only being supported by the P55 chipset, which has some limitations, such as dual channel memory support, and PCI-E bandwidth sharing (one card gets 16x, two cards get 8x each) Annoying, but not likely to be a massive concern for most.

LGA1366 is on the other hand supported by the X58 chipset, which does tri channel memory, and supports more PCI-E, so (probably) better suited to overkill multi-GPU bucketloads of ram builds.

This is pretty common with intel, X indicating the high end chipsets, P indicating the sensible ones, but this is the first time the sockets have been different.

There's not much indication of intel's plan for the sockets that I can see, so I've stuck with LGA1156, as it allows reasonably easy scaling, and will likely be the more mainstream choice, allowing for cheaper builds later on.

Yeah the big limitations on LGA1156 are 16 PCI-Ex lanes only for graphics, single socket only support, and dual channel RAM only. For gaming rigs this is not a huge deal, unless you really want to go with a multiple video card setup. It can be done but those 16 lanes get split between the GPUs so there is a slight hit on your performance increase using multiple cards compared to a full 2x16 PCI-Express setup. While segmenting the market with two new sockets is kinda lame, I'd bet they will both be around for a while.

Other case suggestions:

Cooler Master Centurion 534: http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/306
Good steel case, clean lines and nice black exterior can be found for $40-60 in the US, and about £50 over there. If you're like me and hate garish, ostentatious cases, definitely check out this one.

The new high air flow ones from coolermaster are a bit ugly but do the bucketload of fans thing well. The antec 900-2 fixes pretty much every problem the 900 had (bit more space, better cable management and better fan switch positioning) except it's still quite ugly.

The newer haf's have better support for the aftermarket cpu coolers and access to hdd cages from both sides.

NZXT whisper is a nice case too imo, bit cramped though.

Also, newer cards and mobo's need more and fatter in terms of cabling/plug ends, an old psu (regardless of wattage) is going to be awkward. Always worth the money to overspec on them.

ATI are announcing their 5 series tommorow, should be interesting. Whether that makes it easier or harder to suggest a graphics card remains to be seen.

http://www.ctrlaltdel-online.com/comic.php

for some builds that might not work so well....