$750 for Parts - What would you buy...

[notsure]

I'm looking to put together a new system for my husband.

I already have a Monitor, Keyboard, Mouse, DVD Burner, HDD and Speakers I can use, and a temporary case for the system (will be custom modding a new case for it in a couple of months) so that just leaves me with having to decide on the following.

CPU
Motherboard
Memory
Graphics Card
Power Supply
Any after market Cooling for the above.

The buget is around $750 USD but can maybe stretch that to $1000, (parts will be bought here in Norway, but that's about the equivilent buget in USD allowing for more expensive parts here).

The system will be used for some gaming & watching HD Movies (will probably add a bluray drive at a later date).

I'm happy to start with a single Graphics Card, but would prefer the Motherboard to support Duel Cards so the option is there to add a 2nd card at a later date.

It's unlikely the system will ever be overclocked, so air cooling will probably be sufficient for it - although if not I'll WC it when I do the custom case.

Any help would be appriciated.

[Twigsoffury]

i got,

AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black edition For 169.99
G.skill "RIPJAW" 4096MB DDR3-1600 memory For 84.99 (now 104.99)
MSI 770-C45 ATX Mainboard for 79.99

Totaled out at 330$ and some change.

Mainboard is non Sli, But Sli is expensive to run (massive PSU's 140$+ mainboards and so on) so i got a board with one pci-e slot, 3 PCI slots 2 1x PCI-E slots for expantion instead. Most of them Sli boards don't offer that many open slots for add-on cards like Soundcards, Audio/Video tuners, Phsyx cards and what not.

I'd highly recommend the X4 955. it'll run any game out there flawlessly.

[x88x]

I would also recommend a Phenom II X4, either the 955 or 965. They give you great performance for the money. Add 4-8GB of DDR3, a nice MBB, and a good PSU, and you can easily keep the core under $500.

For the PSU, I would recommend something by PC Power & Cooling, Corsair, Seasonic, or Kingwin, in the 500-700W range if you do not plan on doing dual GPUs, 700-800W if you do.

For the GPU, what kind of gaming is it going to be used for, and what resolution is the monitor that it is going to be used with?

I would make more specific recommendations, but I am not familiar with what is available in Norway.

[crenn]

Motherboard - $185:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128409
CPU - $200:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115215
RAM - $100:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145263
PSU - $110:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371026
GPU - $145:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814131328

Total Cost: $740

And for those wanting to know the parts:
GIGABYTE GA-P55A-UD4P Intel P55 Motherboard w/ USB 3.0 & SATA 6 Gb/s
Intel Core i5-750 Lynnfield 2.66GHz Quad-Core Processor
CORSAIR XMS3 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600
Antec EarthWatts EA750 750W 80 PLUS Certified
Powercolour HD5770 512MB

[notsure]

Thanks for the responses.

Having found a better place to buy here in Norway - the buget isn't as tight as it seemed or rather I get more for the same price...

This is what I've priced out...

Motherboard: ASUS P6T Deluxe V2 - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131365
CPU: Intel Core i7-920 - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115202
RAM: Corsair Dominator-GT 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 2000 SDRAM - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145266
PSU: Corsair CMPSU-950TX 950W PSU - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139013
GPU: Sapphire Vapor-X Radeon HD 5770 - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139013

I'm thinking the PSU may be a little overkill - but I do want to allow for the possibility of adding a 2nd GPU & Water Cooling in the future....

Total Price: $1153.00 (although it will be costing me the equivilent of $1500 - yes Norway is expensive).

If anyone has any thoughts on the setup I'd appriciate hearing them.

Missed this before:



For the GPU, what kind of gaming is it going to be used for, and what resolution is the monitor that it is going to be used with?

I would make more specific recommendations, but I am not familiar with what is available in Norway.

Hubby mainly plays football manager atm - but that's mainly because the current setup is fairly crappy - he's a fan of FPs like Company of Heros, Call of Duty etc but would also like to try some of the newer titles in that and the RPG genres (which I'm also a fan off) once we have a system that will run them.

Currently hubby is using a Benq G2200W 22" WS LCD Monitor Res: 1680x1050 but I'm hoping to upgrade that to either a 24" WS with 1920x1080 supporting full HD or buget permitting one of these: BENQ M2700HD 27" 1920 x 1080 - http://www.benq.com/products/LCD/?product=1625 in the next few months.

notsure

[crenn]

If you're getting a i7 920, you'll want to invest in a 6GB (3x2GB).

The PSU is overkill, a 750-850W is would be more cost effective, also make sure it's 80 plus certified.

[x88x]

Looks good. Like crenn said though, get a 6GB (3x2GB) triple channel RAM kit instead. I recommend this one (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820226121) if you can get it in Norway. Same clock, but triple channel and a CAS Latency of 6 instead of 8 (lower is better), for actually a little less. I would rate Mushkin about on the same quality level as Corsair's top shelf stuff.

The 5770 should serve you quite well. The reason I asked about the resolution is that if you were expecting to only be pushing anything less than 1680x1050 or 1600x1200, then you don't really need anything with that much power. Of course, if that were the case, you should probably be upgrading your monitor before your computer. ;)

For the PSU, yes, 950W is overkill with that setup, but with the prices of Corsair's lineup, since it's only ~$10 per step (ex, from 750 to 850), you might as well, especially if you plan on adding another 5770 down the road.

[Twigsoffury]

Looks good. Like crenn said though, get a 6GB (3x2GB) triple channel RAM kit instead. I recommend this one (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820226121) if you can get it in Norway. Same clock, but triple channel and a CAS Latency of 6 instead of 8 (lower is better), for actually a little less. I would rate Mushkin about on the same quality level as Corsair's top shelf stuff.

The 5770 should serve you quite well. The reason I asked about the resolution is that if you were expecting to only be pushing anything less than 1680x1050 or 1600x1200, then you don't really need anything with that much power. Of course, if that were the case, you should probably be upgrading your monitor before your computer. ;)

For the PSU, yes, 950W is overkill with that setup, but with the prices of Corsair's lineup, since it's only ~$10 per step (ex, from 750 to 850), you might as well, especially if you plan on adding another 5770 down the road.

Solid advise.

I've noticed a strong lack of mentioning 1.0TB 1.5TB Hard drives....lots of them

[x88x]

I've noticed a strong lack of mentioning 1.0TB 1.5TB Hard drives....lots of them

Heheh, well, notsure did say there's already a HDD waiting, but...you make a good point...or made me think of a good point...or something. bah.

Anyways, the point.. The performance of spinning-platter HDDs degrades over time, so you might want to get a new HDD as well, notsure, so that you don't have a massive bottleneck. It's probably only much of an issue if the drive is more than a couple years old, but after spending so much on new components, you don't want to have a HDD slowing you down.

If you do decide to get a new HDD, I would recommend the Samsung F3 1TB (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152185). The F3 series is, to my knowledge, the only drives smaller than 1.5TB with 500GB platters, and the 1TB is the smallest in the F3 line with a 32MB cache. These two attributes combined create an incredibly fast HDD; in fact, in testing it consistently out-performs the 300GB Velociraptor.

[Twigsoffury]

Heheh, well, notsure did say there's already a HDD waiting, but...you make a good point...or made me think of a good point...or something. bah.

Anyways, the point.. The performance of spinning-platter HDDs degrades over time, so you might want to get a new HDD as well, notsure, so that you don't have a massive bottleneck. It's probably only much of an issue if the drive is more than a couple years old, but after spending so much on new components, you don't want to have a HDD slowing you down.

If you do decide to get a new HDD, I would recommend the Samsung F3 1TB (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152185). The F3 series is, to my knowledge, the only drives smaller than 1.5TB with 500GB platters, and the 1TB is the smallest in the F3 line with a 32MB cache. These two attributes combined create an incredibly fast HDD; in fact, in testing it consistently out-performs the 300GB Velociraptor.

Hehe dual 500GB 32MB cache Seagates here.

yea way way way way way way way faster then my old SATA I 250GB drive with 16MB cache. and remarkably faster then my ATA/133 80GB drive (one of the first drives i bought)

hah i run my harddrives into the ground. then keep running them till they are buried in the water table.

I've noticed that cooler hard drives last considerably longer, and have less problems in the long haul.

[notsure]

Looks good. Like crenn said though, get a 6GB (3x2GB) triple channel RAM kit instead. I recommend this one (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820226121) if you can get it in Norway. Same clock, but triple channel and a CAS Latency of 6 instead of 8 (lower is better), for actually a little less. I would rate Mushkin about on the same quality level as Corsair's top shelf stuff.


Unfortunately I can't seem to find any Mushkin memory here, so I'm looking at getting 6GB of Corsair instead

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145255




Heheh, well, notsure did say there's already a HDD waiting, but...you make a good point...or made me think of a good point...or something. bah.

If you do decide to get a new HDD, I would recommend the Samsung F3 1TB (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152185). The F3 series is, to my knowledge, the only drives smaller than 1.5TB with 500GB platters, and the 1TB is the smallest in the F3 line with a 32MB cache. These two attributes combined create an incredibly fast HDD; in fact, in testing it consistently out-performs the 300GB Velociraptor.

As it happens I'm getting 2 of the F3 1TB drives - just hadn't decided to put 1 in hubby's new system or give him the 500GB F1 out of his current system and add both new drives to it (it will become the network file server a duty it's kinda been serving til now anyways).

Although he won't need the space the F3 is definitely faster than the F1 alternative in question, so he may just get the newer drive for the speed.


Looking again at PSU's I've come up with a few alternatives:

Coolermaster Silent Pro Active 850W - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817171048
Corsair TX850 - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139009
Corsair HX850 - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139011

While the HX850 is more expensive it is similar in price to the TX950 I was looking at

[x88x]

For the RAM, the main reason I mentioned the Mushkin is because of its CAS Latency. Trust me, going from 8 to 6 really will make a difference.

For the PSU, personally I would stick with the TX950, especially since you're planning on possibly adding another 5770 later on.

[crenn]

Why not get assistance and order the RAM from the states?

[Twigsoffury]

Don't forget you'll need to overclock or change the Ratio to get that ram to run at 2000mhz on that board you have listed :p