New PC ~£500

[Morphius]

Hi all, I'm sorry to venture away from my "Off-Topic" habitat but I have an appeal to you. A while ago on O-T I made a post about building a new computer and was told to wait until new GFX cards came out or something similair?

Well anyway, I assume they're out now and if anyone could help me craft a new Gaming Rig for around the £500 mark! I found out that my pc couldn't even load WAR, let alone play it, so it's time for a revamp!

I'm not fussed about AMD or Intel, i personally don't know the differences etc, any help would be great, gotta get onto War Head-Start lol!!

[Helme]

Intel C2D E8400
Asus P5Q-E
4GB Corsair/Geil/OCZ PC6400(800MHz) memory
ATi Radeon HD4850(or the HD4870 if you want some extra performance for abit more cash)
Samsung Spinpoint F1 500GB
Antec Sonata 3 case and PSU(brilliant set, the PSU is rock solid and the case isn't bad at all)
Throw in any random DVD burner if you don't have one, they are like £15 tops

That's about it, will max games at 1280x1024 with 0 problems whatsoever, about the same on 1650 with the few exceptions of games like Crysis.

[MYstIC G]

No worries Morphius, however I will move this thread into Tech where our resident computer kit bods will no doubt help you further.

[Helme]

http://forums.freddyshouse.com/techi...ew-system.html

A recent thread where Pikeh got the system I and several others recommended as is very happy with it

[Morphius]

thanks Helme, very useful. What type of DVD/RW, IDE or SATA?

[Kryten]

Go with Sata now, get rid of those horrid IDE cables. IDE drives are mostly more expensive now.

[soze]

Coolermaster Elite 330 Black Case With CM eXtreme Power 650W PSU *SPECIAL OFFER* 148683 39 in stock £69.99 £59.56 £69.99 £59.56
PowerColor HD 4850 512MB GDDR3 Dual DVI HDTV Out PCI-E Graphics Card 146428 28 in stock £111.92 £95.25 £111.92 £95.25
Samsung HD502IJ SpinPoint F1 500GB Hard Drive SATAII 7200rpm 16MB Cache - OEM 146252 Out of stock £41.99 £35.73 £41.99 £35.73
Kingston 2gb Kit (2x1gb) Ddr2 800mhz/pc2-6400 Hyperx Memory Non-ecc Cl4 129177 349 in stock £27.99 £23.82 £55.98 £47.64
Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 Socket 775 (3.0GHz) 1333FSB 6MB L2 Cache Retail Boxed Processor 139971 351 in stock £112.21 £95.49 £112.21 £95.49
Asus P5Q PRO P45 Socket 775 8 Channel Audio ATX Motherboard 145751 49 in stock £84.98 £72.32 £84.98 £72.32
Arctic Cooling AC-FRZ-7P Freezer 7 Pro Socket 775 Processor Cooler 105994 587 in stock £13.56 £11.54 £13.56 £11.54
Sony DRU-190S 20X DVD±RW DL & DVD-RAM Serial ATA - Retail Multi Bezel & Nero 142274 49 in stock £15.98 £13.60 £15.98

Cart total inc vat: Cart total ex vat: £506.61

I built this machine last week except i used 1066 ram this case and mobo means you can add a second 4850 money permitting. These are ebuyer prices.

[pikeh]

The system I've recently bought is a beast.

Check the other thread. I went for a Samsung 500gig f1 Spinpoint like Kryten suggested. Got a bit concerned with the lack of a massive ribbon cable, but SATA is the way forward!

[Helme]

Can run a dual HD4850 on the Antec Sonata PSU, it handled tests up to 560W just fine and you can just use an molex>pci-e 6pin adapter, whole system shouldn't need more than 400W anyways.

[Morphius]

oki, well basically I have been looking on ebuyer and I'm enjoying the spec Pikeh bought whats the difference between all the 4850 makes? are some more supreme?

[Morphius]

also, does the case PSU have a sata power cable and a PCI-E power cable?

[Kryten]

All recent power supplies have those as standard: SATA is more widely used than the older molex therefore you don't get quite so many of the older power connectors as you used to. PCI-E power in 6pin is very common, the newer 8 pin ones (used in the higher end cards) are less so but you can easily source adapters to power them regardless; and even then many graphics card manufacturers bundle the adapter with the card

[Helme]

Regarding the HD4850 brands, there are a few differences - mainly that Sapphire uses a custom cooler, the Asus TOP version is overclocked etc. but apart from that it's mainly what they ship with.

I personally got the Sapphire version with the custom cooler, it's running really cold(55" idle compared to the ~70-80" on standard fan, and it doesn't really have that much noise imo). I also got a 2GB USB stick with it, no idea what I'm gonna do with that but meh, suppose its nice to have

I know HIS used to send a screwdriver/flashlight with their cards, Gigabyte usually sends a game and 3D marks is pretty common for ASUS.