BMAPC Yet another PC build thread (possibly)

[Raven]

My current PC is
ASUS Maximus Formula Republic of Gamers iX38 Socket 775 8 channel audio ATX Motherboard
Intel Core 2 Quad Q9300 2.5 GHz (FSB 1333MHz) Socket 775 L2 6MB Cache Retail Boxed Processor
OCZ 4GB (2x2GB) DDR2 800Mhz/PC2-6400 GOLD XTC Memory Kit CL5(5-5-5-18) x2 (8 gig total)
Sapphire HD 5570 2GB DDR3 DVI VGA HDMI PCI-E Graphics card
A couple of 1tb Samsung spinpoints

Everything but the graphics card is 3 years old, the graphics card was a fairly cheap emergency replacement for my broken HD4890

Anyway, surprisingly it runs both Skyrim and Deux Ex and on ultra with very few problems, a tiny but of close up pop up now and again but oddly it struggles sometimes with world of warcraft on raids, however it's xmas bonus time soon and I will have about £500 left over burning a hole in my pocket.

As the PC is pretty old, if I replace one part I will need to replace it all! Is it worth buying a fairly budget complete PC, ie, processor, motherboard, memory and mid range graphics card or would I get away with spending £300 on a decent new graphics card and another £100 on a solid state HD and get the rest next year some time? Or ofc I could upgrade the PC and then the graphics card at a later date?!?!

I put this together from quick Ebuyer browsing, any issues with it?

1 x Intel i5 760 2.8GHz Socket 1156 8MB L3 Cache Retail Boxed Processor £129.22+vat
1 x Corsair 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 1600MHz XMS3 Memory Kit CL9 1.65V £37.49+vat
1 x Sapphire HD 6950 2GB GDDR5 Dual DVI HDMI DisplayPort PCI-E Graphics Card £195.00+vat
1 x Gigabyte GA-H61M-USB3-B3 H61 Socket 1155 7.1 Channel HD Audio mATX Motherboard £56.88+vat

Total £502.32 inc vat

 

[Deebs]

Why are you replacing it? I would personally upgrade the graphics card and be done with it. My rig is close to yours, Asus Rampage Formula, 8gig RAM and an Intel E8400 (3ghz). My only issue has been graphics so I purchased the Sapphire Toxic 6950 (which is essentially a 6970 for less bucks).

 

[Kryten]

Hmm, that's an old generation i5 - I'd probably keep hold of graphics card until you get a bit more dough, then go for an i5 2500k, decent socket 1155 motherboard and fill it with ram whilst it's cheap. Plus that processor won't even fit that mainboard.

In fact looking at your list I can't see why you'd look at the 760 at all. Ditch it!

 

[Raven]

I'm replacing it now rather than later because the wife is thinking about leaving work and studying full time, or at least taking a teaching assistant job. She is doing a degree through the OU at the moment with the eventual aim of studying towards becoming a teacher. Money will probably be tight if she does so I may not be able to afford it in a years time.

Thanks for the help both, will see whats about after xmas, ebuyer usually have a bit of a sale on.

 

[BloodOmen]

if you're into crossfire you can probably get 2x 6850's at the same price as a decent 6950, as to whats better I have no idea, i'd have thought the crossfire personally tho people have problems with crossfire now and then in new releases.

 

[Gray]

I'm a bit late at noticing this, but seems memory prices have dropped considerably.

Just recieved http://www.kikatek.com/product_info.php?products_id=180736 which cost me £33, the price has gone up £2-3 now in the past few days but i think it's still an awesome bargain.

Going to have to sell my old DDR3 1333 memory when i decide to fit this up in a few days, but yeah.

Really want a new hard drive as well, it's the last piece to my puzzle. Just typical that i need it just as the prices are going through the roof.

 

[BloodOmen]

aye ram is mega cheap at the moment.

 

[Raven]

Had a bit more of a look and come up with this. Any problems? May even go for 16 gig of ram as it is so cheap atm. Little bit more than I wanted to spend because I added an SSD to replace my ageing 250 gig boot drive (I have to further 1tb spin points)

G-Skill 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 1600Mhz RipjawsX Memory Kit CL9 (9-9-9-24) 1.5 £35.34
Intel Core i5 2500K 3.3GHz Socket 1155 6MB Cache Retail Boxed Processor £167.94
Asus P8H67 R3 H67 Socket 1155 8 Channel HD Audio ATX Motherboard £82.14
Sapphire HD 6870 1GB GDDR5 DVI HDMI DisplayPort PCI-E Graphics Card £145.98
Random DVD drive £13.98
Kingston 64GB SSDNOW V100 - SATA-II 2.5" - Read 250MB/s Write 145MB/s £69.99
Kingston 2.5" to 3.5" Hard Drive Bracket and Screws £3.75
Total £519.12

Already have a decent case (cosmos S) and a power supply.

 

[caLLous]

If you're going with a K CPU you will be pissed to discover that you can't overclock it on a H67 board, you need either the P67 (which does without the onboard video capabilities of the 2nd gen i5/i7 line of CPU's) or the Z68 (which allows onboard video AND overclocking) chipsets. Look at the P8P67 or P8Z68 lines from Asus. If you're not fussed about OC'ing then stick with the H67, go for the i5 2500 and save yourself a few bucks.

Otherwise, looks good.

 

[Raven]

Ah right, thanks. looking at motherboards there isn't a massive difference in price so I think I will go for a Z68. I am not that fussed about overclocking at the moment but may do in the future so probably best to keep my options open!

 

[caLLous]

There is a bit of chatter that the Sandybridge CPU's are going to go up in price quite soon, if not already. Apparently AMD is giving up in the enthusiast CPU market so it's going to become a one horse race.

I just ordered some stuff from OcUK this morning and the OEM i7 2700K I bought is now actually £24 cheaper. Sods law I guess, always seems to happen to me though. :'(

 

[Raven]

Ordered the 4870 will order the rest in two weeks

Got a free copy of battlefield 3 too, so I can play it without breaking my rule of not giving EA any money!

 

[caLLous]

Hope you mean the 6870 otherwise you just took a big step backwards.

 

[Raven]

Ah yeah, 6870!

 

[Raven]

Woot. It's arrived. Only ordered it yesterday! The usual good service from Ebuyer.

Now to offload the old system!

 

[Malcolm]

Just built one using a combination of OcUK, Scan and Ebuyer:

Intel i5 2500K@4.6GHz, Asus P8Z68-V PRO, 8GB Corsair Vengeance LP DDR3 PC3-12800C8, 2 x 1GB XFX Radeon HD 6870 BE, 128GB Crucial m4 SATA-3, 1TB WD Caviar Black, 2TB Hitachi Deskstar CoolSpin 5K3000, Antec Twelve Hundred v3, Thermaltake Frio, Antec CP-1000

Thankfully had a spare retail copy of Windows 7 that I bought when it was first available to pre-order.

 

[Raven]

These SSDs are something else. cold to desk top in around 20 seconds.

New PC is a monster.

 

[Kryten]

SSD's have cast aside the problems I had with restarting. "What? Restart now? Fuck you, I'm busy"
Now - "Restart? oooh, ready to go again"
They're phenomenal, and that's just the last gen SATA2 stuff.

 

[caLLous]

Yeah I just got a SATA2 SSD for my laptop (which can only do SATA 1.5gb/s anyway) and it's made a *tremendous* difference. It's like a completely new machine. And to think I was considering retiring this laptop.

 

[ECA]

Yeah, SSDs are pretty much the biggest performance change you'll get on a PC outside of gaming gpus.