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Build for under £700

W

-WX

n00b
Joined
Jan 24, 2010
Messages
7
So my 350w PSU has taken out my computer parts, including the motherboard. I had recently plugged in a new 1tb HDD from Samsung (HD103SJ) and it ran for 2 months before causing multiple blue screens of death. About 5 weeks ago, the HDD stopped working and I get the occassional BSOD and just 3 days ago, my computer refuses to start, not even able to get to BIOS.

I am now looking to get new parts for my PC after that horrible incident.

1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc
PC gaming, 3D modelling and animation, web browsing, Adobe package, 3D rendering and encoding
2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?
<£700 incl tax and shipping
3) Where do you live?
United Kingdom
4) What exact parts do you need for that budget? CPU, RAM, case, etc. Please be very specific.
CPU, Motherboard, RAM, GFX card, PSU
5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.
Western Digital 500gb HDD, 1x DVD rom, 1x DVD burner, Realtek ethernet network card
6) Will you be overclocking?
Mildly or not at all
7) What size monitor do you have and/or plan to have?
I currently have 2x 19" monitors with max res of 1440x900
8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?
ASAP
9) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? etc.
I am not familiar with these features so whatever is fine.
10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license? If so, what OS? 32bit or 64bit?
Yes, I have a Windows 7 pro 64bit key


I have been looking at these hardwares, please advise;


Direct links to each:
RAM:
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/4GB-...(1333MHz)-240-Pin-Unbuffered-CAS-9-9-9-24-DHX
PSU:
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/650W...-Eff-Triple-plus12V-Rails-80mm-Silent-Fan-PSU
Motherboard:
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Asus...-DDR3-2000-1866-1800-SATA-3Gb-s-SATA-RAID-ATX
GFX card:
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/896M...DR3-GPU-625MHz-Shader-1242MHz-216-CoresBatman
CPU:
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Inte...halem-266GHz-QPI-48GT-s-Cache-8MB-130W-Retail
 
Thanks panta and enginurd.

I had a look at the overclockers website and saw that they do overclocked bundles. Are these guaranteed safe and come with a warranty shall it cause damage to my hardware?

Here's an updated build:


I've decided to go with the overclocked quad core instead of the i7, as it is a little costly. I also thought it was a better idea to have a higher psu, so went for the 650w.

Thoughts? Are all these components going to be compatible? :)
 
You've chosen a Q8400 over an i5 750 because you said the i7/i5 is costly, even though the Q8400 build you have above costs more? Get the i5. Also, overclockers are having a laugh there with their 'overclocked' bundles. They're charging you for something that is easy to do yourself, and the warranty on said overclocked CPU is worthless so long as you have some common sense.
 
Last edited:
Ok.

I have compared the i5 overclocked bundle - to what would be if I were to manually buy those parts and it works out about £50 cheaper.

Here's the new i5 build:


I have included the cooler like in the "overclocked bundle", and to be extra safe I'll just overclock mine to 3.2 ghz. How does that sound?
 
Well it would be very silly to spend £65 on a starter watercooling kit and only overclock 500 MHz (which would result in minimal performance gains). If you are not comfortable with overclocking, which certainly seems to be the case, then run it at stock speeds with the provided Intel CPU cooler. The i5 is a powerful CPU; you don't need to overclock it for good results.

Personally I think you should put the £65 towards an ATi 5850.
 
For all your modelling/rendering I think you need to be concentrating on CPU and lots of memory, so i'd go with an i7 920, a cheap X58 like an Asus P6T SE and a 6GB (3x2) RAM kit with the possibility of adding another later.
I'm pretty sure those apps are accelerated by CUDA GPUs too (correct me if I'm wrong someone?) so you'll want an nVidia card with a decent amount of memory - such as the "Palit GeForce GTS 250 Green 1024MB" on Overclockers for only £86. You could upgrade this later if you wanted better gaming performance.
You don't need any more than about 500/550W power supply for a setup like this, e.g. the Corsair VX 550W.

Links:
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CP-280-IN
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-332-AS
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-130-OC
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-121-OK
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-014-CS
 
I agree with Concentric, your original build (i7/x58/gtx260) was better than your latest build (i5/p55/hd4890). I'd definitely suggest sticking with i7/x58 and an NVIDIA card, mainly for CUDA.

Core i5/i7 CPUs have turbo boost, so they overclock themselves if needed and safe. While its a modest OC, it should be good enough for your needs, so dont worry about an exotic cooler. If you want to OC yourself, pickup something like the Cooler Master Hyper 212+ or CoGage True Spirit instead (assuming they're much cheaper than the Corsair H50).
 
Thanks guys.

I'll go for the i7 build then :), in regards to power supply, isn't it worth getting the Corsair 650w just to be safe and be sure that I can add more components in future without it crashing on my pc again, like it did before? The last thing I want now is for another psu blowup incident, destroying everything.
 
Both of your choices are good, Corsair TX and Antec Signature. Another good choice would be the Antec TP New, if they have any, or the Corsair HX, if you want semi-modular/modular.
 
-WX said:
Thanks guys.

I'll go for the i7 build then :), in regards to power supply, isn't it worth getting the Corsair 650w just to be safe and be sure that I can add more components in future without it crashing on my pc again, like it did before? The last thing I want now is for another psu blowup incident, destroying everything.
Click to expand...

That's not a bad idea if you are thinking that you will be upgrading the GPU at some point, go for it.

Let us know how it goes.
 
From a lot of reviews, they are saying they are overclocking the i7 920 to 4.0 ghz without problems. I am a complete newbie at overclocking but I do love the idea of it. Would I need to get any cooling system if I intend to boost it up to 3.0 ghz or should I just not bother?

Is there a software I can install to check what temperatures or volts my pc is currently using to monitor the status, etc?

Thanks guys, will be purchasing tonight, hopefully :).
 
If you want to OC past what TurboBoost will do, then yes, you'll need an aftermarket cooler. Look at something similar to the Cooler Master Hyper 212+ or CoGage True Spirit.

To monitor temps, you can use speedfan, CoreTemp, RealTemp, etc.
 
Here is my lineup so far:



The Corsair TX 650W is out of order, so I chose the Antec Signature instead. I am assuming both are solid PSU's from the suggestions.

One last thing - regarding the graphics card.

It says:
Display Connectors: 1 HDMI, 1 Dual-Link DVI-I & 1 VGA

I currently have 2 Acer monitors with VGA outputs. I also have 2 VGA-DVI adapters which was used to plug into my previous gfx card which was the 8600 GT. Will this new GTX260 be able to work with my existing monitors? Sorry if it sounds stupid, but I just wanted to be sure everything will work fine :)
 
-WX said:
One last thing - regarding the graphics card.

It says:
Display Connectors: 1 HDMI, 1 Dual-Link DVI-I & 1 VGA

I currently have 2 Acer monitors with VGA outputs. I also have 2 VGA-DVI adapters which was used to plug into my previous gfx card which was the 8600 GT. Will this new GTX260 be able to work with my existing monitors? Sorry if it sounds stupid, but I just wanted to be sure everything will work fine :)
Click to expand...

You should be able to use one of your VGA-DVI adaptors on the DVI-I port to give you the two VGAs you need.
 
Cool, thanks for all your help guys.

Will let you know how it goes when I get it.
 
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