• Building a new gaming PC
    45 replies, posted
So, this will be the first pc i've built from scatch. Budget is £800-1000. I've come up with what i think is a pretty good parts list for now, which also allows for some future upgrades when I have the cash. I would be interested in any tips about certain parts, if there are better alternatives, etc. Here's a link to the planned parts: [url]http://www.scan.co.uk/savedbasket/077d31e9d8a5497aa345937b5bfd1f58[/url] I've taken an AMD GPU because I heard that they're better for Source games? Is that true? Also, for games such a League of Legends, World of Warcraft, Dota2 when it comes out.
I would say switch to an i5 2500K, drop down to 4GB of RAM, 750w PSU, and replace the HDD with a Samsung Spinpoint F3. And I don't know a lot about soundcards but afaik motherboard sound is fine for gaming.
that's pretty bad, especially for gaming where an X6, 8GB RAM and lucid hydra will bring you no benefits plus half of that list isn't even in stock [url]http://www.scan.co.uk/savedbasket/8a22967d88b74c609c32758cefb54a05[/url] £1,015.86 with delivery
Except...for the same prices, I had all better items? I had twice the RAM, a better GPU, idk about the processer, I had double the size of hdd... And I really don't like that case. That was my original build, it's basically the same as the one you posted, not as good GPU, but ~£200 cheaper. [url]http://www.scan.co.uk/savedbasket/11600b73efcf4075b2e8a01f4220727b[/url]
You only need 4GB of RAM for gaming, and the 570 is just as good. [editline]10th April 2011[/editline] And yes the 2500K is far better than the 1055T.
[QUOTE=SataniX;29086788]Except...for the same prices, I had all better items? I had twice the RAM, a better GPU, idk about the processer, I had double the size of hdd... And I really don't like that case. That was my original build, it's basically the same as the one you posted, not as good GPU, but ~£200 cheaper. [url]http://www.scan.co.uk/savedbasket/11600b73efcf4075b2e8a01f4220727b[/url][/QUOTE] X6s are worse than even phenom X4s except in specific circumstances like rendering, don't be an idiot and presume more cores means instantly better 4GB is enough for gaming the 570 is about equal to the 6970 the spinpoint F3 is faster and you'll want at least one decent speed HDD in your system, if you run out of space on the F3 buy a slower, larger drive in the future (when they'll be cheaper) and use it for general storage like photos/movies and you should think carefully about the case because the define XL is normally around £130 but recently had a temporary price drop, and fractal make [B]excellent[/B] cases
Mhk. Thanks for your help :) But if I'm using a SSD for Windows/a few programs, why do I need a decent speed HDD? [editline]10th April 2011[/editline] And how temporary is this pricedrop?
because your SSD is only 60GB, enough for windows and a couple of high priority applications (e.g. games you play very often with long load times) a spinpoint F3 will allow you to keep a lot of lower priority games installed without sacrificing too badly on load times I don't know how long the pricedrop will last as I don't remember it being announced, just seeing the drastically reduced prices but ebuyer has already put theirs up to £100 so I don't think it will be too long
Listen to reapaninja, he's one of the best builders in here.
plus the XL is the same price as an R3, where the XL is pretty much a larger version of the R3 keeping them the same price would just be madness
[QUOTE=GoDong-DK;29087484]Listen to reapaninja, he's one of the best builders in here.[/QUOTE] I am, just asking questions. [editline]10th April 2011[/editline] Would [url=http://www.scan.co.uk/products/2gb-xfx-hd-6950-pci-e-21-(x16)-5000mhz-gddr5-gpu-800mhz-1408cores-dl-dvi-i-dvi-hdmi-2x-mdp]this[/url] work instead of the GPU you suggested? I don't like NVIDIA, and most of my games recommend ATI cards.
[QUOTE=SataniX;29088280]Would [url=http://www.scan.co.uk/products/2gb-xfx-hd-6950-pci-e-21-(x16)-5000mhz-gddr5-gpu-800mhz-1408cores-dl-dvi-i-dvi-hdmi-2x-mdp]this[/url] work instead of the GPU you suggested? I don't like NVIDIA, and most of my games recommend ATI cards.[/QUOTE] The 6950 is (quite a bit) cheaper/less powerful than the 6970 and the 570, and you should stop hating on nVidia, ATI is certainly better at lower budgets, but if you're spending this much on a gpu, you should at least consider it. And there is honestly no major difference between the two in terms of price to performance at this level, despite what your games may say.
Mhm, it's just i've heard from several sources that ATI's are better for games on the Source engine? Since i'll be using it for Garry's Mod, L4D2, League of Legends, Dota2, etc...most of them are on the Source engine. But hey, if that's not true, then Nvidia's fine. But that Nvidia card has CUDA :( Aargh which to choose :(
Seriously, you're not going to have any problems with Source games at this price point. Every new card (afaik) out today can absolutely max source games at 150 fps minimum.
Argh, I have conflicting advice ;p [quote]Forget the GTX 570. nVidia has really been disappointing--their recent generations have been more like Pentium 4 than Pentium III. That is to say they've run hot, expensive, and offer pretty terrible performance per watt. Stick with an HD6950-2GB. Also reconsider on RAM; 4GB is kinda shooting yourself in the foot. I seriously doubt you're an established overclocker so high-speed RAM won't add much and already quantity trumps quality.[/quote] Ok, so how's this? Then i'll stop bothering you guys for tonight. [url]http://www.scan.co.uk/savedbasket/216941fa50e645f5a1c5aadaf63eb69f[/url]
you must have pretty low expectations of a £260+ card if you think it will struggle with Source the overall FPS differences between a 570 and 6970 amount to a tiny, unnoticeable amount, and the 570 is cheaper not even taking extra features into account the 570 is the obvious choice, and even then unless you'll be gaming over three monitors with a single card the 570 is still the better choice
[QUOTE=SataniX;29089798]Argh, I have conflicting advice ;p Ok, so how's this? Then i'll stop bothering you guys for tonight. [url]http://www.scan.co.uk/savedbasket/216941fa50e645f5a1c5aadaf63eb69f[/url][/QUOTE] What's the source of that quote?
[QUOTE=SataniX;29089798]Argh, I have conflicting advice ;p Ok, so how's this? Then i'll stop bothering you guys for tonight. [url]http://www.scan.co.uk/savedbasket/216941fa50e645f5a1c5aadaf63eb69f[/url][/QUOTE] who is this advice from because clearly they've never heard of benchmarks the 6950 competes with the 560, and 2GB VRAM won't be of use over 1.2GB unless you're using eyefinity to play over three monitors and who gives a shit about performance per watt, turn off a few lights and you've matched the difference and they have no idea what they're talking about with the RAM, I'm sitting here with firefox using 600MB, steam xfire and a bunch of other standard shit and I don't even bother closing anything when I open a game because if I'm very unlucky I'll break 70% of my 4GB used
[QUOTE=reapaninja;29090044]who is this advice from because clearly they've never heard of benchmarks the 6950 competes with the 560, and 2GB VRAM won't be of use over 1.2GB unless you're using eyefinity to play over three monitors and who gives a shit about performance per watt, turn off a few lights and you've matched the difference and they have no idea what they're talking about with the RAM, I'm sitting here with firefox using 600MB, steam xfire and a bunch of other standard shit and I don't even bother closing anything when I open a game because if I'm very unlucky I'll break 70% of my 4GB used[/QUOTE] You don't know what I do with PC's. I usually have LoL on one monitor, another game on the other (Usually WoW), Firefox, Fraps, Sony Vegas all running in the background. My current PC really doesn't like it. I think that will be ok for 4gb RAM, though, right?
then why not tell us instead of presuming that from "gaming PC" we can know all that
[url=http://runescape.salmoneus.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=345188]Here's the source, btw.[/url] [editline]10th April 2011[/editline] [QUOTE=reapaninja;29093222]then why not tell us instead of presuming that from "gaming PC" we can know all that[/QUOTE] That is basically a gaming PC, but yeah, I should've told you ;p
Asking for tech advice on a runescape forum may not be the best decision. If you insist on having a million instances of everything open, go ahead and get 8 GB
[QUOTE=acidcj;29093550]Asking for tech advice on a runescape forum may not be the best decision. If you insist on having a million instances of everything open, go ahead and get 8 GB[/QUOTE] Who cares about the forum?
people who play runescape aren't the sort who know about hardware or have the need to know about hardware really doesn't help that it's a fan site either people telling you to buy X6s and green HDDs, hilarious [editline]10th April 2011[/editline] and the guy who says the 5__s are expensive, also hilarious price/performance differences between the main 5__s and 6___s are minimal at best, except for a few like the 6790 and 550 which aren't worth looking at in any circumstance [editline]10th April 2011[/editline] oh and fyi I'm referring to runescape being a low requirement game before you start getting pissy about people not liking games you like I don't care about RS, all I'm concerned with is that it's hardly metro 2033 and this is one of the main reasons it has such a large userbase
[QUOTE=reapaninja;29093820]people who play runescape aren't the sort who know about hardware or have the need to know about hardware really doesn't help that it's a fan site either people telling you to buy X6s and green HDDs, hilarious [editline]10th April 2011[/editline] and the guy who says the 5__s are expensive, also hilarious price/performance differences between the main 5__s and 6___s are minimal at best, except for a few like the 6790 and 550 which aren't worth looking at in any circumstance [editline]10th April 2011[/editline] oh and fyi I'm referring to runescape being a low requirement game before you start getting pissy about people not liking games you like I don't care about RS, all I'm concerned with is that it's hardly metro 2033 and this is one of the main reasons it has such a large userbase[/QUOTE] So? Atleast 2 of the guys on the topic there run successful businesses selling high-end gaming PCs... [editline]10th April 2011[/editline] Anyways, ignoring all that: IS THIS DECENT ENOUGH? I don't want it to be perfect, but... [url]https://secure.scan.co.uk/aspnet/Shop/SavedBasket/Show.aspx?id=216941fa50e645f5a1c5aadaf63eb69f[/url] [editline]10th April 2011[/editline] This might be a stupid question, but this is my first time buying parts like this, will I need to buy all the cables separately?
if you're actually going to use it (e.g. running 2 games and video rendering at the same time) then get two of [url]http://www.scan.co.uk/products/4gb-corsair-xms3-ddr3-pc3-12800-%281600%29-non-ecc-unbuffered-cas-9-9-9-24-xmp-165v[/url] and get the 570 [img_thumb]http://tpucdn.com/reviews/HIS/Radeon_HD_6970/images/perfrel.gif[/img_thumb] £260 vs £275 for the same performance
Do you need an OS with that? And generally the cables are included.
and alienware is a "successful business selling high-end gaming PCs", that doesn't mean they know half a shit about price/performance when they're selling 12+GB RAM to kids who can't do enough basic research to find out that for their use it's just a pointless number [editline]10th April 2011[/editline] [QUOTE=SataniX;29094107]This might be a stupid question, but this is my first time buying parts like this, will I need to buy all the cables separately?[/QUOTE] SATA cables are included with the mobo, front panel connectors are attached to the case (read the mobo manual to know which jumpers to put these one), power related cables are included with the PSU [editline]10th April 2011[/editline] if you need to drop the price with the extra RAM, drop the cooler to a Hyper 212+
[QUOTE=acidcj;29094316]Do you need an OS with that? And generally the cables are included.[/QUOTE] No need for OS. [editline]10th April 2011[/editline] [QUOTE=reapaninja;29094372]and alienware is a "successful business selling high-end gaming PCs", that doesn't mean they know half a shit about price/performance when they're selling 12+GB RAM to kids who can't do enough basic research to find out that for their use it's just a pointless number [editline]10th April 2011[/editline] SATA cables are included with the mobo, front panel connectors are attached to the case (read the mobo manual to know which jumpers to put these one), power related cables are included with the PSU [editline]10th April 2011[/editline] if you need to drop the price with the extra RAM, drop the cooler to a Hyper 212+[/QUOTE] How many SATA cables are included? I'll need 2 for the hdd/ssd, one for dvd drive. [editline]10th April 2011[/editline] K, with those recommended changes: [url]http://www.scan.co.uk/savedbasket/4e0ffc6121aa4e5bb7301105e1b9a5dc[/url]
[url]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ay6v5D7vODw[/url] at 3:22 [url]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xjRwFJ_C_0[/url] at 1:00 I'm not sure if you'd be getting 2 or 4 SATA cables, probably 4 though.
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