New rig

Alright, 3 years have passed since i got the PC i have now, there have been minor modifications here and there ( such as extra fans for airflow, 2nd GPU since i use 2 screens ), but nothing great.

atm im running with a shitty motherboard, an e8400 dualcore processor from intel, a 9600 GT ( which provides my 22 inch screen ) and a 9500 GT ( which is connected to my 2nd, 19 inch screen )

i figured it was time for more, as in, get a new rig that fits my need.
i've been looking around for the past few days and already have decided on the new case, which will be a Coolermaster HAF 912 ( it fits ATX and mini ATX motherboards )

GPU will probably be the GTX 460 HAWK from MSI, but im not sure yet, any suggestions are welcome, however i do not wish to spend over 200 euros for a GPU

so far im doubting between a AMD Processor Phenom II X4 970 Black E, sAM3
or the intel i5 2500k sandey bridge which is 3.3 Ghz, compatible to the i5 i was thinking about the P67 sabretooth motherboard. for AMD that'd be the Asus M4A89TD PRO/USB3,sAM3


Any other suggestions or opinion on the parts i've looked up so far?
so far with these parts id be around 700 euro's or below, and id like to keep it under 650 if possible.

Thx in advance,


ReX

when ot comes to cpu i would choose good quad amd which you can get 3gh under 100 pounds on ebay(athlonX4/PjhenomX4/or any X6, would be good choice, also you will need am3 socket for that) unless you want to spend 200 pounds on just as good intel procesor, which would have similar performance(the i5 2500k is about 200 pounds when athlon is 100).

am3 motherboards are better choice cause if you want to upgrade it later on, amd mainly uses am3 for most cpu's well until they come up with better on but until then am3 is their best socket.while intel changes and upgrades their socket so you will have to buy new motherboard to keep up with good cpu's.

Also dont forget that PSU is just as important and dont go for wattage but the quality. if you have a good psu make sure that a total amout of amp's on +12v rail/s is over 30(the higher the better), remember if you want a good gamin rig never go for cheap psu or stock one's. Corsair,Antec,Thermaltake and enermax are currently best PSU quality products you can get.

once again amd have much cheaper gpu's but for almost same performance. before you go for sli or xcrossfire check that your motherboard has atlest two 2.0/2.1 PCI-E slots running at x16. also as you have dual screens make sure that you buy card/s that can run 2 monitors. aslo gtx 460 is quite good but MSI sux at making good coolers i would personally go for, XFX, ASUS,EVGA or atleast Gigabyte or Zotac,(btw XFX was always one of best brands to choose from.) also did you look at any gtx 465, its a 1gb GDDR5.

dont forget stuff like arctic silver 5 for cpu, aslo good cpu cooler/heatsink, depending on case maybe few more fans. OS will also be needed or atleast live cd to check whether the rig works. other stuff like speakers monitor keyboard and mice you probably got already.You may also want to buy tv tuner card or sound card if your motherboard doesnt have a good one.

sorry if you already know all this just helping and all prices i wrote are in GBP. hope you find this useful, i could type more in but my fingers are hurting now so if you want any more help then just ask and ill try to help.
P.S. feel free to edit me if i made any mistakes

I had the PSU, which is a Cougar's 700W something, from my previous build.
I like the intel and it's easy overclocking possibilities.
For the CPU got the Intel Core i5 2500 (186 euros) because it was a little cheaper then the previous generation's i5 760.
For the motherboard i chose the Gigabyte's GA-P67A-UD4 (160 euros). Also i think i will be RMA-ing the motherboard when the new ones arrive. (I got the motherboard before i found out about the intel's 6 series sata bug)
For cooling i went for the V6GT from Cooler Master (60€). Just because it looked so sexy.
I'm now eyeballing the same case as REX which is the HAF 912 plus at about 75 euros.
If i ever get the money and i hope i will, then my GPU wil probably be the lower end of the sapphire 6900 series cards. Cheapest of which is 250 euros... Damn.
The RAM will probably be a Corsair Dominator 2x2GB kit. That's another 60 euros.
Haven't decided on the HDD yet though. I'd love an SSD for a boot drive but their prices are ridiculous.

The price of all of that will be about 830-850 euros. Which is not bad considering i haven't worked a single day of my life to get it.

{GTB} Energy wrote:...Before you go for sli or xcrossfire check that your motherboard has atlest two 2.0/2.1 PCI-E slots running at x16.

Dual x8 and dual x16 have very little difference in terms of performance. In the future, yeah sure - it's better to get the dual x16 motherboard. But today's games can't utilize all the extra bandwidth of the x16 PCI-E slots.
I'm guessing dual 16x is not worth the extra money.

Um, I got a Sony Vaio

{GTB} URmS wrote:

{GTB} Energy wrote:...Before you go for sli or xcrossfire check that your motherboard has atlest two 2.0/2.1 PCI-E slots running at x16.

Dual x8 and dual x16 have very little difference in terms of performance. In the future, yeah sure - it's better to get the dual x16 motherboard. But today's games can't utilize all the extra bandwidth of the x16 PCI-E slots.
I'm guessing dual 16x is not worth the extra money.

sure what it is its better to spend bit more now to be able just change parts inbetween years without to buy whole new rig. dont worry gran i only got toshiba satellite l350 but got my new cpu to it 2.16 dual

{GTB} Energy wrote:sure what it is its better to spend bit more now to be able just change parts inbetween years without to buy whole new rig.

Graphics solutions get updates every couple of months. So your current highest-end ub3r 1337 pwnmachine might be "old technology" in 6 months.

Or you could get the EVGA Classified SR-2, Slap 4 GTX580's on there, some 48Gigs of RAM, dual Xeon 5600 series processors, a billion watt power supply and 6 SSD's. You will be playing the latest games for 50 years from now.

{GTB} URmS wrote:Or you could get the EVGA Classified SR-2, Slap 4 GTX580's on there, some 48Gigs of RAM, dual Xeon 5600 series processors, a billion watt power supply and 6 SSD's. You will be playing the latest games for 50 years from now.

u can also buy like one of those full hd 3d 100" quad display, and like 1tb ssd for 1200$

lol i appreciate evryones opinions, but after urms's post i feel like were not gonna get much serious replies anymore.
friday some dude with his own computershop is gon stop by and hes gon help me and my parents out.
my parents will probly get my old PC since they dont require something real high end and i get to build myself a new one.
was just gon ask how you guys thought about what i looked up so far, and hoped to get some more info on whether to take intel or AMD. i dont want to be buying a new PC in 2/3 years because its already so much outdated it cant handle the new games n stuff

AMD sockets seem to last longer than Intel's. How old is the AM3 socket now and it's still going? Compared to the LGA1156 which got replaced quite fast.

{GTB} URmS wrote:AMD sockets seem to last longer than Intel's. How old is the AM3 socket now and it's still going? Compared to the LGA1156 which got replaced quite fast.

exactly, and not only that compare the prices of any quad intel to amd. amd never needed some weird socket which is only supported by one chipset, when amd had their hex core on their old am3. basically amd pwnz intel crap

The Intel and AMD prices are:
Intel's 2 cores = AMD's 4 cores
Intel's 4 cores = AMD's 6 cores
Intel's 6 cores = no competition atm.

{GTB} URmS wrote:The Intel and AMD prices are:
Intel's 2 cores = AMD's 4 cores
Intel's 4 cores = AMD's 6 cores
Intel's 6 cores = no competition atm.

and ofcourse not to mention intel will soon try to overcome amd so it will probably come out with new pointless socket and a chipset to support it. i mean looking at it amd is best and it knows what its doin while intel is in its shadow all the time improving this and that. and btw how many sockets did intel make and how many amd did.
( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CPU_socket )

Intel's 6 cores would still beat AMD's 6 cores though.

{GTB} URmS wrote:Intel's 6 cores would still beat AMD's 6 cores though.

well i suppose but when amd released hex core intel released socket p dual core cpu's

If you are going down the AMD processor road then take a look at ATI graphics cards as they work better with AMD chips as AMD own ATI.
I have the ATI HD 6800 and its quick to say the least, but am running an Intel quad as I prefer Intel processors to AMD and ATI cards over NVidia.
Just my personal choice.

radeon was always better than nvidia, and when it comes to cpu i prefer amd

Nvidia beats ATI, ATI beats Nvidia. They take turns in being the fastest graphic solutions. I prefer the Radeon line aswell. Unfortunately I have a GeForce atm :/

OK its decided guys.
this will be my setup:

HAF 922 tower from coolermaster.
M4A89GTB PRO motherboard
AMD phenom X4 @ 3.2 GHz
ASUS ENGTX460 1GB graphix card.
and 2x kingston DDR3 4GB RAM
Scythe Mugen 2 CPU cooler
SL 600 watt powersupply

You won't make it far without a harddisk.

My rig (to be):
CPU: i5 2500 @ 3,3GHz
CPU cooler: Cooler Master V6GT
Temporary GPU: MSI N8400GS
Mobo: GA-P67A-UD4
HDD: WD Caviar Black 500GB Sata 3 (6Gb/s)
PSU: 700W Cougar HEC-700TE 80+ bronze
RAM: CORSAIR DOMINATOR DDR3-1600 CL9 (KIT of 2x2GB)
Case: Cooler Master HAF 912 plus
GPU: AMD Radeon HD 6950
*Items marked in red have not yet been purchased.

hopefully i will start my rig building in june/july as i dont have too much time atm cause of school exams and i still need to get my college placement

{GTB} URmS wrote:You won't make it far without a harddisk.

About that, ill get a 300 Gb HDD @ 10k RPM for bootfiles and games
And another 1 TB HDD @ 7200 RPM for every other random files you would need on your PC.

also it will be the gigabyte version of the 460 GTX instead of the asus version

2 harddisks...
You better get the anti-vibration harddisk stabiliser thingy if you want a half-decent quiet computer...
With all the fans and other stuff i mean. Higher-end PC-s tend to roar quite loud.