I need a new rig...

Blew out my old PSU and Motherboard...

Compared to the cost of repairs, the age of my current build (9800, first gen Quad core) and available money (got to spend that student loan somehow), its cheaper and better in the long run to simply buy a new computer.

The problem is, I have really no clue what spec I should be looking for, what works with what and how long it will last before needing to upgrade again.

Games I end up playing are the likes of ArmA 2 (soon to be 3) Battlefield 3 and Crysis series. Oh, and PR of cause.

I have had a look around on a range of sites and listed some builds, but I really wouldn't mind some feedback on them before dropping a maximum of £1400 on something that is going to be rubbish:

1st option (custom build)

Case PCS MAELSTROM T900 BLACK GAMING CASE
Processor (CPU) AMD BULLDOZER EIGHT CORE FX-8120 (3.10GHz/8MB CACHE/AM3+)
Motherboard ASUS® CROSSHAIR V FORMULA: AM3+, 3-WAY SLI/CROSSFIREX, ROG
Memory (RAM) 8GB SAMSUNG DUAL-DDR3 1333MHz (2 X 4GB)
Graphics Card 2GB AMD RADEON™ HD7850 - DVI,HDMI,2 mDP - DX® 11, Eyefinity 4 Capable
2nd Graphics Card 2GB AMD RADEON™ HD7850 - DVI,HDMI,2 mDP - DX® 11, Eyefinity 4 Capable
3rd Graphics Card NONE
Memory - 1st Hard Disk 1TB 3.5" SATA-III 6GB/s HDD 7200RPM 32MB CACHE
1st Hard Disk Partitions 80GB, 12920GB
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive 12x BLU-RAY ROM DRIVE, 16x DVD ±R/±RW (£52)
Power Supply CORSAIR 850W ENTHUSIAST SERIES™ TX850 V2-80 PLUS® BRONZE (£99)
Processor Cooling TITAN FENRIR EVO EXTREME HEATPIPE CPU COOLER (£39)
Fan Controller NZXT Sentry 2 Fan Controller with upto 5 Fitted Case Fans
Sound Card ONBOARD 8 CHANNEL (7.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Facilities 10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT - AS STANDARD ON ALL PCs
USB Options 6 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL (MIN 2 FRONT PORTS) AS STANDARD
Operating System Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit w/SP1 - inc DVD & Licence

Total = £1268 incl assembly

2nd option

http://www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/hp-pho...64374-pdt.html

3rd option

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showpr...40&subcat=1270

Any help or advice from anyone will be appreciated!!!

1400 is a s**t load to be honest, you could get something that won't struggle with anything current and future (2 years) for a grand imo. Save the 400 and upgrade/SLI your GFX in a couple of years

Im not totally up to date, but I'd say, dont bother with AMD at all, 8 cores is no use as most stuff still isn't multi-threaded and won't take advantage of it. Something Intel with the ability to reach a higher clock speed and 4 cores (8 virtual) will be much better for current generation gaming. The new ivybridge cpus have recently come out i think, not sure how good they are, but I know the sandybridge i5 2500K has been THE gaming processor for the last year or so, they are HUGE value for money

Don't skimp on PSU. These pre-built customs aren't usually that good a deal, but OCuk do decent overclocked CPU/MB/RAM combos. build the rest yourself, its a fun little project and you have a larger range of options. also, do plenty of research, do you want it to be silent? read reviews of the things you plan to buy.

DISCLAIMER - all/some of the above may be completely wrong

I think nixy keeps up to date with all this stuff though, so his input is probably worth more

Check out my thread I made => https://nwa-clan.darkbb.com/t6500-new-pc-need-opinions

Might help you decide on some things

You're quite right in what you're saying. Cap

The current AMD Bulldozer 8cores have pretty lousy performance, both in games and with any other tasks. Then there's the fact that most games have only started 'seriously' supporting dualcore processors in.. 2010~ish. There are the odd new games that actually support quadcores (those with new game engines, like BF3 and a few other titles), but most games do not benefit from more than 2 cores. (edit: though mind you that they will become more readily available in the coming 2-3 years)

The i5-2500k (older) and the i5-3570k (newest) intel processors are probably best value-for-money for gaming right now. They are fast, relatively easy on the power-requirements and they are nice overclockers. They do require Z77 motherboards though, which can be quite expensive, depending on the gadgets you get on your board.

While that FORMULA V board you picked for the AMD processor looks cool, it's very much overpriced. £193.69 ? What do you want to do with it ?

Something like this might work better:
Bundle, CPU, Mobo, RAM, This one. £330
PSU Corsair 650W £70
GPU: ASUS GTX 670 DC II £340
SSD: Crucial M4 64GB £61
HDD: Any random harddisk you want. 2TB is about £80
Cooler: Mugen 3 £43

Then it's a matter of preference on the case. But this, as it is, costs you around £925.

What you still might need:
Extra fans for your case.
A fancontroller if you -really- must. It's definitely not needed, but you might like some peace and quiet at times.
A dedicated soundcard. But only if you have a proper good headset/speaker set, and you're a major audiophile.


Edit:
What I can say about this setup?

The Mugen 2 rev B and it's younger (newer) brother, the Mugen 3 have pretty much been the at the top of the price/performance/noise level for years. Sure, there are more quiet ones, or cooler ones, but you pay a lot more for them. For example, my Noctua DH-14 is better than the Mugen both noise/performance wise, but it costs 20-25 pounds more.

The ASUS DC II cooler is a bit more expensive than most other types of coolers on graphics cards. However, they can produce up to 10-15 (and in some extreme cases even 20) decibels less noise than most stock/aftermarket coolers. Add to that, that they keep the cards very cool as well (when I'm playing a game like PR, my card runs at 40 degrees and 20% of maximum fanspeed), and you have a lovely, quiet, graphics card with a lot of potential for overclocking as well.

Do not buy the AMD FX procesors they are s**t - i was looking at something similar to your build and I came up with getting an intel i7 either
the i7-3820 3.60GHz (Sandybridge-E) i7-2700K 3.50GHz (Sandybridge) i7-3770S 3.10GHz (Ivybridge)

the 3820 Sandybridge-E (socket 2011) allows you to use quad channel ram, the other two are tri channel maximum (i think).

for mobo i was looking at the asus sabertooth ones.
For graphics i would say go with a single card or SLi - crossfire is a pain in the ass, not all games use it and it can cause problems - therefore i would say either go with a single Nvidia 680, or go with a single Ati 7950

Your PSU looks good especially for single GFX card, but might be a bit of a push with dual GFX

Big power to stay future proof. A dexent case for aorflow. An overclocked bundle. Mobo ram and cpu/ cooler hdd and cd drives of choice. For sound if you dont want onboard. Asus xonar £30 just as good as any top end creative card i think


Now for graphics... Tottally ypur choice. Check guru 3D for reveiws

Depends what you want to do with your PC really, Delta. If it's just for gaming, and not so much powercomputing (like rendering videos), you're better off with the i5 3570k.

The 2011 platform is nice, but has not proven itself a worthy rival to the 1155 Sandy/Ivybridge platform. Motherboards are expensive (£250 +), and quadchannel, again, is not needed unless you do heavy computing duties such as calculations or rendering.

The difference between the i5-3750k and the i7-3770k is mainly just the hyperthreading (and the slightly higher stock speeds). Hyperthreading is also not needed for gaming, since only very few games actually support it.

I'm not saying it's not an option. If you want to spend the extra money on tiny power increases, that's a valid choice. It is definitely something I do when looking for my own PC components. But when offering advice to other people.. when it's concerning their money.. I go for best value for money

true nixy, hence why I said what I was looking at given the fact I have a similar budget and an old rig as well, and I am planning on future proofing mine for the next 3-5years (by which time more games will support hyperthreading hopefully). My advice was mainly dont buy AMD FX and there is no need for dual graphics.

However, for value for money the below looks quite good:

	"Krypton Z77 665i" Intel Core i5 3570K 3.40GHz @ 4.40GHz DDR3 Ivybridge Overclocked Bundle		£400.00 (£333.33)	£400.00 (£333.33)
Options applied to the above product: Samsung Green (MV-3V4G3D/US) 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz 30nm Dual Channel Kit			£50.39 (£41.99)	£50.39 (£41.99)
	EVGA GeForce GTX 670 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card (02G-P4-2670-KR)		£319.99 (£266.66)	£319.99 (£266.66)
	Corsair Graphite Enthusiast Bundle		£310.98 (£259.15)	£310.98 (£259.15)
	Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (WD1002FAEX)		£89.99 (£74.99)	£89.99 (£74.99)
	OCZ Vertex 3 60GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive (VTX3-25SAT3-60G)		£70.99 (£59.16)	£70.99 (£59.16)

Total is £1254.94 incl shipping (all from overclockers.co.uk)

EDIT: realised i had missed the optical drive out:
LG 10x BluRay-RW / 16 x DVD±RW Lightscribe Drive - £70

A lot of confusing tech talk being thrown around here...

I should state that I have no clue how to assemble a PC and the only shop in town is a rip off. Hence why I am currently looking at custom builds online.

Whats the difference between a SSD and a HDD? Never heard of an SSD before.

I was about to say.. Nobody has mentioned SSD's (see you have delta) but you should deffo get one! They are super fast, and nowadays sometimes you're bottleneck is HDD (at least when it comes to start-ups/loading etc)

The reason people are looking at buying separately is because things are a lot cheaper that way. Tbh building a PC just involves a lot of screws into a lot of holes and a lot of plugs into sockets (most if not all sockets are moulded so it only accepts the right plug).

Personally I have no idea how much shops would charge to build a PC if you gave them all of the components and they just had to literally build it but i would guess 3-6hours labour.

SSD are solid state drives - they have no moving parts (hence solid state) and therefore have read/write speeds of 500Mb/s - they are basically useful for loading your OS and most played/highest demanding games on and leaving the rest (documents, other games, films, music, porn) on a HDD

A normal Hard Disk Drive (a load of disks spinning on a platter with a read arm that moves over them) and so are more fragile and also much slower.

Confidence putting it together is simply my problem with PC's. Though here is another build list I have put together based around Intel I5's:

Case InWIN BLACK DRAGON RIDER GAMING CASE
Processor (CPU) Intel® Core™i5 Quad Core Processor i5-3570K (3.4GHz) 6MB Cache
Motherboard ASUS® P8Z77-V: PCI-E 3.0 READY, WIFI, SLI, CROSSFIREX
Memory (RAM) 8GB KINGSTON HYPER-X GENESIS DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz, X.M.P (2 x 4GB KIT)
Graphics Card 2GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 670 - 2 DVI, HDMI, DP - 3D Vision Ready
Memory - 1st Hard Disk 90GB KINGSTON HYPERX 3K SSD, SATA 6 Gb/s (upto 555MB/sR | 510MB/sW)
2nd Hard Disk 1TB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD1002FAEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive 24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
Power Supply CORSAIR 650W ENTHUSIAST SERIES™ TX650 V2-80 PLUS® BRONZE (£69)
Processor Cooling TITAN FENRIR EVO EXTREME HEATPIPE CPU COOLER (£39)
Fan Controller NONE
Sound Card Creative Sound Blaster® Audigy™ SE (£19)
Network Facilities 10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT - AS STANDARD ON ALL PCs
USB Options 6 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL (MIN 2 FRONT PORTS) AS STANDARD
Operating System Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit w/SP1 - incDVD & Licence

Don't forget to hook up your SSD to the correct SATA port Or else you will lose speed (you need the 6gbps one or SATA 3)

out of interest how much did that come to roughly??

also, have a look at computerplanet.co.uk - i have had 3 pc's from them (me, parents and cousin's) and they are all working brilliantly *touches wood*

kerrermanisNL wrote:Don't forget to hook up your SSD to the correct SATA port Or else you will lose speed (you need the 6gbps one or SATA 3)

Ermm.... what?

Delta wrote:out of interest how much did that come to roughly??

Including the build, £1282

Are you going to build this yourself Dobbeh?

No I am not.

Ah n/m then

damn I feel lost... am I the only one who reed the title and thought about something like this ?

Alchemist wrote:damn I feel lost... am I the only one who reed the title and thought about something like this ?

Yes

Dobbeh mate, building a PC is a piece of piss, what delta says is true, most things only fit in their designated spot anyway and im sure you can work a screwdriver

There are a ton of helpful guides all over the net, with pictures that will help. I built one when i was 15 and i was shocked at how easy it was even then. once you know how it goes together, its easy to upgrade instead of paying the extortionate prices that shops charge for approx 15 minutes of labour

all i would say about hard drives is...


Get a SSD say a 250gb max (imo) and put windows, pr, fave games and newest games on here


get a 1tb, split it into 2 partions, one for all your games, steam downloads, web downloads etc the other for whatever you want, fraps n co

then have your old (tyhe one your using now) hdd as your backup (installed) once you have taken off anything you have to keep handy ( docs, pics etc)

just remeber your starting fresh, all drivers however tedious, goto the motherboard manufactures website, get the lastets realtek ethernet drivers and or onboard sounds

i'm sure there is scope within this clan for someone to think about maybe doing a reference thread that could be updated when people have done research and gained personal experience of parts and or packages.

perhaps the same could be done for software (whether free or bought) as well.

sort of like a library for PC related stuff.

also a library of links to good companies (and ones to avoid for that matter) would be very useful i'm sure.

google is your friend yes but personal experience and proper knowledge are far more preferable.



looks at nixy.......

think about a sticky (or series of stickies, mobo's, GPU's CPU's etc etc) in tech section were the main author edits the OP when people give advice etc etc.

just a thought as there is some very real talent about this sh1t in this clan...

looks at nixy.......

Could do, I suppose.

Can look into several builds for several budgets. But I don't think there's that many people that need new builds constantly, right?

Anyhow, a reference guide is always nice, and I don't mind typing stuff up.

maybe give each part a low budget, medium budget and high budget version, eg for GFX, sub £200 (or equal ammount in other currency), £200-£350 or £400 and £400 and above. And maybe have a top 5 or 10 or whatever in each price bracket. I think separate areas for different components allows people to browse through and find what they want to spend money on and which bits they want to spend less on.

Things like pro's and con's of SLi/CrossFire, recommended sellers (and sellers to avoid), review section (so people who have purchased something can review it if they want and say pros/cons and value for money) would also be good.

nice one nixy, you're the man !!

some 'how to' articles would be well recieved as well, i'm thinking 'overclocking', 'game architecture and your hardware' that sort of thing.

i'm sure Orford could inject some of his extensive wisdom into this mini project.

I need new one too, my laptop just went crazy. Complete wipe (format + reinstalation of windows) didnt help, dmp files tell me complete BS, must be a hardware problem.

to be honest, there is a lot of this stuff online, always updated, we could put together a sticky post with a bunch of links to useful stuff?

This website updates these articles every month or so, so they are always relevant
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/gaming-cpu-review-overclock,review-32466.html

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/overclock-radeon-hd-7970-core-i5,3210.html

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-graphics-card-review,3107.html

Their forums have a lot of interesting guides for building and overclocking

Gone and ordered the second custom build. Came to a total of £1100 after some blagging. Should have it by next Friday latest.

Will post back here when it arrives and my initial thoughts.

From what you've seen if I wanted to run Arma 3 at High-specs, what is the minimum required to spend?

A lot

What we talking here in numbers?

No less than 800 quid

If I know anything about how the current ArmA engine runs, it'll be very hard on your processor unless you 'force' the game to use your graphics card instead. Sadly, the only way you can effectively force this is by playing with high settings. This goes for ArmA 2.. obviously I can't speak for ArmA 3 yet

Bohemia already semi confirmed that you'll need a quadcore CPU to effectively run the game (dual core could still do it, but might struggle with physics calculations if I am to guess), and a graphics card with a minimum of 896MB VRAM, where more than 1GB is recommended.

If you take a look here, I think the 1000 pound rig would easily run the game with proper settings. The 800 one will still be able to run it, but I do think you'll have to cut in especially the view/render distance and the quality of the textures.

Oh, and windows XP is no longer supported either.. hmm.

It's finally here!!!!

I have started it up and currently installing BF3 as we speak and downloading PR and ArmA.

So far, it runs incredibly quiet considering the amount of fans present. It has also scored a brilliant 7.9 on the Windows experience thing, while my old PC only just got 4.8 xD

And here are some pics

if that was in my bedroom i think it would give me nightmares !

looks like a beast inside though, nice one

Also forgot to add my first gameplay and benchmark results:

Just got off my first game of BF3. Average FPS at full resolution with Ultra settings was 65. GPU Temps under load hit around 67 Celsius (about 31 idle) and CPU was at a cool 40 Celsius throughout (12 Celsius at idle!!!).

ArmA 2 benchmarks at full resolution and almost full view distance had an average of 30fps, GPU temps at 71 Celsius while CPU was at about 42 Celsius on average. Though I think I will tone the resolution down a bit for that extra FPS boost while playing.

Safe to say, I am very impressed!!!

speedhound1-WYD- wrote:if that was in my bedroom i think it would give me nightmares !

looks like a beast inside though, nice one

Why thank you! The good thing about this case is that I can switch the LED's off if I wanted too, so no problems letting it run overnight.
The camera by the way didn't pick up the decals and colours very well, but all LED's run blue (even the CPU cooler and motherboard). Defiantly going to recommend the guys who built it to everyone

Set the view distance to 5Km in arma 2 every thing else on high. Turn off V-sync. See what you get then I get 45-55 fps running at 1650x1080

nice one mate, I have the same akasa venom fans in my case - they are amazingly quite for the sheer ammount of air they drag through!!