[Off Topic] Building a computer

Most games need windows don't they?

 

Did anyone else think this was going to be some crazy guy trying to build a computer in his shed or something?

 

I just get confused seeing what components are compatible together, but I found out that AMD Phenom for example needed a motherboard with AM3 sockets.

 

Yeah true I imagine most new games won't work on Ubuntu, unless theyre supported by Wine.

 

bit like my wife then

 

This is a good place as well for self building

http://www.quietpc.com/

Or try www.dell.co.uk less headaches and never had a problem in 15 years of buying pcs from them

 

want a fast pc? splash out and get one of these http://www.ebuyer.com/268693-corsair-120gb-force-3-ssd-cssd-f120gb3-bk-cssd-f120gb3-bk not much storage space but hey - whack one of these http://www.ebuyer.com/237908-samsun...tb-hard-drive-sata-5400rpm-32mb-cache-hd204ui next to it to store your videos/music.

ssd in action - feckin amazing [video=youtube;Hk4fXsUZQWw]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hk4fXsUZQWw[/video]

get one of these http://www.ebuyer.com/198349-amd-ph...ion-3-2ghz-socket-am3-6mb-cache-hdz555wfgmbox - crackin value - comes as a dual core but with the right mobo and if you are lucky it can be unlocked to 4 cores and v easily overclocked.

want a quiet pc? stick one of these in http://www.quietpc.com/gb-en-gbp/products/psus-601-1100/nes-xzero-psus i have one and the fan NEVER comes on!

top it off with one of these http://www.quietpc.com/gb-en-gbp/products/cpucoolers/ninja3

go for an antec case and you will have a very fast, quiet pc - buy a long hdmi lead - hook it up to a 50" plasma and you have youself a htpc!

 

I hoped

 

I Build my own PCs regularly and may i make the first suggestion NEVER EVER buy cheap on the PSU. The PSU is the most important part of the computer, cheap ones never really make it to their stated power and can go pop easily. I wouldn't get that even as a back up. Whats you're price limit? Also you may want to have a look at Scan.co.uk do some price checks i managed to save around 50-60quid buying from their instead of another site.

 

Ideally around £800, but will go an extra £100 if I have to.

Ideally I'd like 8gb RAM since I already got 4gb. Would prefer a decent card aswell like a GTX 550/60 as they are in their £100's. Currently got a 9600 GT.

 

560Ti is a decent card, i got a 460 when they first came out and the price to performance is amazing, for an NVida don't look any lowe than a x60 card for gaming, the 650 etc are more for casual gaming on crappy old games or ones with low graphics. £800 you will be able to get you a decent set up. Since you're using it for gaming i would reccomend going for the new Intel CPUs a 2500k is more than adequate for gaming. If you want me to, i'll make a build up for you, might have to be tomorrow while im at work though, i need to go to bed soon. What games will you be playing?

In the mean time take a look at http://www.anandtech.com/bench/ this website shows a comparison between nearly every Processor, Graphics Card,Solid State Drives and other crap worth having a look at.

 

If it helps give you a guide, here's the spec of the computer I built a few days ago for around £700-£750: (most of the parts were from scan, shop around and make an excel sheet comparing prices across different etailers)

CPU - Intel Core i5 2500K
CPU Cooler - Coolermaster Hyper 212 Plus
GPU - Asus 560Ti Direct CU II TOP
Mobo - Asus P8Z68-V
RAM - 8GB (2x4GB) Corsair DDR3 XMS3 1600MHz
HDD - 2x1TB Samsung HD103SJ Spinpoint F3 (RAID 0) - SSD might be an option here, but I like to have too much installed to my OS partition for an SSD to come in at a sensible price
Case - Coolermaster Storm Enforcer - USB3 on the front panel, and I like a nice case
PSU - Corsair HX520W (from previous PC, will upgrade in future when I add another 560Ti)
DVD - Sony AD-7280S-0B

 

This is a decent build, would def get a SLi ready PSU though, in the future when the drop in price (<100) they are a great way to get a boost in performance for games. For example im getting another 460 in SLi http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/314?vs=305 is slightly better than a 580.

This is the build iv'e done for you leaving out some cash if you want to change some things around (Flashier Case, Better Graphics Card or what not)

1TB Samsung HD103SJ Spinpoint F3, SATA 3Gb/s, 7200rpm, 32MB Cache, 8.9ms, NCQ

Intel Core i5 2500K Unlocked, S1155, Sndy Bridge, Quad, 3.3GHz, HD3000 IGP 850Mhz, 6MB Cache 95W Retai

1GB Gigabyte GTX 560Ti OC, 40nm, 4000MHz GDDR5, GPU 900MHz, Shader 1800MHz, 384 Cores, DVI/ mHDMI +Free Batman
FREE NVIDIA GTX + Batman 2 Game

Antec 100 One Hundred, Black Midi Tower Gaming Case

600W PSU, Corsair Gaming Series GS600 CMPSU-600GUK, 80% Eff', 80 PLUS, SLI/CrossFire, EPS 12V, Quiet Fan, ATX v2.3

Asus Xonar DG 5.1 PCI Sound Card & Headphone Ampifier, OEM

Asus P8Z68-V, Intel Z68, S 1155, DDR3, SATA III - 6Gb/s, RAID SATA, PCIe 2.0 (x16), VGA On Board, ATX

8GB (2x4GB) Corsair DDR3 XMS3 PC3-12800 (1600), Non-ECC Unbuffered, CAS 9-9-9-24, 1.5V

http://i.imgur.com/z4fJ6.jpg

 

If you have the time and are not bothered to do it, I would be really grateful. Checking the site now, just wanting a pc that's not so outdated aswell that it's a pain upgrading it. My current rig was cheap buy 4 years or so ago as my old pc died on me. So it came with a really ****ty MoBo and pretty cheap parts, it's time to move on.

I'm looking forward to BF3, Skyrim, Guild Wars 2 would like these to play on around good settings. ATM I really just play FM, Dead Island and LoL.

 

Just seen it cheers, I'll read through it tonight, some time for FIFA 12 . Very much appreciated mate.

 

take a look at my post above. Also i have been playing the bf3 beta and I can say its ****ing amazing. Get a decent pc and you will be good for a few years and will probably only need to do minor upgrades to keep it performing well

 

Yeah I just saw it cheers. Is SLi two GFX card? and is it hard to do, because that could be something I could do possibly in the future?

 

Two cards yup (crossfire if you've got amd cards). It's dead easy to do and all you have to do is buy what's called an sli bridge to attach the two gpus together. Like u said, it means u can always upgrade later on. Make sure u use windows 7. It's a class above vista and xp is showing it's age now. And get a big power supply unit to allow enough power for future upgrades like using sli. Built my own rig a year or so back and was immensely rewarding.

Current rig:
asus p6x58d-e mobo
12 gb DDR 3 corsair RAM
i7 950 overclocked to 4ghz
Sli 480's
3TB Hdd
1500W psu
27 inch dell u2711, 2560 x 1440

 

I think he should hold off getting a new graphics card until early next year when AMD/Nvidia start selling their new cards designed using the 28nm Process architecture. Even if he doesn't want one of these new cards the current gen models like the GTX 560/570 should fall pretty sharply price wise once the next gen arrives, so a lot of savings will be made so he can shift more of his budget to other components like PSU/CPU.

As the OP seems to want a gaming build he should have a look at http://www.overclockers.co.uk/
It's were I tend to get most of my components from and it also has a really good forum.

I also wouldn't pay for Windows 7 this close to Windows 8 release so he should probably just download a Windows 7 ISO and then maybe pay for 8 when it comes out.

What kind of temps are you getting from two 480's in sli

I have an Asus GTX 570 DCII(****ers huge)so the chances of me trying sli are pretty slim.