New PC!

repiV

repiV

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Hey folks,

I'm looking to put together a new gaming PC. Only trouble is, I haven't been interested in games for a few years now, I think my current PC is about 7 years old, and I haven't kept up with the technology at all - so I have no idea what's good (and more to the point, good and cost-effective) anymore.

My current graphics card is either a 256MB Radeon X800XT or X850XT, can't remember which - and it cost me £350 at the time. And I have a 120GB HDD that cost me £160. That's how long it's been since I upgraded my PC.

Is there anywhere I can go to quickly find out where we're at with tech these days and what sorts of things I should be buying? Basically I want to be able to play Mass Effect 2 (and 3, when it comes out), The Witcher 2, the new Call of Duty games and all those sorts of things. And I don't want to have to upgrade it in the near future, because I really can't be arsed with that crap anymore. :)
 
OK well if you don't want to upgrade any time soon then you will want to future-proof your new build with decent stuff which isn't super cheap, which should be obvious. Considering you got 7 years out your previous build, that's pretty impressive and probably what you will want to aim for again.

General points:

Processors = All multi-core these days, quad core is what you will want. Intel sandybridge i5 (1155) or i7 (if you've got money to burn) are the favourites these days
RAM = DDR3 these days and 6GB mimimum (and a decent brand)
Mobo = You want the usual - socket support for your CPU, DDR3 support, USB 3.0 support, optional SLI / crossfire support
Hard drives = Standard HDDs are super cheap now, you can get 500GB or 1TB for £30-50. All the money are in SSDs (solid state drives). Many people opt to buy a 60GB/120GB SSD and put your operating system + programs on there, and use big cheap HDDs for media etc.
Case + Cooling = Your choice, something you like the look of and reviews well for cooling. Unless you want to do the maintenance don't choose water. Buy a nice 3rd party cooler for your CPU, don't use the stock cooler. (Usually £25-35).
OS - Windows 7 version - 64bit essential.
PSU - I always recommend Corsair for their reliability (fan boy!), probably 700W and up for your build and future proofing.
Graphics - Lots of cheap GPUs these days which have great performance. As you may remember, the latest card is old after 6 weeks as the market moves so fast but the top end cards are crazy money. Nvidia / ATI thing is each persons preference. Check out benchmarks of cards against each other in games like TW2 or Black Ops to get an idea of their power. Others and myself on these forums have the Nvidia GTX 460 which is a terrific little card which is quite cheap now. Anything from that card upwards is worth looking at.

Prod me on Steam some time if I am talking gibberish and I'll try being clearer :p
 
Jesus, an x800? You really haven't upgraded since HL2 came out :D

Glenn ran down the basics. You need a quadcore at least, or an i5 or i7. AMD is cheaper at the moment, but Intel sandy bridge CPUs like the i5 2500k are probably the most cost-effective right now. I still sort of recommend going with AMD just because it's cheaper but it's all personal preference.

Case+cooling is all you basically. I used Cooler Master for my most recent build, quite like it. HAF 932 is the case if you're wondering. I've had good experiences using Apevia cases as well, not so good experiences with NZXT (flimsy and cheap feeling). PSU... not a big deal, get a 650W or 700W one and you'll be good to go. I use 80+ gold certified PSUs from Rosewill because I've had like 3 cheap PSUs die on me in the past.

RAM, you want at least 4gb (2x2gb) but preferably 8gb (2x4gb) DDR3, I'd go with 2133 speed. Make sure the mobo supports this ram speed.

Hard drives are cheap as hell nowadays, I'd get a TB at least... will only run you around $100.

Graphics card depends on your preference of ATI vs NVIDIA. GTX 560ti is a good mid level card with good bang for your buck.

Use these benchmarks for making decisions:
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/GPU11/188

There are CPU benches and whatnot on that site too. Basically it's all about how much money you want to spend... beyond that you just need to make sure that your mobo is compatible with everything (proper socket type, ram support, and stuff like usb 3.0 and sata 6.0gb/s) and make some decisions between AMD vs Intel and ATI vs NVIDIA.
 
Yeah, knowing your budget would help.

I have some part-specific tips:

1. You can never go wrong with an Asus mobo. Gigabyte is ok but they skimp on features. All other brands ship duds across the board (lol).
2. Don't bother looking elsewhere than Corsair or Seasonic PSUs (both are excellent for price/efficiency and source from the same factory).
3. There is no downside to going for the cheapest ram, except possibly warranty (but I've never seen a really good ram warranty regardless). They all pretty much come from the same 3 factories.
4. WD Caviar Black is your friend.
5. The only CPU cooler you'll ever need. Wait until it goes on discount; I've seen it as low as $15.
 
Thanks guys, that's really helpful.

It's hard to say in terms of a budget actually, because as far as I can gather computers are a hell of a lot cheaper than when I used to build them so I wouldn't expect to spend as much. I had a figure of around £500 in mind, and if it's cheaper then great. I do need a new monitor on top of that as well but I'm not counting that in the price. I already have a case so that's not an issue.

What I don't want to get involved in is buying the most expensive of something which is 5% faster but twice the price. All I want is that it works properly and runs games well. I was looking at RAM earlier and I saw 2GB sticks for £20 or so, which is insane. I have 2x 1GB in mine at the moment which run as a pair and I think they cost me over £200. Corsair stuff.

Has the pace of change got a bit more sensible these days? I remember when you could buy a brand new PC and games that come out at the same time would still run like crap. I would hope that games tend to perform a little better on sensible PCs than they used to anyway.
 
My GTX 560Ti can run Crysis 2 maxed (with the recent high texture and dx11 features) pretty smoothly. Definitely the most bang per buck card.
 
Well if Crysis 2 is anything like the original, then that's a pretty sound recommendation. Good price too by the looks of it, I'll bag that one then I think. Cheers. :)
 
I pretty much agree with what Glenn said. Here's an example AMD build that would fit in your budget(I don't know if you can get comparable prices in the UK, this is on Newegg. Don't know where you Brits buy their hardware)

Hrtxt.png

Vh4Sv.png


Or pretty much the same PC with an Intel Sandy Bridge motherboard+CPU:

r5VLe.png

9Tt8d.png


Although the Intel CPU is significantly faster than the AMD one, you currently won't notice too much of a gaming difference since the video card would be the 'bottleneck' in this build.
But I would personally still go with the Intel since it provides more upgrade potential - if you want a new video card that's 4 times as fast in a couple of years you probably won't need a new CPU+mobo to use its full potential.
I picked quite a basic motherboard for both builds, depens on what kind of expansion options you need.

By the way, you might want to wait a couple of months until AMD(AMD took over ATI and renamed the cards about a year ago FYI) releases their Radeon 7xxx series video cards, see if they provide better bang for buck than what's currently available.
 
£500 seems a bit difficult if you need a PSU/Windows 7/etc, even without a monitor. I just ordered this, and considered it a budget base, using my current PSU/GPU/HD/Monitor:

£24.99 x 1 - Xigmatek Asgard Midi Tower Case - Black
£129.99 x 1 - Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - OEM
£66.15 x 1 - Gigabyte Z68A-D3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard
£24.99 x 1 - Corsair XMS3 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMX4GX3M2A1600C9)
£66.66 x 1 - Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-Bit - OEM (GFC-00599) - can only install to one MB with OEM version, so you might want to get the more expensive one which is over £100.

== £312.78

== then you can pay the government 20% VAT of £62.56

== £375.34

I already own a TX650 Corsair PSU (+ £70-75)
And you'll need a graphics card (I own an HD4850, but you'll want a better one than that, such as at least a GeForce 460, or HD6850) (+ £135)
A decent hard-disk (+ £40)
CPU Fan (£15)

== £635.34

If you don't need W7, then it'll be much cheaper.

Check this website for very good advice. Just read the threads in that forum. - http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18297232
 
tigerdirect.com and newegg.com always have the best deals. just sign up for their email alerts and every day you'll get one or two emails from them. I plunked down $900 on my new http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Toshiba+-+Satellite+Laptop+/+Intel&%23174%3B+Core&%23153%3B+i7+Processor+/+17.3%22+Display+-+Platinum/2808132.p?id=1218352577317&skuId=2808132&cmp=RMX&ref=06&loc=01&ci_src=14110944&ci_sku=2808132#tabbed-customerreviews Toshiba laptop but I love it and its super quick. I game a little here and there on it but I don't have room at my girlfriend's house for my PC yet. This is Warped btw I lost my password so I made a new ID
 
Dinnesch said:
I pretty much agree with what Glenn said. Here's an example AMD build that would fit in your budget(I don't know if you can get comparable prices in the UK, this is on Newegg. Don't know where you Brits buy their hardware)

Or pretty much the same PC with an Intel Sandy Bridge motherboard+CPU:

http://i.imgur.com/r5VLe.png

Although the Intel CPU is significantly faster than the AMD one, you currently won't notice too much of a gaming difference since the video card would be the 'bottleneck' in this build.
But I would personally still go with the Intel since it provides more upgrade potential - if you want a new video card that's 4 times as fast in a couple of years you probably won't need a new CPU+mobo to use its full potential.
I picked quite a basic motherboard for both builds, depens on what kind of expansion options you need.

By the way, you might want to wait a couple of months until AMD(AMD took over ATI and renamed the cards about a year ago FYI) releases their Radeon 7xxx series video cards, see if they provide better bang for buck than what's currently available.
Click to expand...

You really want a mobo with the P67 or Z68 if you're going to do any sort of overclocking. And if you're not overclocking the 2500k, you're kind of wasting it.
 
Dinnesch said:
I pretty much agree with what Glenn said. Here's an example AMD build that would fit in your budget(I don't know if you can get comparable prices in the UK, this is on Newegg. Don't know where you Brits buy their hardware)

Or pretty much the same PC with an Intel Sandy Bridge motherboard+CPU:

Although the Intel CPU is significantly faster than the AMD one, you currently won't notice too much of a gaming difference since the video card would be the 'bottleneck' in this build.
But I would personally still go with the Intel since it provides more upgrade potential - if you want a new video card that's 4 times as fast in a couple of years you probably won't need a new CPU+mobo to use its full potential.
I picked quite a basic motherboard for both builds, depens on what kind of expansion options you need.

By the way, you might want to wait a couple of months until AMD(AMD took over ATI and renamed the cards about a year ago FYI) releases their Radeon 7xxx series video cards, see if they provide better bang for buck than what's currently available.
Click to expand...

Cheers for all that, that's good to know. Does gaming performance tend to be determined more by CPU or graphics card these days?

StardogChampion said:
£500 seems a bit difficult if you need a PSU/Windows 7/etc, even without a monitor. I just ordered this, and considered it a budget base, using my current PSU/GPU/HD/Monitor:

£24.99 x 1 - Xigmatek Asgard Midi Tower Case - Black
£129.99 x 1 - Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - OEM
£66.15 x 1 - Gigabyte Z68A-D3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard
£24.99 x 1 - Corsair XMS3 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMX4GX3M2A1600C9)
£66.66 x 1 - Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-Bit - OEM (GFC-00599) - can only install to one MB with OEM version, so you might want to get the more expensive one which is over £100.

== £312.78

== then you can pay the government 20% VAT of £62.56

== £375.34

I already own a TX650 Corsair PSU (+ £70-75)
And you'll need a graphics card (I own an HD4850, but you'll want a better one than that, such as at least a GeForce 460, or HD6850) (+ £135)
A decent hard-disk (+ £40)
CPU Fan (£15)

== £635.34

If you don't need W7, then it'll be much cheaper.

Check this website for very good advice. Just read the threads in that forum. - http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18297232
Click to expand...

Yeah I'm still running Windows XP. I hear Vista is shite also. I don't mind spending more than £500, it's not like I'm stuck to a particular budget. I just don't want to spend more money than is necessary. This all seems very reasonable to me price-wise, it's a hell of a lot cheaper than it was several years ago that's for sure. £21 for 4GB of premium brand RAM and £40 for a hard drive, that's amazing.

Thanks for all your help guys. I shall let you know how I get on - I may well wait a couple of months to see how the graphics card situation develops. There's no rush, I'm mainly taking the step of getting back into gaming because I have to have a couple of operations on my shoulders in a few months which means I won't be able to do much in the way of sport or gymming etc for a year or so so I'd like to keep myself occupied and out of the pub every night... :)

Until then, I can make do!
 
A good card and cpu matter these days. The i5 gets you pretty far today, I went with the 2500 non-k because I don't care for overclocking.
 
Yeah. If you're getting an AMD CPU I would suggest getting a Phenom II X4 970 or 980, not 925. I also agree with eVGA as a good company to buy GPUs from, I've gotten my last several NVIDIA cards from EVGA and they have great customer service from what I hear.
 
Well, here's my go at getting it under £500 OP.

I think it's all compatible, but tbh I'd prefer to go to an intel sandybridge.

PC2-1.png


Comes to £480 delivered.

I'll just add here that I'm no expert!

EDIT: Also, the motherboard is poverty spec, might want to spend a few more quid on one that will allow better ram speed / capacity.
 
Can I just point out that Repiv lives in the UK and Newegg doesn't ship overseas. So overclockers / scan / novatech are better for him.

Also I don't agree with spending big on most parts then overlooking things like the mobo and throwing in something to keep it within budget. The CPU and mobo performance together should be checked out before as you will find board versions (and BIOS versions) can vary performance a lot without overclocking. For this kind of investment into a build you should do it properly or not at all!
 
If his focus is on gaming he won't need or even want a 6core athlon. The Phenom x4 will be a better choice if that's the way he wants to go. The obvious choice right now is Intel.(provided you have the money)
Like Glenn I wouldn't skimp on your mobo or other key parts. You want a good balance of power and quality for what you can afford. I won't comment on any of the lists though because I don't shop east of the Atlantic.
 
Are the Intels that much better nowadays? If so, defo worth spending the extra money. It's not a lot in the grand scheme of things.

I remember for years Intel were a lot more expensive than AMD but the performance wasn't really any better.
 
The sandy bridge changed everything. Get that or wait for AMD's bulldozer.

Or save some money and go with an AMD quad core.
 
Thanks guys. I'm starting to get a clear picture of what I want - and I'm thinking it definitely includes a Sandybridge 2500k and a GeForce 560.

Also, I didn't realise monitors were all widescreen these days. Shows how much I keep up with the times!
 
repiV said:
Thanks guys. I'm starting to get a clear picture of what I want - and I'm thinking it definitely includes a Sandybridge 2500k and a GeForce 560.

Also, I didn't realise monitors were all widescreen these days. Shows how much I keep up with the times!
Click to expand...

Check my thread, I'm working on the same sort of build right now, and the ram (that I bought two days ago) went on sale today, 8 gigs for [strike]$84.99[/strike] $72.24!

I bought it because newegg sent me a 10% off coupon for ram, good for three days, spent it on the ram two days before the sale.
 
With the rate that these things go on sale, never regret a purchase for price reasons alone.
 
It's just an annoyance. The same model of ram that I bought because "Oh, hey I can get this cheap!" got even cheaper. If I had waited 40 hours I could have saved $13.
 
What do we think of this?

Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £161.99

Asus GeForce GTX 560Ti DirectCU II 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £173.99

Gigabyte P67A-D3 Intel P67 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £90.98

Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (WD1002FAEX) £66.98

Corsair Dominator 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMD4GX3M2A1600C9) £49.99

Antec High Current Gamer 620W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £62.99

LG W2363D 23" TRUE 120Hz 3D Widescreen LCD Monitor - Black £155.99

Logitech G700 Wireless Gaming Mouse (910-001759) £62.99

Total - £842.40

A fair bit more expensive than I expected, but that does include a couple of extra bits! Anything I missed out/any obvious savings that wouldn't really hamper the performance of it?
 
Swap the Antec PSU for a Corsair one IMO.

£70 for a mouse?!

I don't see a case or DVD drive there? (you may already have these, I'm not too good at reading).
 
Don't forget the case, unless you have one already.

ed: screw everyone posting things before me.
 
kazsymonds said:
Swap the Antec PSU for a Corsair one IMO.

£70 for a mouse?!
Click to expand...

Yeah. I hate crappy small mice, they give me horrible RSI (even though I have small girly hands). And I hate wires. I have an old Logitech G7 at the moment but it's screwed, the buttons stick.

I don't see a case or DVD drive there? (you may already have these, I'm not too good at reading).
Click to expand...

I have a case yeah, I thought I would just take all the old parts out of the current one and flog 'em. I have a DVD drive too, but it's ancient. I don't know if it makes any difference?
 
Just check what connections it has. If it's an IDE(most likely) drive you will be out of luck and will need to buy a SATA drive because your motherboard doesn't support IDE.

I understand getting a good wireless mouse. I have had the MX1000 for a good 6+ years and it still works like a charm. I want to get the G700 as the laser in the MX is showing it's age at high resolutions.
 
Ah yeah it's definitely an IDE drive, it must be nearly 10 years old by now.

Mouse definitely makes a big difference...
 
repiV said:
What do we think of this?

Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £161.99

Asus GeForce GTX 560Ti DirectCU II 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £173.99

Gigabyte P67A-D3 Intel P67 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £90.98

Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (WD1002FAEX) £66.98

Corsair Dominator 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMD4GX3M2A1600C9) £49.99

Antec High Current Gamer 620W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £62.99

LG W2363D 23" TRUE 120Hz 3D Widescreen LCD Monitor - Black £155.99

Logitech G700 Wireless Gaming Mouse (910-001759) £62.99

Total - £842.40

A fair bit more expensive than I expected, but that does include a couple of extra bits! Anything I missed out/any obvious savings that wouldn't really hamper the performance of it?
Click to expand...
You're missing a CPU fan.
 
If you're overclocking (as the 2500k would imply), you'll want a non-stock fan. I have the 2500 and the stock is just enough.
 
Oh yeah. Thanks. :)

I was reading you can usually get at least 4.4GHz out of a 2500k without any issue, does this depend greatly on the case and such? I've got practically a mini server case, heavy duty thing and you can lock the front of it if you so choose. I assume it would be good for cooling, think it cost about £70 back when I bought it many years ago.

Also I see they sell "tested stable" 2500k's to a certain clock speed on overclockers, for a little extra, wonder if that's worth paying...
 
if you stilll need a CPU cooler I recommend a Zalman.
 
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