Author Topic: £600 Rig??  (Read 1288 times)

  • Offline Beaker

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£600 Rig??
on: February 23, 2008, 11:27:24 AM
Thought please folks, just trying to hammer out a spec for someone, and im having issue.   I have a hard cap of £600, we cannot under and circumstances go higher than that.  Can knock £10 off each total price as well be going to pick it up.  We cant spend "Slightly More", in fact we cant spend anything at all over £600 (We are supposed to be spending no more than £500, so we are pushing it to £600 already).

AMD Setup ::
CPU :: Phenom 9600 Black Edition £156.85
MB :: MSI K9A2 CF, AMD 790FX :: £58.27
RAM :: 4x1GB Micron Major, DDR2 PC2-6400 (4Gb Total). :: £46.95
GFX :: 512MB ATI HD3870 :: £124.32
HDD :: 2x250 GB Seagate ST3250410AS Barracuda (500Gb Total in RAID) :: £87.42
PSU :: 630W HiperPower HPU-4M630 :: £55.21
CDROM :: Liteon 20A4P-21C 20x :: £15.23
Case :: Thermaltake Soprano VB1000BNS Black £46.94
Total Inc P&P and VAT :: £603.39


Intel Setup ::
CPU :: Intel Core 2 Duo E6750, S775 :: £121.95
MB :: Asus P5N-D, NF750i ::£90.58
RAM :: 4x1GB Micron Major, DDR2 PC2-6400 (4Gb Total). :: £46.95
GFX :: 512MB Asus 9600GT :: £122.78
HDD :: 2x250 GB Seagate ST3250410AS Barracuda (500Gb Total in RAID) :: £87.42
PSU :: 630W HiperPower HPU-4M630 :: £55.21
CDROM :: Liteon 20A4P-21C 20x :: £15.23
Case :: Thermaltake Soprano VB1000BNS Black £46.94
Total Inc VAT and delivery :: £599.07

Gott apick one of those from the initial thinking.  THe AMD has more raw power I think, but the Intel Fanboys do still insist their Dual cores are faster than the AMD quads (Deluded, but they think it anyway).  Machine will not be overclocked, itll be used for gaming, and music production (Music production is the reason behind the 4Gb).  Guy its being made for already has a kick-arse soundcard, so thats being added into the machine.  THoughts?

  • Offline Cypher

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Re:£600 Rig??
Reply #1 on: February 23, 2008, 12:29:05 PM
From most of the benchmarks I have come across that does not seem to be the case.

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2008/01/17/amd_phenom_9600_black_edition/3

I think the Phenom processors will do good in the end but right now there is no reason to get one.  They are loosing out on both price and performance.  Im a bit of an AMD fan boy simply on the basis of its healthy to have competition in the market.  But I still wouldnt buy any phenom chip yet.

  • Offline Beaker

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Re:£600 Rig??
Reply #2 on: February 23, 2008, 12:46:58 PM
Quote from: Cypher
From most of the benchmarks I have come across that does not seem to be the case.

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2008/01/17/amd_phenom_9600_black_edition/3

I think the Phenom processors will do good in the end but right now there is no reason to get one.  They are loosing out on both price and performance.  Im a bit of an AMD fan boy simply on the basis of its healthy to have competition in the market.  But I still wouldnt buy any phenom chip yet.


hmm, most things  ive looked at pretty much said that the Phenoms arent bad chips, but they just cant stack up against the Intel Quads at the moment, they do however in all but some very limited cases beat the high-end Intel Duals.  The dude im doing this for wants to be able to upgrade the CPU, and drop a 2nd graphics card into the box in 18 months.  

  • Offline Cypher

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Re:£600 Rig??
Reply #3 on: February 23, 2008, 18:49:06 PM
What socket is that? AM2?  

AMD AM3 socket porcessors will be backwards compatible with AM2 with one or two features not available.  So they are pretty safe at the moment.

Im not to familiar with the current Intel socket route.

  • Offline Beaker

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Re:£600 Rig??
Reply #4 on: February 23, 2008, 19:06:41 PM
Quote from: Cypher
What socket is that? AM2?  

AMD AM3 socket porcessors will be backwards compatible with AM2 with one or two features not available.  So they are pretty safe at the moment.

Im not to familiar with the current Intel socket route.


AM2+, so AM" with PCIe 2.0 and Hypertransport 2.  Dude wants something he knows for a fact he can upgrade in the future.  Last time he got caught out by S478.

  • Offline Shakey

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Re:£600 Rig??
Reply #5 on: February 24, 2008, 03:04:31 AM
COuple of things, if you can save money somewhere else in the spec, go for an Nvidia 8800GT, it stomps all over both the cards youve chosen for not much more. If itll mainly be used for gaming Id suggest this card and a slightly slower cpu for overall better performance at the same price.

Also Id be tempted to go for only 3GB of ram, as unless youre running a 64bit o/s on it youll only be able to use a max of about 3gigs of ram anyway.

  • Offline Serious

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Re:£600 Rig??
Reply #6 on: February 24, 2008, 04:02:28 AM
Ive been AMD for a long time but the present market goes Intel all the way.

Go for an E8200 Wolfdale on something like a Asus P5K-SE P35 mobo will save you a little on price. You only really need 2gb ram for gaming, if you want to scrimp a bit, then he can go for 6GB and a 64 bit OS later. The Wolfdales are the latest 45nm chips with an extra 2gb cache free.

  • Offline Beaker

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Re:£600 Rig??
Reply #7 on: February 24, 2008, 12:01:40 PM
Quote from: Shakey
COuple of things, if you can save money somewhere else in the spec, go for an Nvidia 8800GT, it stomps all over both the cards youve chosen for not much more. If itll mainly be used for gaming Id suggest this card and a slightly slower cpu for overall better performance at the same price.


was looking at the 8800GT, but the reviews ive seen say stay clear of the 256Mb version because it isnt worth having, the 512Mb version adds at least £30 to the spec.  Plus that also means swapping out the Motherbaord for a similarly specced SLi capable rig.  Thatll bump the price again by 25-50 for a similar spec board.  Another point, the 8800GT OC that ive seen a few places only beats the 3970 usually by 3-7 FPS.  is it worth the £10 per-Frame it costs?  Ive had difficulty finding a comparison between the Vanilla 8800GT and the 3870.  Also a lot of the hardware sites are giving the 3870 "Best Buy" status in the price range because it is the best bang-for-buck.

Quote from: Serious
Go for an E8200 Wolfdale on something like a Asus P5K-SE P35 mobo will save you a little on price. You only really need 2gb ram for gaming, if you want to scrimp a bit, then he can go for 6GB and a 64 bit OS later. The Wolfdales are the latest 45nm chips with an extra 2gb cache free.

We have a copy of XP64 already, hes refusing to use Vista at all because some of his specialist software isnt compatible unless he buys it again, but weve tested it under XP64 and it works fine.  I was looking at the Wolfdales, but once again Intel have paper launched the things, everyone has prices, but hardly anyone has stock.  Plus guy wants the ability to drop crossfire or SLi into the mix at a later date, so we have to have something that is capable of it.  

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