Continuing on from my previous effort (http://www.tekforum.co.uk/posts/list/11078.page) but this time with a proper budget, lets say £400 excluding the case. Im still well out of the hardware loop and dont know where to begin.
I reckon the Antec P182 is a good choice, unless anyone can recommend another a similar good sized, low heat/noise case?
So £400 for parts:
Quiet, reliable large capacity backup drive
HD/1080p capable graphics card (1920x1200 over HDMI/DVI + HDCP)
am fussed about having 10 million things left open and the PC running 24/7
do not need monitor, mouse, keyboard, speakers, etc. Just the base unit
Maybe a quad core CPU, 4Gb ram, the PCI-E equivalent of my ATi 3800HD? Anything around the corner worth waiting for? Im aiming to buy all this next month (two/three weeks).
Cheers guys.
No point blowing 50% of the budget on a board & QC cpu.
2x Samsung SpinPoint HD501LJ 500GB SATAII Hard Drive 16MB Cache - OEM 130454 £88.58
1x OCZ 4GB Kit (2x2GB) 800MHz/PC2-6400 Memory Platinum Performance CL5 (5-4-4-18) 132904 54 in stock £65.49
1x Intel Core 2 Duo E4600 Socket 775 2.4GHz (800MHz) L2 2MB Cache Retail Boxed Processor 135668 50 in stock £74.95
1x Seagate FreeAgent 500GB USB2.0 External Hard Drive 8MB Cache - Retail 128603 293 in stock £63.98
1x MSI 8600GT Silent edition 256MB DVI HDTV PCI-E Graphics Card 126985 41 in stock £52.95
1x ASRock ConRoe1333-eSATA2 i945P Socket 775 eSATA 8 channel audio ATX Motherboard 138959 12 in stock £45.99
1x 500w ebugger PSU £?
About £410 all in I think.
Run the Sammys in a stripe.
USB 500gb for backing stuff up.
Memory - might get better for the money, I CBA to look.
Board - cheap but good with RAID built in. Ignore the brand snobbery, the Asrocks are solid.
Gfx card - whatever, 8600gt will do. Might get better for the same moeny but I cba to look.
The E4600 should clock nicely without any faffing around.
Ebugger PSU - 0% snake oil.
edit:
case: http://www.ebuyer.com/product/108273
I flat out refuse to spend £10 on a case that will be as acoustically pleasing as diahorroea, but aside from that, I like the spec.
Im thinking I dont need 1Tb for boot and apps, so Id probably look for smaller, faster drives to stripe and get a 1Tb external...
Im not 100% struck on the PSU either, Id want something quieter and maybe more efficient. Perhaps a modular jobbie. Ill take a look at that board.
After reading your last thread about upgrading TBH I think you would be better saving a bit longer or spending more, you're going to need to cut corners with only 400quid.
If you're planning on keeping the system awhile spending around 600 at current prices will give you far better "bang for your bucks" in the long run.
Really nice cheaper case http://www.tekheads.co.uk/s/product?product=608616 I was quite shocked how good it was for the price, when I built a system with one, the fans might be a bit loud for your taste so replace them with 4 quite 120mm (if you get 4 you will be able to run your CPU fan at a lower speed) , was considered replacing my current Lian Li with one as it has more space and better cooling for SLI but decided to stick to one card in the end.
Also your Hiper Type R will be up to the job :)
if you are going intel you are going to blow £120-£150 on a CPU, and about £100 for a decent spec motherboard. £400 is an upgrader rig, youll have buy CPU and GFX down the scale for later replacement, or youll have to shave some parts and just buy cheaper.
P182 ftw. :rock:
I dont mind spending more if I have to, Ive been looking around and yeah £400 is a low budget for the kind of system Im after. :(
Ive decided I wont be able to get away with using the Type R, as Im going to need to keep it for a while while I shift all my data across from this old rig. I might just get something like the Corsair HX 520W ATX2.2 Silent PSU (http://www.tekheads.co.uk/s/product?product=607818) and sell the Type R. Im unsure.
I dont want to cut corners, so if I have to spend more I will. Thankfully Ive had a £200 rebate on NICs that Im putting towards the new rig.
I definitely want to stick with the P182.
Ive just seen the VelociRaptor :w00t: Do want! :bounce:
Although for that money I could RAID a few drives. The Samsung F1s do seem to be the performance drive of choice.
Here is what I would recommend:
608548 Asus P5N-D nForce 750i SLI (Socket 775) DDR2 ATX Motherboard In stock: 3 £72.30 £72.30
607391 Antec P182 Performance One Super Midi Tower Black - No PSU Out of stock: 5 days after order placed. £74.00 £74.00
608544 Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 3.0GHz Wolfdale 6MB Cache LGA775 (1333 Mhz) - Retail In stock: 10 + £106.34 £106.34
608875 Club 3D ATI Radeon HD 3650 512MB Passive Heatpipe GDDR2 Dual DVI / TV-Out (PCI-E) - Retail In stock: 9 £38.30 £38.30
2 x 608976 Samsung SpinPoint HD502IJ F1 500GB 7200RPM SATA 3GB/s 16MB Cache - OEM In stock: 10 + £39.99 £79.98
607818 Corsair HX 520W ATX2.2 Modular Whisper Silent PSU In stock: 1 £54.00 £54.00
606957 Thermaltake BigTyphoon 120 VX LGA775 & AM2 Heatpipe Cooler Out of stock: 7 days after order placed. £23.79 £23.79
Basket Weight: 26800
Subtotal: £448.71
Vat: £78.52
Total: £527.23
All from Tekheads, but they don't seem to sell any decent Ram http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-022-GS&tool=3 (buy elsewhere :P)
Swap the Duo for a Quad maybe? but unless you use apps that will use all 4 Cores more clock speed is better.
Take the fan guard off the Thermaltake BigTyphoon and run it at the lowest speed, it still cools really well even on a moderately OCed chip and is really quite.
I like that, is that one of the quietest coolers Ill find then? Thanks for recommending a passive cooled graphics card too.
The most intensive app Ill be using is Photoshop, but Ill have numerous brower tabs and windows open (Firefox, IE, Safari) as well as various other apps. Ill also be doing a lot of 1080p film playback.
The BigTyphoon is the best cooler you can get for sensible money at the minute so it still offers decent cooling at its lowest fan speed which is only 16db.
Go for the Wolfdale no point in going for a Quad seeing you don't do video editing or rendering...etc, plus Duo's need less cooling than Quad's.
I know you said you didn't want to OC but tbh it's a crime not to OC current Intel chips. Even with the CPU cooler fan at its lowest setting 3.6 - 3.8 Ghz will be achievable at or slightly above stock volts,
so long as you have good case cooling while still keeping noise to a minimum
I probably will look into overclocking once Ive got a nice stable, quiet setup. The reason I avoided pointing it out in the first instance was so people were not pointing out kit ideal for overclocking, when its only going to be an afterthought :)
How future proof are the mobos and scoket types about now? Will it be easy to go Quad, etc later in time if I wanted to?
After reading reviews of the case looks like the case fans are a bit loud so I would suggest swapping them out for better fan's or add more case fans and run them at reduced voltage to keep noise to a minimum
The mobo should be able to take any future skt775 Quad (might need a Bios flash), but Intel change sockets to often tbh :(
Here is some info on the next http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nehalem_%28CPU_architecture%29 by the look of it it's going mid to late next year before it fully takes over from Skt775.
My rigs still at stock - because I dont know what to tweak and by how much... :(
Quote from: Eagle
My rigs still at stock - because I dont know what to tweak and by how much... :(
http://www.clunk.org.uk/forums/overclocking/2-c2d-overclocking-guide-beginners-p5k-add.html Seems fairly comprehensive for your mobo
Quote from: EagleMy rigs still at stock - because I dont know what to tweak and by how much... :(
does it do everything fast enough? If so dont bother.
And as a suggestion :: http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ProductInfo.asp?WebProductID=396709
For 120mm case fans. Love these, im running 2 in my case, and they are near silent, even when CnQ winds them up full pelt they make so little noise that you can hear the GFX card fan over the top of them.
Thanks, Ill look into swapping the case fans then. Reading up, there doesnt seem to be any positive reviews of the Asus P5N-D board. In fact no reviews I can see, just sketchy remarks on stability. Any suggestions on alternative boards alongside the Asrock sdp recommended?
The P5N-D is a good board from personal experience.
The only other current Intel board I could comment on is http://www.tekheads.co.uk/s/product?product=608547 but the fan is to loud for what your looking for and it's a bit pricey.
Quote from: Clockd 0NeThanks, Ill look into swapping the case fans then. Reading up, there doesnt seem to be any positive reviews of the Asus P5N-D board. In fact no reviews I can see, just sketchy remarks on stability. Any suggestions on alternative boards alongside the Asrock sdp recommended?
Ive used a couple of those recently, seemed OK, but they arent being Overclocked. Also used an Asus "Striker" board, and an EVGA board. All of them seem pretty reasonable to be fair. These days the reliability really only kicks in when you are stressing the board, and it doesnt actually sound like you will be doing. Even some of the ECS Stuff is actually turning out to be Not Bad For The Price, not brilliant, but not bad for what you get out of it.
Spoke to a guy I know who spends a lot of time over at Xtreme and has far more knowledge on hardware from the last few years than I do.
He recommend if your not looking to go for a top of the line board and want passive cooling on the chipset to go for :
http://www.tekheads.co.uk/s/product?product=607794
Here are some reviews:
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/mainboards/display/abit-ip35-pro.html
http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.aspx?i=3142&p=1
Also a handy post from over at Xtreme http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=147163&highlight=abit+IP35-Pro
I had no idea Abit were producing quality boards again, that will teach me for slacking on hardware for a year or 2 :P
Quote from: ShaunI had no idea Abit were producing quality boards again, that will teach me for slacking on hardware for a year or 2 :P
If that is a good, reliable board, then its a blip on Abits otherwise recent flawless record of bloody awful hardware. The only brand I personally try and avoid like mad to use for customers is Abit. They occasionally pump out some good products, but most of it is actually bloody awful. If you want cheap you can get better, if you want good quality there are other better suppliers.
Edit :: I also stay clear of MSI, ECS, PC Chips and Jetway type brands. Ive no love for them, though ill use them if its an emergency, or if budgets dont stretch.
I was never an Abit fan but that Abit board looks very good, I like the fact it has an HDMI audio header too and the CMOS reset on the back. Reviews seem to like it too, so I may go with that one :D
Quote from: Clockd 0Nethe CMOS reset on the back.
lol, a sign of total confidence in the reliablity of their own board Im sure :) Nah, it looks good, but a £100 board in a low/mid range system running stock really isnt good use of moolah imo.
fwiw Foxconn make Dell & HP boards. MSI make IBM and Fujitsu-Siemens boards. These are £20-30 boards going into what for most customers are business critical machines.
ass-crock is utter utter utter utter pap.
I think I have my final Tekheads shopping list:
607794 Abit IP-35PRO P35 Chipset (Socket 775) DDR2 PCI-E Motherboard In stock: 3 £79.00 £79.00
607391 Antec P182 Performance One Super Midi Tower Black - No PSU Out of stock: 5 days after order placed. £74.00 £74.00
608544 Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 3.0GHz Wolfdale 6MB Cache LGA775 (1333 Mhz) - Retail In stock: 10 + £104.50 £104.50
608976 Samsung SpinPoint HD502IJ F1 500GB 7200RPM SATA 3GB/s 16MB Cache - OEM In stock: 10 + £39.99 £79.98
607818 Corsair HX 520W ATX2.2 Modular Whisper Silent PSU In stock: 3 £54.00 £54.00
606957 Thermaltake BigTyphoon 120 VX LGA775 & AM2 Heatpipe Cooler In stock: 10 + £23.79 £23.79
607851 Noctua NF-S12-800 120mm 800 RPM Quiet Case Fan
Ive just bought a HD3870 from Adam, so I just need to nag Kris to get some P182s in if theyre not on order already. :)
This look like a good spec then?
Yeah but is that enough memory?
:P
Shhh! Dont tell him he needs memory as well, keep it a secret then we can all laugh at him when it doesnt work :D
Crap, I could have sworn I was missing something earlier. Recommendations on 4Gb please, anyone? Suitable for the XE version of the IP-35PRO that supports 1066 DDR2.
only 4 ? pfffft.
Spec revised with some nice high FSB memory :)
607794 Abit IP-35PRO P35 Chipset (Socket 775) DDR2 PCI-E Motherboard In stock: 3 £79.00 £79.00
607391 Antec P182 Performance One Super Midi Tower Black - No PSU Out of stock: 5 days after order placed. £74.00 £74.00
608544 Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 3.0GHz Wolfdale 6MB Cache LGA775 (1333 Mhz) - Retail In stock: 10 + £104.50 £104.50
608976 Samsung SpinPoint HD502IJ F1 500GB 7200RPM SATA 3GB/s 16MB Cache - OEM In stock: 10 + £39.99 £79.98
607818 Corsair HX 520W ATX2.2 Modular Whisper Silent PSU In stock: 3 £54.00 £54.00
606957 Thermaltake BigTyphoon 120 VX LGA775 & AM2 Heatpipe Cooler In stock: 10 + £23.79 £23.79
607851 Noctua NF-S12-800 120mm 800 RPM Quiet Case Fan In stock: 10 + £10.20 £30.60
608985 Corsair Twin2X 4GB DDR2 (2x2048MB) XMS2 Dominator 8500C5 In stock: 4 £93.60 £93.60
So Ive still ended up with a £600+ system. £700 including the gfx card. :bounce:
Thaqt would provide you with a pretty good gaming system.
Looking good to me :) good choice on the Noctua fan's not used them myself but hear there really quiet, while still moving a decent amount of air.
Don't forget to take the grill off the fan on the BigTyphoon when you building it, it makes quite a big difference to the noise it makes.