£1000 to spend

[MegaYoda]

If you had £1000 to spend on a new Gaming PC from scratch, what would be in your shopping Cart ?

[Slartibartfast]

Cocaine and Hookers

[Gavac220]

A wife that would allow me to waste £1000 on a PC!

P.s - In my experience, spending £1000 on a gaming PC is sheer folly. I think if you spend that much you have miss timed the market and the requirements of the gaming market, or you are also buying a cinema (Giant/Multiple LCD) with surround sound along with it.

(A view that has no grounding in jealousy! er...Honestly! )

[bambam]

hehe - it's easy to go £200 over by the time you've put in the SSD, overclock cooling and top-end graphics card. Tougher if you set a £1000 hard limit (excluding the monitor/keyboard, including vat?).

BFBC2 fast PC FTW -arming the White Pass mcom before Nem has loaded into the game...

My approach would be tweak around in here to see what's doable, and then shop around. Gav will say pish, go AMD:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/syscon_in ... =FS-282-OK

So far I configured a rig with:
cheap case
Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz Quad Core Processor
Akasa Venom CPU Cooler
Gigabyte P67A-UD3 Intel P67 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard **B3 REVISION**
G.Skill Ripjaw X 8GB 1600MHz C9 Memory Kit
XFX ATI Radeon HD 6870 1024MB GDDR5
Crucial RealSSD C300 64GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive
Western Digital Blue 500GB SATA 6Gb/s HDD
OcUK 24x DVD-RW Black
Coolermaster Silent Pro Gold 700w Power Supply
Windows 7 Home Premium 64-Bit

£1,052.86 inc VAT

So I'm still £53 over budget, even having the cheap case and only a 500GB hard drive, and I'm relying on looking around for special offer cases or cooling would get me below the £1K. The system has all the essentials though - SSD, ok graphics, 8GB mem, and a cpu clockable to 4.4GHz+. Steal a copy of Windows will do it.

It's easy to see where the system is stressing the budget..., I'd spend another £200 and put in a 1TB drive, Corsair H50 cooling, and higher-end graphics card - but that wasn't the challenge. Easy to come up with a sexier system for *more* money.

Bambam

[Nemes1s]

here is a rig from pc gammer they say is a crysis 2 killer

mobo; asus p8p67
processor; intel core i5 2500k (3.3ghz) (the new sandybridge version )
memmory; 6gb crucial ballistix tracer smart (1600mhz)
3d card; 2x geforce gtx460 1gb(sli)
dvd drive; sony optiarc dvd/rw sata
hdd; samsung spinpiont hd103j (1tb)
case; silverstone kublai kl01b-w
psu; corsair hx 750w modular

estmated at £916

i know a lot of people on here swear by AMD so remember this aint a rig i thought up but rather PCGamer
who seem to leaning back in nvidia favor at the momment for value for money
in this months issue they hav a review of a wide range of graphic cards and a couple of rig builds
they also revived a rig form wired2fire
i sometimes window shop on custome build pc to look at pc u can always use there tools to build ur rig them compare it to just buying said components

[Gavac220]

Actually, I use an Intel CPU in my own PC, but Bambam's memory does serve him correctly, and I am a sucker for AMD and always would put their graphics cards in my PC. (Used in the wife's latest build/2nd PC)

Lets get some more info from Yoda!

Do you have a usable Case - Hard Drives - Power supply etc to carry over, and if so, what are their specs, or is it a clean build?

I'll have a crack at a spec, and then you should choose the best from all our suggestions (Take what you need/want from each post), that keeps you in budget after you get a good variety of advice/builds.

[Gavac220]

This may be interesting reading if you are thinking of an Intel i5?

Intel finds flaw in Sandy Bridge chipsets, halts shipments Jan/Feb 2011

http://techreport.com/discussions.x/20326

[Gavac220]

Alternative build to Bambam's with Blu Ray, 6 Core CPU, nice case and 2TB drive + SSD etc:


AMD Phenom II X6 Black Edition 1090T 3.2GHz Socket AM3 9MB Cache 125W Retail Boxed Processor £159.68
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/204933#reviews

Asus M4A88TD-M EVO/USB3 880G Socket AM3 HDMI DVI VGA Out 8 Channel Audio MmATX Motherboard £80.89
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/206150

Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 1600Mhz CL9 1.5V Non-ECC Unbuffered £92.44
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/248846

Corsair Cooling Air Series A70 Socket Intel 775, 1156,1155, 1366 AMD AM2 AM3 Performance CPU Cooler £53.71
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/226440

Crucial 64GB Real SSD C300 2.5" - SATA 6Gb/s Interface - Read 355MB/s Write 75MB/s £86.46
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/225804

Samsung HD204UI Spinpoint F4 2TB Hard Drive SATA 5400RPM 32MB Cache - OEM £60.16
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/237908

Samsung Blu Ray SH-B123L/RSBP 12x BD-ROM DVD±RW DL & RAM Lightscribe SATAII Optical Drive - Retail Box Black £50.45
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/240172

CM Storm Scout + Coolermaster Silent Pro 700W Modular PSU *Special Offer Bundle* £129.99
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/147047

Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium w/SP1 - Licence and media - 1 PC - OEM - DVD - 64-bit - English £83.48
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/259863

PowerColor HD 6870 1GB GDDR5 Dual DVI HDMI DP Out PCI-E Graphics Cards £169.98
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/248745

£967.24 Total.

With AMD you get more for your money if I replicate Bambam's, with a few extras. CPU will go over 4.6GHz on air

Shop around and you will get Windows cheaper and a good few other bits. All of this sourced at E-Buyer with Free delivery to UK. I was lazy and still within the budget.

[MegaYoda]

Great work you guys and keep the info coming

Saw this XFX Radeon HD 6950 graphics adapter Radeon HD 6950 2 GB
For £189 any good?
http://www.crescentelectronics.co.uk/xf ... a8b03fcb6f

[bambam]

I'll check out the VFM for that graphics card - I have a 5870 myself, considering a second one in due course as an xfire upgrade.

Nice config Gav - I don't know a better way to get below £1000 - beat me by £100 but we're pretty much in the same space so we have a consensus at 8GB/SSD/graphics perf circa 6870. AMD cpu looks fine and gets the rig inside the price point. It is less perf for less ££ - chart comparing perf with intel below - AMD overclocked to 4GHz, intel at stock (and they'd oclock to 4+ghz too):



Bamz

[bambam]

checked it out -6950 looks a good card, broadly in the 5870/6870 performance space but a bit better for a bit more money. See, it's easy to get more if you spend *more*.

I forgot to ask the screen resolution you're planning on running - low res (say up to 1920x1200) will run on any card, but if you go higher then more dosh on a higher card makes sense and within a £1000 budget you'd be trading that against the cpu (or kiss goodbye to the SSD). I run 3600x1600 on 3 x 20" monitors, on a 5870 which is slightly under a 6950 I think. Sounds fancy but the monitors are old stock 1600x1200 LCD's and I collected them over a while. For 3 monitors Nvidia is a non-starter as they haven't got that supported properly in their hardware like ATI.

For my PC a comparable fixed-price choice was i7+5850 versus i5+5870 - of course I said fuck it and bought the i7+5870. The one bit I *wouldn't* drop now would be the SSD and I'd be more relaxed about the i5, or I guess the similar AMD (I don't know their cpu's, always been an intel fanboy, but I'm sure Gav's on the money with his suggestion).

Bambam

[Nemes1s]

Question for those that have ssd was it not a bit of
A faff setting them up and then trying to figure out what's best to put on it
As I don't know bout yoda but I know jack about pc's really
And is the speed really worth the hassle if u don't know
What Ur doing

[Redddraggon]

It's pretty easy setting up an SSD, it takes maybe 5 mins at most to get your head around the mklinks thing if your not an IT person.

Selecting what you put on the SSD is easy too, choose the most important stuff that you use the most, until the SSD is getting full, and then put the other stuff elsewhere.

[MegaYoda]

I think my new pc should look like this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96dWOEa4Djs

[MegaYoda]

LN23303
700W Coolermaster Silent Pro M, Modular, 80 PLUS Bronze, 85% Eff', SLI/CrossFire, EPS 12V, 135mm Fan £68.69 £82.43
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/700w-coo ... -135mm-fan

LN29006
Corsair H50-1 Hydro High-performance CPU WatercoolerS775/1366/1156/1155 AMD 754/939/940/AM2/AM2+/AM3 £41.50 £49.80
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/corsair- ... 2-am2plus-
LN33400
Asus M4A88TD-M EVO/USB3, AMD 880G, S AM3, DDR3 2000 (OC), 1600, SATA 6Gb/s RAID, USB 3.0, uATX, VGA £68.88 £82.66
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/asus-m4a ... 0-uatx-vga

LN32077
LG, 10x Blu-Ray Writer, 16x DVD±R, 8x +RW, 6x -RW, 12x RAM - OEM BH10LS30.AUAU10B £57.97 £69.56
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/lg-10x-b ... s30auau10b

LN29161
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit, Operating System, Single, - OEM £61.07 £73.28
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/microsof ... single-oem

LN34715
90GB OCZ Vertex 2 3.5" SSD up to 285MB/s READ up to 275MB/s WRITE, 50K IOPS, Sandforce Controller £114.18 £137.02
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/90gb-ocz ... controller
AMD Phenom II X6 1090T Black Edition, Thuban, Sok AM3, 3.2GHz, 9MB Total Cache, 125W, Retail
LN32798 AMD Phenom II X6 1090T Black Edition, Thuban, Sok AM3, 3.2GHz, 9MB Total Cache, 125W, Retail
£122.99 £147.59
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/amd-phen ... 25w-retail

8GB (2x4GB) Corsair Vengeance DDR3 PC3-12800 (1600), Non-ECC Unbuffered, CAS 9-9-9-24, XMP, 1.50V +
LN28746 1TB Samsung HD103SJ Spinpoint F3, SATA 3Gb/s, 7200rpm, 32MB Cache, 8.9 ms, NCQ, OEM
LN36550 8GB (2x4GB) Corsair Vengeance DDR3 PC3-12800 (1600), Non-ECC Unbuffered, CAS 9-9-9-24, XMP, 1.50V
£88.99 £106.79
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/ss1tb-sa ... ms-ncq-oem
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/8gb-(2x4 ... 4-xmp-150v

LN37449
Thermaltake Dokker Black, Mid Tower Case with built in HDD Hotswap Docking for 3/5/2.5", w/o PSU £35.89 £43.07
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/thermalt ... 25-w-o-psu
LN36863
2GB XFX HD 6950, PCI-E 2.1 (x16), 5000MHz GDDR5, GPU 800MHz, 1408Cores, DL DVI-I/ DVI/ HDMI/ 2x mDP £157.69 £189.23
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/2gb-xfx- ... dmi-2x-mdp
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£13.98
£166.38
Total£998.21

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