Building a new gaming machine for under £900!

[horn_]

This is what I've lined up so far:

processor E8400 LGA775 'Wolfdale' 3.00GHz (1333FSB) - £116

OS vista - £62

PSU/case Antec Sonata III Piano Black Quiet Case - EarthWatts 500W PSU - £82

Monitor Samsung SM-206BW 20" Widescreen LCD Monitor - Glossy Black - £188

CD drive LiteON LH-20A1L-14C 20x DVD±RW SATA Dual Layer Lightscribe ReWriter - £20

HDD Western Digital Caviar Blue 640GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - £58

RAM Corsair 4GB DDR2 XMS2 PC2-6400C5 TwinX (2x2GB) - £71

GPU Powercolor ATI Radeon HD 4850 512MB GDDR3 - £118

Motherboard Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L Intel P35 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard - £59

Speakers Creative Gigaworks T20 2.0 Speaker System - £52

They're all from www.overclockers.co.uk simply because the price doesn't seem too bad on most products and i've got a friend who has bought stuff from them before.


Ok, so here are my problems/questions:

- for the HDD, i'd kind of like to have a seperate HDD (maybe a 10,000rpm raptor) to put vista and games on so that they would run faster. however i can't really afford even the smallest raptor. should i get two 340gig HDDs instead of one 640 gig to gain a similar advantage?

- does the psu have enough power for the system?

- having heard about how reflective glossy monitors can be, i'm having second thoughts about my monitor choice. Are there any other good choices here: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/productlist.php?groupid=703&catid=17&sortby=nameAsc&subid=948&mfrid=
?

- is powercolor a good brand? i'm going for them because they're the cheapest one on the site.

- are those speakers any good, and will the onboard soundcard in the motherboard be good enough to get the most out of them?

Any replys and other suggestions are much appreciated!

[horn_]

One last question. Could anyone recommend a laser/optical mouse that accommodates a "claw" grip, and doesn't have annoying extra buttons. Preferably something that isn't less responsive than a rollerball mouse but doesn't cost a huge amount either.

[Logos]

two 7200 rpm in RAID O won't get you the access time performance of a Raptor - I suppose you mean RAID when you say two 340 instead of one 640 GB - RAID will increase the transfer rate only, not the access time that can even become a bit slower.

PSU is a bit short imo, a 600 at least...

the speakers are OK and yes Powercolor is good...oh onboard sound chip, not as good as a real sound card (Creative Xtreme gamer PCI is cheap, very cheap)

RAM is really OK
P35 chipset is really outdated now, better off with a P45.

[horn_]

two 7200 rpm in RAID O won't get you the access time performance of a Raptor - I suppose you mean RAID when you say two 340 instead of one 640 GB - RAID will increase the transfer rate only, not the access time that can even become a bit slower.

PSU is a bit short imo, a 600 at least...

the speakers are OK and yes Powercolor is good...oh onboard sound chip, not as good as a real sound card (Creative Xtreme gamer PCI is cheap, very cheap)

RAM is really OK
P35 chipset is really outdated now, better off with a P45.

Thanks for the reply. Yeah i wasn't thinking the access time would get any faster with two 320 HDDs but i was hoping if one was only used for my OS and games then it would be faster than one 640 HDD which would also get cluttered up with my music and everything else.

Are those the best speakers in that price range? How much improvement would i see with a soundcard, i'm desperate not to spend any more money. Same with the p45 motherboard, is it really necessary?

[horn_]

Please help me people! I'm hoping to buy this stuff tommorow!

[Logos]

yes, a real sound card will be much better that most mobo onboard solutions, unless you opt for a high end mobo (from the Asus ROG series for instance) that brings acceptable PCIe sound cards in the package.

As to the P35, go for it only if you got no choice financially; other wise take a P45, and some are cheap in the series as well.

[horn_]

I was just trying to gauge how much performance i was going to gain by spending the extra money on a p45 and a soundcard. If the difference is that large then i could possibly afford the extra amount but i'm not sure how different an experience we're talking about here. I mean is it worth even buying £50 speakers without a soundcard? Is the difference that big?

[Logos]

depends what you're expecting from a sound card, depends what level of quality you expect, it's up to you...I guess the only way for you to make sure what the difference is would be to pay a visit to a department store where you can hear the gear in action. Look you can always start with the sound onboard solution, and if you don't like it, just get a sound card :yepp:

[horn_]

This is what I've lined up so far:

processor E8400 LGA775 'Wolfdale' 3.00GHz (1333FSB)

OS vista

PSU/case Antec Sonata III Piano Black Quiet Case - EarthWatts 500W PSU

Monitor Samsung SM-2032BW Pebble 20" Widescreen LCD Monitor - Glossy Black

CD drive LiteON LH-20A1L-14C 20x DVD±RW SATA Dual Layer Lightscribe ReWriter

HDD Western Digital Caviar Blue 640GB SATA-II 16MB Cache

RAM Corsair 4GB DDR2 XMS2 PC2-6400C5 TwinX (2x2GB)

GPU Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 4850 512MB GDDR3

Motherboard ..................................

Speakers Creative Gigaworks T20 2.0 Speaker System - £52



Ok, i was originally going to go for the Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L Intel P35 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard. But they don't appear to have it at http://www.pixmania.co.uk which seems to be a much cheaper website than any other i can find. Can anyone think of a good alternative board that is available on there?

Also, if anyone has any experience form ordering from that website, i'd love to hear from you.

[ToTTenTranz]

That's a great, cheap and balanced system for the price. I think the Antec 500W is more than enough unless you're thinking about overclocking past ~3.6Ghz.

But I'd get a decent soundcard. The Megaworks T20 are studio-quality monitors that will be cramped by the onboard sound.. Get and XtremeGamer, XtremeMusic or maybe Asus Xonar U1. The Xonar U1 would be a great fit for the Megaworks T20, because it sports Dolby Virtual Speaker. It also has Dolby Headphone.

[Chewbenator]

I don't think the PSU should be an issue. To be honest, I don't think that P45 would get you that much more performance. I assume you are staying on air cooling, so you would be limited by that before the chipset. For the motherboard from that new site I would suggest: http://www.pixmania.co.uk/uk/uk/634099/art/msi/p35-neo2-fir-lga775-socke.html or http://www.pixmania.co.uk/uk/uk/549953/art/asus/p5k-socket-lga775-for-int.html as far as the cheapest in stock Mobo that would meet your needs.

Oh and I'm not quite sure what a "claw" grip is, but my Logitech MX518 is real nice, and a lot of people find them to be great mice. Also the site you listed has a pretty good price for it: http://www.pixmania.co.uk/uk/uk/95856/art/logitech/mx518-gaming-grade-optica.html

[horn_]

Thank you for the replys. I now have a new problem! I quite like the look of the second option you suggested chewbinator, which was the asus board. The thing is, i've just found this - http://www.pixmania.co.uk/uk/uk/777/xx/xx/103/9/criteresn_BA00001939-BV00124251.html
For some reason they have mushkin pc-6400 for the same price as the pc-8000! I was thinking of spending an extra £5 so instead of getting the corsair i mentioned before (and is at the top of that list in the link), i could get some pc-8000. I'm sure the difference isn't huge, but i would have thought it would be worth it for £5?

The problem is that when i clicked for the details on the asus board - http://www.pixmania.co.uk/uk/uk/549953/art/asus/p5k-socket-lga775-for-int.html?form=34#tech-specs

i found this - Supported RAM Speed PC2-6400, PC2-5300

So it seems to be saying it doesn't support Pc-8000 !? is that just a typo or have i hit another brick wall? :(
Any help appreciated!

[perkam]

Thank you for the replys. I now have a new problem! I quite like the look of the second option you suggested chewbinator, which was the asus board. The thing is, i've just found this - http://www.pixmania.co.uk/uk/uk/777/xx/xx/103/9/criteresn_BA00001939-BV00124251.html
For some reason they have mushkin pc-6400 for the same price as the pc-8000! I was thinking of spending an extra £5 so instead of getting the corsair i mentioned before (and is at the top of that list in the link), i could get some pc-8000. I'm sure the difference isn't huge, but i would have thought it would be worth it for £5?

The problem is that when i clicked for the details on the asus board - http://www.pixmania.co.uk/uk/uk/549953/art/asus/p5k-socket-lga775-for-int.html?form=34#tech-specs

i found this - Supported RAM Speed PC2-6400, PC2-5300

So it seems to be saying it doesn't support Pc-8000 !? is that just a typo or have i hit another brick wall? :(
Any help appreciated!I will tell you this only once. The only reason anyone would ever recommend that P35 board is if you have given up on overclocking and lost faith in it.

Do yourself a favor and spend the extra 30 Pounds: http://www.pixmania.co.uk/uk/uk/1284077/art/asus/p5q-pro-lga775-socket-for.html

Perkam

[horn_]

I will tell you this only once. The only reason anyone would ever recommend that P35 board is if you have given up on overclocking and lost faith in it.

Do yourself a favor and spend the extra 30 Pounds: http://www.pixmania.co.uk/uk/uk/1284077/art/asus/p5q-pro-lga775-socket-for.html

Perkam

Sorry, i probably should have mentioned before but i'm not really much of an overclocker! At most i was thinking of pushing up the 8400 from 3gigs to maybe 3.4 or something. I'm also not planning on upgrading anything (i.e. when i finally do upgrade it will be in about 4-5 years when everything will be out of date anyway). I don't think i can really afford the p45! Any suggestions?

[horn_]

Ok I've given up trying to find an alternative motherboard and am just going to pay the extra shipping charge for the DS3L. Is the DS3L compatibile with the following list of components? I desperately want to order this today. Please let me know if you think there is a problem with one of the components on the list!




processor E8400 LGA775 'Wolfdale' 3.00GHz (1333FSB) - £116

OS vista

PSU/case Antec Sonata III Piano Black Quiet Case - EarthWatts 500W PSU

Monitor Samsung SM-206BW 20" Widescreen LCD Monitor - Glossy Black

CD drive LITE ON LH-20A1P Internal DVD±RW 20x Writer

HDDs Western Digital 320GB SATA-II 7200rpm 16mb cache & Western Digital 74GB SATA-I 10000rpm 16mb cache

RAM MUSHKIN Redline PC Memory Module - 2 x 2 GB DDR2-1000 PC2-8000 CL5

GPU Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 4850 512MB GDDR3

Motherboard Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L

Speakers Creative Gigaworks T20 2.0 Speaker System

[perkam]

Ok I've given up trying to find an alternative motherboard and am just going to pay the extra shipping charge for the DS3L. Is the DS3L compatibile with the following list of components? I desperately want to order this today. Please let me know if you think there is a problem with one of the components on the list!You say you are not an overclocker and yet you need this:


MUSHKIN Redline PC Memory Module - 2 x 2 GB DDR2-1000 PC2-8000 CL5If you want good quality components, never skimp on the motherboard, horn.

Perkam

[horn_]

You say you are not an overclocker and yet you need this:

If you want good quality components, never skimp on the motherboard, horn.

Perkam

I don't need it, it's just that pixmania seems to be selling it so cheap (only £5 more than the pc6400) so i thought I'd just spend the extra £5. That's a lot less than the extra £30 for the board!

I think i have finalised what I'm going to get now:



This is what I've lined up so far:

processor E8400

OS Windows Vista, Home Premium Edition with Service Pack 1, Upgrade Version (PC)

PSU/case Antec Sonata III Piano Black Quiet Case - EarthWatts 500W PSU

Monitor Samsung SM-2032BW Pebble 20" Widescreen LCD Monitor - Glossy Black

CD drive LiteON LH-20A1L-14C 20x DVD±RW SATA Dual Layer Lightscribe ReWriter

HDD WESTERN DIGITAL Caviar SE16 - 320 GB - 7200RPM - 16 MB SATA 2 (bulk version) and WESTERN DIGITAL WD740ADFD Raptor Hard Drive - 3.5" - 74 GB - 10000 rpm - 16 MB - SATA

RAM MUSHKIN Redline PC Memory Module - 2 x 2 GB DDR2-1000 PC2-8000 CL5

GPU Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 4850 512MB GDDR3

Motherboard Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L

Speakers Creative Gigaworks T20 2.0 Speaker System

The only suggestions i need now are relating to cooling. As i said before, the only overclocking i would consider would be a slight overclock on the 8400, maybe to 3.6Ghz. I've heard the Antec case only comes with one fan. Should i get another one? If so, what one? The same goes for the graphics card and the processor. Should i get fans for those too?

[horn_]

If anyone can suggest good, cheap coolers from either pixmania.co.uk or amazon.co.uk for the 4850 and the 8400 i would love you forever!