Building a PC for First time - Gaming - Please Help

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danyolb

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Jan 2, 2009
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Hi I'm building a PC for the first time and would like to know some things. The PC is for gaming, and my budget is around £800 - £900.

Here is What I have chosen so far:
ASUS P5N-T Deluxe AiLifestyle Series nForce 780i SLI - £133.97

Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550 Socket 775 2.83GHz 1333FSB 12MB £219.94

Sapphire HD 4870 1GB GDDR5 Dual £110

Zalman CNPS 9700 LED Socket £39.66

Corsair 4GB Kit (2x2GB) DDR2 800MHz £41.20

Akasa Omega Black Aluminium Case £119.40

Thermaltake Toughpower Modular 850W PSU £100


My questions are as follows:
* Is what I choose good performance for money?
* Can you recommend any changes so save money/gain performance?
* Will it all work together?
* Any tips please?
 
Everything seems to be fine but if i were you i'd go with the Q6600 (2.4ghz) and just overclock to 3.0 or 3.2 or something and you should get excellent results.

So, i thought you might save some money with that and possibly invest in a decent hard-drive.......veloca cough raptor!
 
Ok but is my graphics card good with the board I have chosen. Many people keep saying 'why have you chose an ATI card on a Nvidia tri sli capable board?' What should I do?

Also which Harddrive should I go with cause the veloci raptors are around £160 for 150GB.
 


the 4870 is an excellent card. in fact, i would suggest that maybe you consider a P45 motherboard. from what i've heard, intel chipsets are generally better than nvidia ones. and that way, you can run a second 4870 if you ever want to.

as for veloci raptors, i never really liked the idea of them. i would always prefer a large hard drive over a small one, even if it's slower. a faster hard drive doesn't give you a better framerate in games unless you have so little ram that your hard drive is being used for virtual memory. you won't really regret buying a significantly larger hard drive for the same price.
 
Agreed - the P45 board will make a lot more sense that the NVidia one.

Would also suggest getting a E8400 - it is easy to OC, saves £100 and most games will not utilise the four cores of the Q9550 anyway.

This should save £120 that you can use to upgrade to a 4870 X2.

PS

I'm assuming the 1Gb Saphire 4870 at £110 is a typo and it should be £210? If not, where are you getting it - I want two!

Stuart
 
yeah a typo. £210 for a 4970. So If I have x2 4870 in a p45 mobo. How much performance increase would I see compared to a single 4870.

Also, gaming I will not notice a big difference between Q9550 and the E8400
 



you would see quite a big performance increase between those 2 cards. just google 4870x2 benchmark and you'll find a ton of information. and yes, the E8400 would be better for gaming. unless you're going to be playing alot of supreme commander, having 4 cores gives little to no benefit over having 2.
 
I'd probably agree with the switch to a P45 motherboard, one that is capable of ATI's Crossfire. Then you can run 2 x 4970 or 2x 4870, whatever you choose. How much performance gain you see completely depends on the game. Some show more gains than others.

Also, keep in mind, if you're using a smaller monitor like me (19" @ 1440x900) Crossfire and SLI won't do much of anything for you. The increased performance is really only seen at higher resolutions at this point.

The Q6600 is a great option for a gaming Quad Core quite frankly. On a P45 board especially, you should easily be able to attain a 3Ghz or 3.2Ghz overclock. With a really good Heatsink you could quite possibly overclock it to 3.4 or 3.6Ghz (not all chips go that far, but many do).

The E8400 is also a spectacular chip, but is a dual core. It will OC farther than the Q6600, but the future is going to bring us more and more quad core optimized games/software.

With the pricing on the Q9550 (at least American dollars) you might be better off buying an i7 based system (i7 920) with the X58 motherboard. That will outperform anything else mentioned here so far. And if you can get it for close to the same price, it'd be silly not to. :) Should last you longer.
 



that's a very good point. the Q9550 costs more than the i7 920. the motherboard would eliminate the price difference, but it would definitely be worth it.
 
I agree getting a p45 and getting 4870 will be most effective choice. some time down the road you most likly on getting new mobo in 2-4 years since the i7 will be like 16 cores or w/e haha.
 
yeah that power supply would be fine regardless of the card. the card itself will depend on how big your monitor is. if you're gaming at 1440x900 or less, then even a 4850 would be good. but for 1680x1050 or 1920x1200, you'll really see the benefit from a 4870x2.
 
I currently use a 28" HD TV for a monitor which I have set at 1360x768. I dont knwo whether to get the 4870 or 4870x2...
 


ok so you really don't need a 4870x2, or even a 4870. i think a 4830 would provide good performance for that resolution, and at a very low price compared to the 4870's.
 
I want the 4870 I think... so would you recommend a quad core or the duo? i7 seems a bit too soon to move towards
 
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