I7 too far? £700 max

[drjamo]

Dear All

I posted a few months ago about building a new system for about £700 and someone managed to price up a PC with an i7 processor that I thought would be well out of range, but was still a bit pricey. However, we are nearly through a loft conversion project and so I haven't spent the money yet. I had hoped that prices would have changed in the UK, but they don't seem to (although 260 GTX seems cheaper and the 1GB 4870 also?). The i7 seems out of reach (I only have a Windows XP disk so far!), so anyone got an idea of how the Core2 prices (vs performance) have faired since I last looked?

Have been stumbling from Ebuyer to Overclockers to Novatech on my previous recommendations from helpful forum-ites, but am now lost with a headache ! Can anyone advise a gaming system that is best value for money (I haven't played anything since HalfLife 2 but really want to play GTAIV despite problems/Far Cry 2/Crysis and Mafia 2 when it is here)?

many thanks, Jon

 

[geofelt]

The premium for an i7 920 vs. a similarly clocked Qxxx has dropped to about $100. The only way to go if you want a quad.

Still, for gaming, the critical component is the vga card, so start with the best card you feel comfortable paying for.

Powered by a E8400, you can run anything reasonably well up to a GTX285 or so.

 

[godfath3r]

i would advise you to hang back 2 months save more money then look at the situation again.i have done the same and im just waiting now for next pay day in a couple of weeks before purchasing (ive waited 2months now jst for the extra cash). parts should be slightly cheaper and hopefully you would have saved some more. and the wait will be worth it, i7 will be more future proof in the long run and gtx260 is a v.good card indeed, and 6 months after down the line you can purchase another for a nice sli setup

 

[yellosnowman]

The premium for an i7 920 vs. a similarly clocked Qxxx has dropped to about $100. The only way to go if you want a quad.

Still, for gaming, the critical component is the vga card, so start with the best card you feel comfortable paying for.

Powered by a E8400, you can run anything reasonably well up to a GTX285 or so.

Tom's hardware review shows that the e8500/e8600 beats the quads....
so I'm going for a E8500 and dual HD4870s

 

[xthekidx]

The best bang for the buck currently is probably going with a PII 720BE processor. It does very well in games (about equal to the E8400 in single threaded games, better in multithreaded games). Its also considerably cheaper than the other options like the E8x00 CPU's, so you can put more into the GPU.

 

[rags_20]

The main prob. with i7 is that the mobos and RAM are costly. MSI mobos are cheap. But 720 pounds (can't find a pound symbol on my keyboard) seems a little low.

Here is a build in $ :

i7 920 : $289
GA -EX58-UD3R $200
GSkill 3GB 1600 - $60
Powercolor 4850 512MB $130
Seagate Barracuda 750GB OEM - $80
Corsair VX450 ~ $70
Antec 300 ~ $60-70
DVD RW- $25

Assuming you already have a monitor and keyboard,mouse it comes to around $925 that is 630 pounds.

All prices taken from newegg. Rebates not included.

 

[drjamo]

Thanks for all the replies. I guess I will have to face the reality of a weak pound and UK prices. Rags_20 your listing came to about £750 inc. VAT and so hasn't really moved significantly in months. The trouble is I have been putting this buy off for so long I have almost forgotten why I want it any more and the games playing/video editing time has been booked by (probably more healthy) family stuff! But I did enjoy it....

On the otherhand I have filled my HDD completely so I have to buy soon...

Come on Intel - reach out to me as a budget consumer who wants an i7