Scotsman

iTrader: (3)

Saint AAI

http://www.scan.co.uk/todayonly/

Today only deal (5th Dec)
£500

1TB Seagate ST31000524AS Barracuda 7200.12, SATA 6Gb/s, 7200rpm, 32MB Cache, 8.5ms, NCQ

650W PSU, Coolermaster GX RS650-ACAAE3-UK, 85% Eff', 80 PLUS Bronze, SLI/CrossFire, EPS 12V, Quiet Fan, ATX v2.31

Asus P8Z68-V LX, Intel Z68, S 1155, DDR3, SATA III - 6Gb/s, SATA RAID, PCIe 2.0 (x16), D-Sub/ DVI-D/ HDMI, ATX

BitFenix Survivor CORE, Black, Mid Tower Gaming Case with Handle w/o PSU Lan Party Favourite!

Colors IT ACT KB-8108 Multimedia Office Pro Keyboard, Silver/Black with MIC/Speakers SKYPE Ready

Intel Core i7 2600K Unlocked S1155, Sandy Bridge, Quad, 3.4GHz, HD3000 IGP 850Mhz, 8MB Cache 95W Retail

Samsung WriteMaster SH-S222AB/BEBE 22x DVD±R, 12x DVD±R, DVD+RW x8/-RW x6, SATA, Black, OEM


Need to add RAM, graphics card and Windows, also you have to build it yourself. Total cost will be around £720 with GeForce GTX 560-Ti 1GB Graphics and 8GB of RAM. Just need Windows then.

CREWJ

With Windows that's close to £800. Slightly more than the OP wants to spend.

Scotsman

iTrader: (3)

Thanks for the build suggestion.

I can get free delivery with Scan, so it's only really £40 more than the Chillblaster option. Though having it build and working is appealing.

Question is - is a i7 2600k worth getting compared to a 4.5 i5 2400?

Cheers
Richard.

CREWJ

TBH, you won't notice much difference unless you perform hyperthreading tasks. Day to day there will be absolutely no difference.

Neanderthal

iTrader: (6)

You're slipping into the net that caught me mate, "well the i7 is only x amount more" etc. In the end I spent about a grand!

Scotsman

iTrader: (3)

lol- true :-)

I'm going to stick to the Chillblast system and will order when I get back to the house this afternoon.

jura11

iTrader: (7)

Build own PC its much more fun,pre-build PC are OK if you are don't want to do build,but i'm still building mine PC with mine selected parts and i know these parts working..

i7 vs i5 i don't know,really depends for what PC is build,if its for heavy Photoshop,Video editing and making graphic and Virtualization(VmWare etc) i would say i7 will be bang on...

If you are just gamer and you are not looking for these above thing i would say i5 will be enough for you

And about the spec,i personally buying only Asus MB with these i've good experience and mostly important great features and easy too overclock,Memory Corsair or G-Skill are mine favourite(really 8GB is minimum and i would say 12-16GB should be enough for any application for future),GPU i'm using and have good experience with ATi GPU due are more energy efficient..HDD i would say for OS i would go with SSD and for other files i would go with 1TB HDD(but with these prices,not sure if you can wait until next year),PSU they're plenty out there i would go with Modular and 80+ at minimum and OCZ series are great for money.Case i would go only with Coolermaster or if its budget Li-an its just great

Jura

Scotsman

iTrader: (3)

Thansk Jura - but at £729 fully build for:

Cooler Master Elite 430 Black ATX Case
Intel Core i5 2500K Processor overclocked to 4.5GHz
Corsair A70 CPU Cooler
Asus P8Z68-V LE Motherboard
GeForce GTX 560-Ti 1GB Graphics Card
8GB PC3-10666 DDR3 Memory
24x Sony DVD-RW Drive
1000GB SATA 7200rpm Hard Disk
600watt Corsair PSU
Onboard High Definition Audio
Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit OEM

then the different between just buying the parts and paying for the build isn't that great really and I'm going to take the easy route.

Thanks for the advice re i7/i5 - I'm only going to be playing some games on it, as do all my work on my mac. Not that I'm the biggest game player either these days, but would be nice to have a machine that can play the latest titles if I wanted to - plus I use my home PC everyday and my current one has lasted me 5 years, so amortising the £730 over the next 3+ years is pretty cheap on a per day usage.

jura11

iTrader: (7)

This CPU cooler its not the best(but better than OE CPU cooler),but at this price i would like to see at least Noctua CPU cooler...

Yes sometimes easy route its just great and at least its nothing too worry about that.

For gaming will be great spec i must admit,lot of newer games still not using full potential of Duo cores,not the Quad cores(all games are GPU intensive,not the GPU),GPU should be all right too.
Really depends what games you are playing,but still you can buy second GPU,but not sure if this MB support multi GPU,if yes if its support Crossfire or SLi

Agreed with your usage,this PC will pay off nicely on end of the cycle


Jura

Scotsman

iTrader: (3)

Scotsman

iTrader: (3)

If all new games are GPU reliant, would a i3 based system (that has been overclocked) be as good, if you had a decent GPU?

jura11

iTrader: (7)

Really depends on games,as i said most games still use just 1 and 2 cores mostly and mostly games are just GPU intesive.

i3 its duo core,which have Hyper Threading and in some games i5 its faster around 20% at stock speeds.If i3 is overclocked and have decent GPU i would say will be fast as i5 at stock speed.

Jura

CREWJ

It could be but you would notice a difference then. The i5 should be a quad core where the i3 would most definitely be a dual core.

Damn Ninjas.....

Scotsman

iTrader: (3)

lol - I should just order the faster system and be done with it :-)

Thanks again for the help.

Neanderthal

iTrader: (6)

If you don't order it soon someone will be along to say "don't buy anything yet, the next release of graphics cards is about to be released and this will drop the price of current gfx cards..."

Scotsman

iTrader: (3)

I've ordered it - phew!!!!

bigsinky

my i3 overclocks to 4.4Ghz very nicely. on air as well

jura11

iTrader: (7)

Really depends on games,this should help and clear/prove mine points




In some games you will gain with raw CPU power,but in some games you can gain just few FPS..

Jura

Yes that's good point,like my friend still waiting when HD59xx will drop and still waiting and waiting,i bought mine in USA two for price of one here

Jura

bioforger

iTrader: (1)

Chillblast ftw! i bought the shadow system with a few tweaks and the sandy i5 oc'd to 4.6ghz, £575 all in tis a rocket ship Will be more now thou as they had to put up their prices due to HDD shortages.

Scotsman

iTrader: (3)

Chillblast Fusion Hurricane ordered :-) though touch and go whether I will get it before Xmas. Was tempted by the shadow system too - but decided to pay a little more to get more memory and a GeForce GTX 560-Ti.

http://www.chillblast.com/Chillblast...Hurricane.html

Good to see that Chillblast have a standard 2 year collect and return warranty as well - and all the reviews of the Chillblast systems are excellent.

Littleted

It'll fly , sons is a chill core i5 and ati 5850 does everything mw3 bf3 warcraft maxed

Mine an i7 clocked with 5870 and I can barely tell the diff and if I had to say anything about my sons I'd prob say I need to upgrade his VGA card now other than that it's been great

Processor wise not much in it

CREWJ

I have an i7 with a 5870 too

Galifrey

iTrader: (3)

Thought I would at least show a bit more of the story rather than a random benchmark

jura11

iTrader: (7)

Hi there if you are mean 3DMark,this doesn't show nothing,3DMark its only for benchmarking like CPU and GPU...

Jura

Galifrey

iTrader: (3)

Not just that, the fact that the GPU was the bottleneck in the graph you posted. With a GPU bottleneck you won't see any difference between the FPS.

2 of the games are vsync'd at 60fps, and only one game, dirt 2 wasn't gpu bottlenecked and took advantage of the faster CPU's.

Most of the games used as an example are console ports with no optimisations for hyperthreading (or indeed multicore cpu's), making all the benchmarks limited in value. What no benchmarks show is the advantages in the real world of multiple cores and hyperthreading when it comes to playing online, disk access while playing, etc etc. Simply put, just having to use onboard sound can skew real life play in favour of more cores and hyperthreading, changing which cores the program runs on (through task manager or command line shortcuts) can change real world results.

Other programs that fail to use all available cores successfully are better off with a faster clockspeed and therefore, your argument is true some of the time. I went without hyperthreading on my cpu as it enabled me to run the cpu 200mhz faster without issues.



That's an I7 920@4.2 ghz hyperthreading off

jura11

iTrader: (7)

I'm still running too i7-920@4.4Ghz HT on without the problems,in some games with HT on(Grid etc),doesn't like HT on,GPU now i'm running 2x XFX HD5970(which we are bought in USA for price of one),but lots of games still doesn't support at all dual GPU

These 3DMark test are amazing for testing components,done on mine before and still think this is just benchmark(something like RR for cars).

This is good test of these CPU and difference between the lower range of LGA1155 is minimal and still think older i7-920 will do nice job at mostly games and cost less than above mentioned CPU..

http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum...review-12.html



Jura

Galifrey

iTrader: (3)

Nice overclock, that is a good chip you have there Are you running that on Air or Water?

I agree the i7-920 is a superb CPU, I am running it with a Gainward GTX-580 "Good" Edition, I previously had an Asus GTX-295 which was a dual GPU card, and lots of games couldn't use it properly, I would have been better off with a faster 280.

It is a real shame we have to deal with shoddy console ports for most of our decent games these days, although SWTOR which I have on pre-order is at least a PC-Specific game it just won't push the hardware much lol.

jura11

iTrader: (7)

Its i7-920 D0 and i'm at moment on water,but maximum has been on air 4.3ghz with Noctua and HT off,with HT on has been somewhere near 4.1Ghz.

GTX-580 its great card,when first time we are tested GTX480 bloody hell they're been too hot at any case,not sure about the GTX-580..

Specific games has been few but still not the great deal,we will see


Jura

Galifrey

iTrader: (3)

Yeah the 480 was a problem heat wise, the 580 seems a lot better, although the fans do get noisy when you push the card hard, not as noisy as some cards I have owned in the past.

Watercooled my 920 D0 as well, in a Corsair Obsidian 800D case which keeps all the cables tidy and all the air is filtered to improve the consistency on the GFX card cooler.