Building up a new PC

Divvens

Well-known member
In a random discussion with my dad a topic about my PC came up and he told me to upgrade it now rather than wait for a year (what my plan was), the last build I got was around a year and a half back which is.

Windows 7 Home Basic
Intel Core i3 CPU @2.93 ghz
4gb DDR3 RAM
Nvidia GeForce 9600 GT
1300 GB Harddrive (300 + 1tb)

Some cooling system i'm unaware off :p

I'm upgrading but my max budget is somewhere around 800 Euros, what I'm thinking of currently already exceeds my budget but a bit here and there is fine.

Intel - i5 - 2500k
Motherboard (Need Suggestions!)
650+ Watts power supply (Antec HCG 750 or Antec EA-750)
Seagate Barracuda XT 2TB (7200RPM)
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium (64 Bit)
Nvidia GeForce GTX 560Ti (1 GB)
8 GB DDR3 Ram
Sound Card (Suggestion needed) [Must be directX compatible, prefer Realtek)
Cooling System (Need suggestions)

Any help is appreciated :D I planned for an intel i7 2600K but well that's hiking up my price XD and I'll be using this build for at least 2/3 years :p do you suggest I go with i7 2600K or stick with my current plan?
 
I'm upgrading but my max budget is somewhere around 800 Euros,
I'll be using this build for at least 2/3 years

If you plan on using this pc to game for 2/3 years... 800 euros wont cut it.

I would do as you said originally, keep saving and upgrade next year with a bigger budget.
 
If you plan on using this pc to game for 2/3 years... 800 euros wont cut it.

I would do as you said originally, keep saving and upgrade next year with a bigger budget.
Ah, what budget would you suggest? If I were to keep it min for 2 years (and later if needed just change parts and not everything again)
 
Ah, what budget would you suggest? If I were to keep it min for 2 years (and later if needed just change parts and not everything again)

I would suggest a) waiting a couple of months for the ivy bridge release, this will let you pick up a high spec i7 setup for a good bang for buck.

b) Go for an i7 platform, the bottleneck on all mordern games are the CPU and hard drive, so you ideally want to be picking up a couple of ssd's in raid0 to give you some sick performance :)
 
b) Go for an i7 platform, the bottleneck on all mordern games are the CPU and hard drive, so you ideally want to be picking up a couple of ssd's in raid0 to give you some sick performance :)
Thanks!
Would you suggest a particular company for the SSD's?
 
Save the money on the SSD - don't bother. Benefit is mostly from read not write or it gets very, very expensive. Get a fast HD (my SATA III drives scream.) i3 won't cut it. i5 might cut it. You really want to go i7 BUT if you get a good mobo and good video card(s), you're in business and can upgrade the CPU later.

My thought -- most people yell "crossfire" to me and, if so, you'll need to think about a system that might be able to handle it at some point. Gigabyte makes some budget priced boards but I think that there are a few other producers that were recommended on the budget for around $100 and change that might do the trick (not sure of the euros.)
 
Motherboard (Need Suggestions!)

Anything by Gigabyte that meets your price and feature requirements with good reviews

650+ Watts power supply (Antec HCG 750 or Antec EA-750)

Don't buy Antec power supplies, they are notorious for using cheap capacitors

Seagate Barracuda XT 2TB (7200RPM)

Get one or more Samsung Spinpoint F3 drives instead, unmatched price/performance and great reliability

8 GB DDR3 Ram

Overkill unless you do really heavy multitasking or rendering, 4 is more than enough for gaming and normal usage.

Sound Card (Suggestion needed) [Must be directX compatible, prefer Realtek)

Just use onboard unless you have a high end sound setup

Cooling System (Need suggestions)

Hyper 212+ if you plan on overclocking significantly; Sandy Bridge gets by just fine on stock.

Any help is appreciated :D I planned for an intel i7 2600K but well that's hiking up my price XD and I'll be using this build for at least 2/3 years :p do you suggest I go with i7 2600K or stick with my current plan?

i7 will provide no benefit for gaming whatsoever (guessing that is your main use), hyperthreading is only useful for heavy multitasking, servers and encoding/compiling etc.

--

If you are buying an SSD, get the Crucial M4 64GB.

Save the money on the SSD - don't bother. Benefit is mostly from read not write or it gets very, very expensive. Get a fast HD (my SATA III drives scream.)

It's all about the access time, a 50MB/s read SSD could easily boot a PC faster than a high end 7200rpm disk. And you really don't need write speed on a system drive
 
For 800 euros... you're basically buying a mediocre computer... You'd be much better off waiting a year, saving up a bit of cash and buying a more expensive computer when you can afford it. Motherboards at the current time are growing outdated and the next generation of motherboards are close on the horizon.
 
Double check if your hardware is supported for a hackingtosh setup, perhaps worth having a triple boot setup for win7 or 8, ubuntu 11.x and osx lion
 
Double check if your hardware is supported for a hackingtosh setup, perhaps worth having a triple boot setup for win7 or 8, ubuntu 11.x and osx lion
Just use vmWare player -- it's free! If you run multiple virtual machines, the more ram you can afford the better.
 
For 800 euros... you're basically buying a mediocre computer... You'd be much better off waiting a year, saving up a bit of cash and buying a more expensive computer when you can afford it. Motherboards at the current time are growing outdated and the next generation of motherboards are close on the horizon.

800 is more than enough for a great build
 
Completely and utterly untrue.

You can make a decent system for $800 that'll run new games, and last a relatively long time as long as the video card and processor are decent.

Guess we have different expectations of a gaming PC,

I would spend $800 on a cpu + motherboard alone.
 
i7 will provide no benefit for gaming whatsoever (guessing that is your main use), hyperthreading is only useful for heavy multitasking, servers and encoding/compiling etc.
Say, wha? I made a thread a few months ago, and everyone suggested I go either i3, or i5, but then there was a suggestion for i7.

I'm upgrading my mobo for gaming. I wanna play Diablo 3. :)
 
Guess we have different expectations of a gaming PC,

I would spend $800 on a cpu + motherboard alone.
A "decent system" is completely possible on $800, and thats for a system that can last you several years unless you're intending to play something like Crysis 4 on highest settings.

I also use the same system I use for 3D design and such for gaming, so I'm sure my expectations are a bit higher. Oh look, I can act like an elitist too.
 
A "decent system" is completely possible on $800, and thats for a system that can last you several years unless you're intending to play something like Crysis 4 on highest settings.

I also use the same system I use for 3D design and such for gaming, so I'm sure my expectations are a bit higher. Oh look, I can act like an elitist too.

Nothing elitist about fact so lose the attitude. If you want to build a gaming PC that will play games for 2-3 years to come on high quality settings you will need to invest more than 800 bucks.

$800 = £500.

I can tell you for fact, that you would not be able to build a system for £500 that would play new releases on high quality for 2 years. Let alone 3.
 
Nothing elitist about fact so lose the attitude. If you want to build a gaming PC that will play games for 2-3 years to come on high quality settings you will need to invest more than 800 bucks.

$800 = £500.

I can tell you for fact, that you would not be able to build a system for £500 that would play new releases on high quality for 2 years. Let alone 3.
...If you're making a decent system, you're obviously going to sacrifice quality for gameplay. Its built so you can play, not so you can be dazzled by all the fancy fluff animations.

And I actually meant £800, I forgot they mentioned it was euro.
 
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