New computer help.

[Sable]

£1000 budget (including monitor :/ so might stretch to £1100 if necessary)

Already got

Case (Fractal R3)
Harddisks (Samsung 830 256GB SSD, 2x500GB + 2x2TB)

I was thinking this little lot

Asus P8Z68-V/GEN3 Motherboard £120.98

8GB (2x4GB) Corsair DDR3 Vengeance £35.76

Intel Core i7 2600K £221.00

Asus AMD Radeon HD7950 DirectCU II TOP Graphics Card 3GB £313.65

750W PSU, Enermax Platimax £172.67

Comes to £873.65 leaving £126.35 for monitor. :/

Need monitor suggestions. Call it £200 ish for a monitor.
Any other suggestions for different bits?


I'm hoping for price drops on the 7950 and the 2600k when the Kepler cards and ivy bridge come out shortly. Or get the Kepler card if it's any better for the same price.

TL;DR

NEED MONITOR SUGGESTIONS! £200ish

 

[Ken g6]

You missed answering a few of [thread=80121]these questions[/thread]. Like what you're using the computer for. (I assume gaming, but anything else?)

If you're not doing video encoding, 3D work, etc, you ought to drop to the 2500k (or 3570k) to save yourself some money. Intel doesn't drop prices when their next version comes out.

That PSU also looks excessive, based on these power use numbers. You don't need more than 33 amps on the 12V rail(s). How about an Antec Earthwatts 500W? Edit: Or better yet, now that I found a better place to search in the UK, a Seasonic 520W single-rail PSU.

 

[Sable]

Thanks for the reply, sorry for not including everything, I failed to actually read the sticky.

1. What YOUR PC will be used for. That means what types of tasks you'll be performing.

gaming mainly, some video encoding/transcoding, usual interwebs stuff

2. What YOUR budget is. A price range is acceptable as long as it's not more than a 20% spread

£1000 +/-£100

3. What country YOU will be buying YOUR parts from.

UK

4. IF YOU have a brand preference. That means, are you an Intel-Fanboy, AMD-Fanboy, ATI-Fanboy, nVidia-Fanboy, Seagate-Fanboy, WD-Fanboy, etc.

Fanboyness is for mongs. But derpdozer sucks balls so intel only suggestions please.

5. If YOU intend on using any of YOUR current parts, and if so, what those parts are.

As above, already have harddisks and case sorted. Oh, and dvd writer, keyboard mouse etc

7. IF YOU plan on overclocking or run the system at default speeds.

Default speeds.

8. What resolution will you be using?

Depends on the monitor, hoping for 24in 1920x1200 16:10. I realise the graphics card is a little overkill for that res but gives me the option for future eyefinitying.

Stuck between getting a good TN or a cheaper IPS with trade offs in colour and response times etc. 24in is the size I want to go for but I'm flexible in the 16:10 ratio if the monitor is good.


9. WHEN do you plan to build it?
Note that it is usually not cost or time effective to choose your build more than a month before you actually plan to be using it.

No set time. I've even considered waiting for Haswell next year but the AMD X2 4200+ just chugs too much and not sure I can handle another year of it so consider it as soon. I do plan to wait for Kepler release though just to compare performance.



As to the PSU, I'm somewhat particular about them. My present one is an Enermax Liberty 500W and has been rock solid for 7 years so was leaning towards a high efficiency Enermax on again. I was also considering the Corsair AX750 which I might go for instead just to keep the price down. 750W gives me the option for adding more power hungry graphics cards and possible future overclocking.

Good call on 2500k. Again, I was just going for the best I could squeeze into the budget. I've left myself a little short on monitor funds though so could well drop down to that.

 

[Sable]

Instead of the Enermax PSU (although I really don't want to give it up) I'm thinking Corsair HX750 £115.

And 2500k instead of 2600k.

So the total is now £761.86 leaving £238.14. If I stand by +/- £100 that gives me quite a lot to play with.

Is the onboard sound pretty reasonable these days? I've always used my Soundblaster Audigy as the sound quality was noticably better than the onboard option on my previous two motherboards (Asus A8N Sli Deluxe and I forget the other one)

 

[lehtv]

I'm going to link to scan.co.uk cos I like that shop, you can try finding the same components elsewhere if you wish but scan is usually pretty competitive:

PC:

Asus P8Z68-V/Gen3 £123 (only because you want sli/crossfire possibility)
i5-2500K OEM £161 + cooler of your choice, e.g. Hyper 212 Evo £24 - I'd recommend overclocking (multi-monitor multi-GPU setups will benefit), but if you really want to stick to default speeds, get i5-2400 £149
2x4GB Corsair Vengeance £40 or wherever you found it for £36 (should be low profile if you want to OC, cos the one with tall fins gets in the way of tower coolers)
XFX 750W XXX £89 (80+ silver, semi-modular, equivalent to HX750 except cheaper and made by Seasonic!)
That Asus 7950, wherever you found it for £313

Monitor:

Iiyama Prolite B2776HDS £242 (27" tn 1080p) highly recommended, I have the non-LED backlit version, it's really nice, zero complaints

Total = £992

 

[mfenn]

Lehtv's list is good as always. If you want to wait until tomorrow, you might consider picking up a 7870 instead of the 7950. Indications are that the overclocked versions are faster than the 7950 and it should cost less.

 

[Sable]

I'm going to link to scan.co.uk cos I like that shop, you can try finding the same components elsewhere if you wish but scan is usually pretty competitive:

PC:

Asus P8Z68-V/Gen3 £123 (only because you want sli/crossfire possibility)
i5-2500K OEM £161 + cooler of your choice, e.g. Hyper 212 Evo £24 - I'd recommend overclocking (multi-monitor multi-GPU setups will benefit), but if you really want to stick to default speeds, get i5-2400 £149
2x4GB Corsair Vengeance £40 or wherever you found it for £36 (should be low profile if you want to OC, cos the one with tall fins gets in the way of tower coolers)
XFX 750W XXX £89 (80+ silver, semi-modular, equivalent to HX750 except cheaper and made by Seasonic!)
That Asus 7950, wherever you found it for £313

Monitor:

Iiyama Prolite B2776HDS £242 (27" tn 1080p) highly recommended, I have the non-LED backlit version, it's really nice, zero complaints

Total = £992

Awesome. Thanks for taking the time. I've spotted a problem with the motherboard though, not enough SATA ports!!! I've got my SSD, my DVD writer, 2x500GB in RAID1 and 2x2TB in RAID1 which eats up all the ports and I'll probably want to add another RAID in the future. It's the reason I got the Fractal R3 case, LOADS of harddrive trays.

The V-Pro Gen3 has an extra marvel chip on it for another 2 SATA ports which I'm fairly sure are RAIDable so I'm thinking just go for that.

I've just found this overclocked bundle on Amazon for £389

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Intel-Asus-...1_5?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1332182356&sr=1-5

The bits separately cost £380 so dunno if I want to spend £9 for an overclock. Is overclocking pretty straight forward on SBs?

I'll look for some reviews of the PSU, I hadn't even considered XFX. My first choice was just too pricey and I'd heard good things about Corsair.


Monitor wise I'm still caught between cheap 27in TN, cheap 24in IPS or kinda pricey but good 24in 120hz TN. I made a thread in video specifically about the monitor and got people suggesting all three options. I'm kinda leaning towards the 120hz Benq, it's had some good reviews and not sure I need a 27in beast.

http://www.pcmonitors.org/monitor-reviews/benq-xl2420t

http://www.techradar.com/reviews/pc-mac/monitors-and-projectors/monitors/benq-xl2420t-1067164/review

http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/reviews/benq_xl2420t.htm

I notice you've got a Xonar DX. Recommend it? I'm gonna try the onboard sound first of all but not holding out much hope for it being acceptable.

 

[Sable]

Lehtv's list is good as always. If you want to wait until tomorrow, you might consider picking up a 7870 instead of the 7950. Indications are that the overclocked versions are faster than the 7950 and it should cost less.

Got the new anandtech 7870 review already open in another tab.

 

[lehtv]

I'll +1 the 7870, I think it's fast enough for 1080p gaming, and better value for money than 7950.

Awesome. Thanks for taking the time. I've spotted a problem with the motherboard though, not enough SATA ports!!! I've got my SSD, my DVD writer, 2x500GB in RAID1 and 2x2TB in RAID1 which eats up all the ports and I'll probably want to add another RAID in the future. It's the reason I got the Fractal R3 case, LOADS of harddrive trays.

That's a lot of drives. So you need at least 8 SATA ports to accommodate for future expansion as well.

I found a very nice candidate: Gigabyte Z68XP-UD3. Don't know why I didn't spot it earlier - it costs only £96 and has all the important features of the more expensive P8Z68-V.

- SLI/Crossfire support
- PCie 3.0
- internal USB 3.0 headers
- 8x USB 2.0 (two more than P8Z68-V)
- 2x USB 3.0
- 4x SATA II
- 4x SATA III (two more than P8Z68-V)
- internal and external firewire (Asus lacks)

I'd pick it even if it cost the same as P8Z68-V.

Is overclocking pretty straight forward on SBs?

Yes, but of course it'll take some time with all the stress testing and such. Still, I'd rather do it myself than have someone else OC my chip

I'll look for some reviews of the PSU, I hadn't even considered XFX.

I don't think there are any reviews of the 750W XXX model, but here's a review of the 750W 80+ bronze non modular version: http://www.jonnyguru.com/modules.php?name=NDReviews&op=Story10&reid=216

I notice you've got a Xonar DX. Recommend it? I'm gonna try the onboard sound first of all but not holding out much hope for it being acceptable.

Absolutely. I hold the same criteria for visual quality as sound quality, and to that end, I want to be able to customize my sound. Xonar DX allows a lot of that, including Dolby Headphone surround virtualization and equalizer profiles. Whether Dolby Headphone works, it depends on who you ask and what gear they use. It definitely works for me. As for the equalizer, it can really beef up the way music, movies and games sound and it can compensate for weaknesses in your audio equipment. It's a feature I'd definitely miss with integrated sound.