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aznriptide859

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Are you willing to build your own?

 

Here's a rough spec for about £500:

 

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/antec-nsk2480-uk-v2-desktop-media-centre-case-for-uatx-with-380w-earthwatts-80plus-eff-psu

 

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/4gb-(2x2gb)-corsair-xms3-ddr3-pc3-12800-(1600)-non-ecc-unbuffered-cas-9-9-9-24-xmp-165v

 

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ss1tb-samsung-hd103sj-spinpoint-f3-sata-3gb-s-7200rpm-32mb-cache-89-ms-ncq-oem

 

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/1gb-sapphire-hd-5770-vapor-x-pci-e-21-(x16)-4800mhz-gddr5-gpu-860-mhz-dl-dvi-display-porthdmi

 

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/samsung-sh-b123l-rsbp-12x-bd-rom-and-dvdrw-combo-player-retail-box

 

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/intel-core-i3-2100-1155-sdy-bridge-31ghz-5-gt-s-gpu-850mhz-3mb-cache-core-r-31x-65w-retail

 

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/asus-p8h67-m-lx-intel-h67-s-1155-pci-e-20-(x16)-ddr3-1066-1333-sata-3gb-s-raid-matx-vga

 

 

You probably won't be able to get the spec you're after near this price, unless you find a deal somewhere.

 

 

If you're going to make a Sandy Bridge setup for him atleast chose 1.5v memory.

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That's a H67 mobo, or is the issue on all the chipsets?

 

And what's the problem with 1.65v RAM?

 

JEDEC stipulates the standard voltage should be 1.5V for DDR3. Now that alone doesn't really mean anything but why run at a higher voltage than you need to IMO.

 

Hell, even the G.Skill Eco series that runs at 1.35V has pretty tight timings (7-7-7-21).

 

Also... OCZ's "Low Voltage" DDR3 RAM isn't really low voltage at all, just saying.

 

EDIT: I also heard it was a bug in the "P6x" chipset but then again it may actually be in the "H6x" chipset as well since after all they're pretty much the same except for a few different features.

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  • 2 months later...

 

 

That is just pure lolz....whoever buys this should see if they can attach a Magpul on the end.

 

On a separate note, I was cleaning my storage space on Sunday and hidden amongst the 134a gas were TWO nvidia 280GTX's which I completely forgot about rolleyes.gif

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My old Lian Li was too warm for my current I7 & gtx 570 setup, so I bought a 902. Wasn't too fussed about the pvc window or the leds, but it is admittedly a very good (and well designed case).

 

It also means that my old AMD 4400 & 8800gtx system is rebuilt downstairs as a HTPC. :)

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Yeah, I agree that if you like windows the window being on the "wrong" side is a slight problem but I don't like windows in the side of PCs though so it doesn't matter.

In fact, the only case I've ever had with a window I put the window side up against the wall.

 

I would love it if I could get the one with the red internals but without a window, I know silverstone supply the side panels one at a time but scan don't seem to stock them.

 

I might ask if scan would take the windowless panel out of a black case and stick it on mine giving them (basically) a windowed case where they had a windowless.

 

We'll see...

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fair play, there's no denying the effectiveness of the design.

i think my ideal setup would be a lian li armoursuit PC50 running 3 fans (bottom for HDD, middle with ducting to the graphics cards and the top hooked up to an antec kuhler 920 water cooler). obviously i'd have to run an external optical drive, but i reckon having an external drive on the underside of my desk would be arguably more convenient. i love the look of the PC8FI but the PC50 wins functionality wise.

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Nice case. I like that monolithic style, it's a shame nobody makes a 1 x 4 x 9 shiny black case.

My intention is to completely remove the hard drive caddy from inside the case since it gets in the way of the 180mm fan under it.

Then, since the FT02 has 5 x 5.25" bays left I will put a multi format optical drive in the top and a Silverstone CFP52B hot swap drive caddy in, it holds 4 x 3.5" drives in 3 x 5.25" bays and has a built in fan.

If my budget stretches I'll consider the Icybox MB-454SPF but it is a lot more money and the front isn't flat featureless black (to which I am drawn for some reason).

 

It will then have 4 fans drawing air in and one pulling the hot air out the top plus a pair of PSU fans doing the same thing.

Nice and quiet and really sexy looking.

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Hey all,

 

I've started thinking about buying/building my first gaming desktop, but I'm rather lost in what to buy. I'm not 100% sure if I'm confident in myself to be able to build it, but the amount of money saved may outweigh that worry. I've got a budget of about $1000, and I was thinking of building it around an i7 processor (non-sandy bridge) and a nVidia card, maybe a GTX 560 Ti, with a terabyte harddrive and Creative X-fi Titanium card. Other than that, however, I'm completely lost in what to buy as far as motherboard, power supply, tower and all the other various things that come with building a desktop. Any suggestions? Thanks!

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I too am debating building a gaming PC (BF3! :D). The build I was thinking of is actually pretty similar to yours (great minds etc. :P). I'm pretty sure the problems with Sandy Bridge have been resolved (as long as you buy a new motherboard), so go for one of those if you want to. The 560Ti also came up on my radar having quite a good price/performace ratio.

 

You simply have to get a motherboard that will support all your components - go on a PC components retailer website and they should have all the specs up so you can make sure it supports your chosen CPU, RAM, etc. If you want to upgrade in the future that should also come into consideration. The new(ish) SATA 6 Gb/s and USB 3.0 interfaces might also be deciding factors (both offer faster data transfer, but only when paired with SATA 6 Gb/s hard drives and USB 3.0 devices)

 

Pretty much any old case will do, but some have better cooling and more fancy features than others. There are two sizes of motherboard, ATX and mini-ATX - make sure your case is the right size.

 

With regard to the PSU, you obviously need one that will supply enough juice to run your monster PC. Actually working out how much power you need is very easy, use this very handy little tool: eXtreme Power Supply Calculator v2.5

 

One more thing - cheap, no-brand PSUs might be attractive because of their low price. Don't bother with them, they provide much lower-quality power than branded PSUs and, more importantly, usually can't provide anything like the wattage advertised. Go for a good quality one and it will be worth it. It might be worth getting a more powerful one that you need if you plan to upgrade in the future.

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I do want it to be easily upgradeable, at least CPU/GPU wise- My family has a computer we got in ~2005 and all we've done is put in a new CPU and GPU and it still runs most games today on full.

 

I may also go for the 550 Ti just from a price standpoint, and I can always put in a new card later on in life.

 

EDIT: Hmmm, maybe this? Puts me a bit over my price range, and I'd still need to buy a monitor and keyboard and such... Maybe drop the Titanium X-fi for one of these

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboBundleDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.644177

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16829102033

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814133385

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Nice case. I like that monolithic style, it's a shame nobody makes a 1 x 4 x 9 shiny black case.

My intention is to completely remove the hard drive caddy from inside the case since it gets in the way of the 180mm fan under it.

Then, since the FT02 has 5 x 5.25" bays left I will put a multi format optical drive in the top and a Silverstone CFP52B hot swap drive caddy in, it holds 4 x 3.5" drives in 3 x 5.25" bays and has a built in fan.

If my budget stretches I'll consider the Icybox MB-454SPF but it is a lot more money and the front isn't flat featureless black (to which I am drawn for some reason).

 

It will then have 4 fans drawing air in and one pulling the hot air out the top plus a pair of PSU fans doing the same thing.

Nice and quiet and really sexy looking.

 

i'd always thought a good idea would be to put some sort of foam barrier between the IO panel and PCI-E slots and then stick a 120x12mm fan on the inside of the top cover to pull air off the graphics cards. i guess it wouldnt be worth it if you have conventional rear exhaust cards, but my GTX 460s have the asus directCU cooler and don't bolw the air straight out the back of the card.

 

Hey all,

 

I've started thinking about buying/building my first gaming desktop, but I'm rather lost in what to buy. I'm not 100% sure if I'm confident in myself to be able to build it, but the amount of money saved may outweigh that worry. I've got a budget of about $1000, and I was thinking of building it around an i7 processor (non-sandy bridge) and a nVidia card, maybe a GTX 560 Ti, with a terabyte harddrive and Creative X-fi Titanium card. Other than that, however, I'm completely lost in what to buy as far as motherboard, power supply, tower and all the other various things that come with building a desktop. Any suggestions? Thanks!

personally i'd go i5 over i7, you wont notice any benefit from the i7's hyperthreading in game (speaking as an i7 920 owner). i'd go sandybridge, those chips seem to overclock amazingly well. the GTX 560 does look like a great card, in fact at your budget i'd buy 2 and go SLI.

 

just specced up a PC for you at £995 (this is just off overclockers.co.uk, no shopping around for prices) with a sandybridge i5, 8GB corsair vengance 1866mhz RAM, 2x GTX 560 and 2x 500GB WD caviar black 6gb/s HDDs (for a sick RAID0 setup). i literally put this together in a few minutes, but if you want the full spec or some advice PM me and i'll help out when i'm not drunk :P

 

edit: modular PSU too, because i know from experience having 4 pin molex to 6 pin PCI-E converters makes a real mess of your case :D

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Go Sandy bridge.

 

1366 is technically still better for performance with it's triple channel memory and high end 6 core CPUs. So upgrading from 1366 i5/i7 to SB doesn't make any sense, but if you're upgrading from a Core 2 Duo or as in my case, an AMD Athlon 64 (socket 939), it's the way to go.

 

 

 

I would get:

 

i5 2500k - overclocking, yay!

 

8GB Corsair 1600mhz - you want memory that runs at 1.5 volts as per Intel recommendations

 

GTX 560 ti

 

P67 or Z68 motherboard of your choice (read reviews!)

 

 

Also, GTX 550 cards are ###### and are not worth the money. You could buy an AMD Radeon 6850 for that money and you'd get a MUCH better card.

 

Also 2, Don't get a silly 6GB/s HDD, they arn't faster than a 3GB/s model. Why? Well, mechanical drives are too slow to even saturate SATA 2(3GB/s). So they sure as hell won't be any faster just because they support SATA 3(6GB/s)

 

Also 3, Raid0 is useless, silly and still slower than a single SSD no matter what hard drives you use.

 

If you want a fast HDD, get a SSD(Solid State Drive).

 

 

Edit: if you want a good sound card with gaming as a primary, get the Creative X-fi Titanium HD. It's WAY better than the old Titanium.

 

I would like to add that you're better off asking these questions on a dedicated PC enthusiast forum as you're more likely to get better help there.

 

I hope all this made sense.

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Also 2, Don't get a silly 6GB/s HDD, they arn't faster than a 3GB/s model. Why? Well, mechanical drives are too slow to even saturate SATA 2(3GB/s). So they sure as hell won't be any faster just because they support SATA 3(6GB/s)

 

Also 3, Raid0 is useless, silly and still slower than a single SSD no matter what hard drives you use.

hmm, my folks' PC was built with a WD caviar black 6GB/s drive and it's damn good. but i suppose actually looking at reviews they're not an awful lot better. as for RAID, i dont have any personal experience with it but i've got a couple of mates who swear by it. i did flick though an article about it a while back and i seem to remember decent performance gains, but i might be wrong.

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