Gaming Pc

[Bo0oSt]

hey everyone,

Ok i havent really been into the PC thing for awhile but i played Command and Conquer 3 and Red Alert 3 yesterday and loved it.

So, i now want to build a gaming PC which will be plenty quick and will be good for the next few years.

Budget would be around a k. So any suggestions on parts etc would be heaps appreciated.

Daniel.

[iamhe77]

Sure.

19" Benq E900W LCD $199

AMD Phenom 9550 (quad core) $225

Asus M3N-HD-HDMI (motherboard) $139

Kinngston 4GB 6400 HyperX DDR2 RAM $109

Asus 9600GT graphics card $139

Western Digital 160GB Sata 2 HDD $55

Western Digital 320GB Sata2 HDD (16MB) $75

Antec Sonata 3 case $175

-----------------------------------------------------------

Total $1116 (unless my maths is failing me)

-----------------------------------------------------------

Note;

I went with AMD because of budget, and I think that they are superior bang-for-buck

2 Hard drives... Put your Windows install on the 160GB and everything else on the other (If you have to format and re-install Windows, no problem! Just remember to back up your user stuff)

I did not include Windows Vista64 ($145). But you will want to get a 64-bit OS to take advantage of the CPU and RAM.

These prices are from a recent CPL price list.

[iamhe77]

It may not be the most powerful system, but it will definitely do what you want and should still be usable in a couple of years when Windows 7 is released.

[Mayuri Krab]

The $1k system from recommended by whirlpool, note prices are taken from StaticICE, so you may have to add a bit more if you are all buying from your local shops. Have a look at their other PC suggestions here

$1000 System:

CPU: Intel E7200 S775 $149

Motherboard: Gigabyte P35-DS3 $99

RAM: 2GB G.Skill DDR2-800 $48

HDD: Western Digital 400GB 16MB SATAII $70

GPU: 512MB ECS 9600GT $139

Case & PSU: Cooler Master Elite RC-331 (w/ 350W PSU) $69

Optical Drive: ASUS 20x BLT-2014 Lightscribe SATA $33

Monitor: 22" Samsung 2253LW $275

Speakers: Logitech X-540 5.1 $80

K/B & Mouse: Logitech Cordless Desktop LX310 $58

But if you can stretch your budget another $250ish I would go for this one, the E8400/8500 are the best bang for the buck CPU atm.

$1250 System:

CPU: Intel E8400 S775 $211

Motherboard: MSI P43 Neo-F $102

RAM: 2 x 2GB DDR2-800 $76

HDD: Samsung 640GB 16MB SATAII $89

GPU: 512MB RAEDON HD4850 $195

Case: Antec Three Hundred $83

PSU: Corsair VX-450 $92

Optical Drive: Samsung 20x SATA $25

Monitor: 22" Samsung 2233BW $249

Speakers: Creative Gigaworks T20 2.0 $66

K/B: Logitech Corded Wave $44.20

Mouse: Logitech MX 518 $33

Also do you just need the box or the complete stuff with like monitors, kbs, mouse & speakers?

Edited November 18, 2008 by Mayuri Krab

[R31Nismoid]

Yeah what exactly do you need?

Just the box? Or the whole hit and kaboodle?

The whirlpool link is going to be out of date farily quickly, i can see a fair few prices in there now that i know over the past 1-2 weeks have gone up.

E8400 - $50 more

HDD - $20

HD 4850 - $20

So by the time you go through it all, its going to be around $200 more already

Either way... 1k wont get much now the prices have gone through the pharking roof with this exchange rate bullsheet. 1k could have purchased a reasonable system 6 weeks ago. Now its nearing 1500 if not more.

Im building a PC at the moment (will post more details when i get home with part #s, prices etc)...

My budget was around 1200, just for the box & bits (no monitor, mouse etc) - but its had to gone upto near on 1600-1700 i think just for the box. If i had of brought 4 weeks ago i could have easily saved myself that $400 thats just gone into thin air.

Graphics cards alone (4870/GTX260-216) have gone up by at least $80 on average, if not more

E8400 is definately the best value, pair it with a reasonable motherboard and cooling situation you can net 3.6ghz and upto 4ghz if your prepared to overclock (as i will be)

Dual core for gaming, Quad for encoding/processing etc.

[CeJay]

I bought a quad core factory 2nd dell from graysonline.com.au, another possible, avenue, cost me 950$ delivered. reasonable parts etc as well.

[R31Nismoid]

Ok here is what i was doing

E8400 CPU - $265

OCZ Vendetta 2 CPU Cooler - $75

Thermal Paste - $10

Corsair HX-620 PSU - $170

GA-EP45-DS4P mobo - $189

OCZ Platinum 4GB Kit (2x2G) DDR2 1066 RAM - $155

Gainward GS HD4870 1gb - $400

Gigabyte Aurora570 Case - $189

Western Digital 640gb HDD - $99 - $198 (i got two, was cheaper than a 1gb gb/$)

So thats around $1800

Fairly over budget but i could have built the same thing before the sky fell in for closer to around $1200.

Im thinking of now going a GTX260-216 though in terms of graphics card, and then grab another later on if i need it.

Im only using a 19" screen now, and then a 22" later when i buy one so a single 4870/4850/GTX260/260-216 will do the job. No needs for Crossfire/SLi

So its not the $1000 system, but gives you an idea as i would call mine a mid level setup (for gaming). I do plan to overclock the CPU a fair bit, and ill also fk around with the Video Card (GPU) by overclocking it and if need be hard modding it to get a bit more out of it. Hence you could do it cheaper if you planned to just run it "as is" as you wouldnt need slightly more expensive/OC friendly parts

Cheers

[pkblade]

^^ That's a nice build...great for O/C, and tis very similar specs to mine . Somethings to be aware of is that mobo only supports Crossfire, and the HD4870 is a great card but fairly noisy when you increase the fan speeds (eg. 50% fan speed = ~40dB). Also, unfortunately atm the stock heatsinks and fan setup on the HD4000 series are more effective than aftermarket ones when it comes to cooling the ram/ mofsets.

[R31Nismoid]

Thanks

Ive done a fair bit of reading (would be days worth now easily)

Yeah im still not 100% on the GPU/Mobo yet (ive only purchased the case/ram/HDD/CPU cooler) and will decide next fortnight what route ill go.

Mobo is dictated by the card in some instances so ye... painful.

You should checkout the Gainward GS 4870's, they are the pick of aftermarket cooled ones. Dual fans, mofset heatsinks with a fan above the mofsets/ram.

The setup on them is excellent.

Although Ati screwed up with the factory fan speed, its around 20% or something so hence they get really friggen hot.

Soon as you fix up the fanspeed they aren't much worse than the Nvidia cards, little bit warmer but nothing as high as before.

[25GTT]

Will you be Overclocking the CPU?

If so check out "Just bought kick a$$ computer" thread, its in this section but a couple of pages back, further info on good cpu's and how to overclock.

If so try to go the dual core e8400, has come down in price and VERY overclockable core when combined with a gigabyte motherboard!

Also one of my favourite sites now (nerdy i know) is www.pccasegear.com.au they have an AMAZING range of all things PC! i ordered a cooliing fan and controller about 4 months ago, great service!!!

[R31Nismoid]

But the E8400 has gone UP in price if you look at pricing in the last 6-8 weeks.

Yeah PC Case is about a 10min drive from me. Ive grabbed a few things from them, but they aren't the best priced when compared with MSY and other places etc.

The only bonus they have is they stock a larger range of accessories/cases and that kinda thing. You can definately find better prices on other hardware items if you shop around a little.

[25GTT]

True, price wise they are on par, but I am extremely happy to use them again, when i bought my cpu cooler and lcd fan controller i had various question, not only did i receive e-mails answering the questions, then got one telling me when my shipment would leave, then followed up with a phone call to make sure i was happy with the shipment going out the next day ( I live in WA) plus to make sure all of the answers made sense, too many times in todays day in age does customer service get overlooked, I have heaps of great priced shops local to me such as www.netplus.com.au but as you mentioned the range at pc case gear and service is second to none!

I really thought the e8400 price would have gone down, especially now with the new realease of intel chips (dont get the new ones, the lowest i saw was around the $500 mark, look nice though, apparently true quadcore now??)

If the e8400 has not gone down yet I am sure it will with the focus being on the new chips. Also make sure you check the classified sections on here, some bargains to be had!!

[R31Nismoid]

Surely you haven't been living under a rock?

They went up because of the financial crisis and the fact our dollar is worth dick all once again.

So to get anything into the country is 20% more by the look of it (E8400 $211 - ~$260)

Even with the release it the Core i7 its not going to drop initially. The lowest i7 is the 920, and its $550 as it is.

The Extreme 965 (top end) is 2k. Where are in America you can get a i7 965 for $1k USD (1.6k AUD +profit etc 2k)

So just puts things into perspective. Dont expect pricing to drop till at least Q2 next year IMO.

[Mayuri Krab]

They went up because of the financial crisis and the fact our dollar is worth dick all once again.

So to get anything into the country is 20% more by the look of it (E8400 $211 - ~$260)

+1, dam economics!

To the OP, I have constructed the following from my local store (netplus):

-E8400 $227

-Gigabyte GA-EP45 DS3 motherboard $179

-4Gb Kingston Hyper X ram $90

-640Gb WD hard drive SATA 2 $89

-ATI 512Mb 4850 video card $249

-Pioneer SATA DVD-writer $32

-Antec 300 case $94

-Corsair HX620W PSU $146

Comes to $1156, which I'm pretty sure you can find cheaper if you shop around & WA in general seem to have the highest price compared to the eastern states

I really thought the e8400 price would have gone down, especially now with the new realease of intel chips (dont get the new ones, the lowest i saw was around the $500 mark, look nice though, apparently true quadcore now??)

Yep the i7 cores are monolithic (ie all the cores are bulit on the one die = true quad core)

Also they have build-in memory controller (intel calls it QPI), have HT (hyper-threading) & is on a completely different socket design (skt 1366). & Intel is also planning on releasing dual & octo core versions as well.

ALL GLORY to OCTO-CORE!!! Man I waited ages to say that

Edited November 20, 2008 by Mayuri Krab

[R31Nismoid]

^^ you might find if you place an order the prices get revised. Im finding that a lot as websites are slow to update (being so many products needs price alterations)

[Angus Smart]

The Amd quad cores arnt worth buying,

if you were to go amd you can get the top of the line dual core and overclock it quiet easily to kick the quad cores behindd..

they really did not match intels quad when they released theirs

p.s. i have used Amd for a long time now. my last intel chip was a celeron haha

[BigDirtyJase]

Like what some of the others have - do you need to upgrade the box only ore are you looking for a total upgrade.

Check out the local computer shops or some of the bigger ones

CPL has good PC Deals for example:

Intel Q6600

4GB Kingston DDR2 Ram

500GB SATA2 HDD

Gigabyte 9600GT

Sony DVD Burner

Coolermaster Elite 330 Case

$915

Blame the credit crunch for price hikes. That CPL box about 3 months ago was $700. I built my all around unit in Spetember and cost me 1850. I priced it up again yesterday and it would cost me now 2350

Now is not the greatest of times to be building PC's IMO - prices are going up not down. I was looking to get another 4870 but the price hike has scared me off for now

Edited November 21, 2008 by BigDirtyJase

[25GTT]

Cant wait to get my hands on a 4870x2 mmmm two cores on a gfx card!

So then do we all predcit that these new cpu's will transfer the tech somehow onto a graphics card in the not too distant future and vica versa? what i mean is with the 4870 graphics cards using DDR5 ram, will that be used soon in normal everday pc ram?

Will the tech in these new quad core cpu's be used on graphics card somehow or another?

Like what some of the others have - do you need to upgrade the box only ore are you looking for a total upgrade.

Check out the local computer shops or some of the bigger ones

CPL has good PC Deals for example:

Intel Q6600

4GB Kingston DDR2 Ram

500GB SATA2 HDD

Gigabyte 9600GT

Sony DVD Burner

Coolermaster Elite 330 Case

$915

Blame the credit crunch for price hikes. That CPL box about 3 months ago was $700. I built my all around unit in Spetember and cost me 1850. I priced it up again yesterday and it would cost me now 2350

Now is not the greatest of times to be building PC's IMO - prices are going up not down. I was looking to get another 4870 but the price hike has scared me off for now

[Vik]

Didnt know where to post but ..

ooohh la la .. looks good ..

http://www.beecom.com.au/product.php?produ...=289&page=2

Have no idea how good it is, Compared to a Q9550 what do you reckon?

MRXTCZ

[R31Nismoid]

Checkout the online reviews. Performance is noteable, as is the power consupmtion due to the design... but remember the 920 is the pissy one, so probably not that noteable.

By the time you add in the cost of mobo's, DDR3 ram etc. Your @ $1500 without even buying anything else

cost va gain, its not viable yet

As for the 4870x2 - much of a muchness. Unless your gaming on a 2500xXXXX its utterly pointless. Plus the fact nvidia can do the same thing with DDR3 vs the DDR5 (in the single format card) its not as clear as you might think. Much more involved that the type of parts used. As for DDR5 in PC's, wont be for a long time as DDR3 is only becoming commerically mass produced in the past few months with all the makers coming online etc.

GPU's will actually help take over some processing load in Q2 IIRC (checkout the Anandtech website for lots more info if your interested, they have 4 detailed writeups in the past 2 weeks)