New PC spec - opinions wanted

[WildeKarde]

I had been thinking of holding off till Jan and seeing if any deals are about (or discounts) but my desktop is acting up a bit so have thought I may order prior to Christmas.

PC will be for gaming, watching movies and sorting out my photo's & video files. I tend to also do several things at once hence going for this type of CPU over a dual.

Specwise I was looking at cyberpower and the below:
CPU: (Quad-Core)Intel® Core™ i7 920 @ 2.66GHz 8 MB cache LGA1366
OVERCLOCK: S&S (Safe and stable overclock 10% to 20%) [+49]
FAN: CoolerMaster V8 Gaming CPU Cooling Fan
MOTHERBOARD: Asus P6T Deluxe Intel X58 Chipset
MEMORY: 3x1GB G.SKILL NQ Series w/Heat Spreader PC10666 DDR3/1333mhz Triple Channel Memory
VIDEO: BFG GeForce GTX 280 OC 1GB
CAS: CoolerMaster Cosmos Silent Gaming Tower Case w/ 420 Watts Power Supply (Original Color)
CS_FAN: Maximum Case Cooling Fans for your selected case, and match the colour of the fans already in the case
POWERSUPPLY: Corsair PSU 750W TX750W Power Supply
HDD: Single Hard Drive 1TB SATA-II 3.0Gb/s 32M Cache 7200RPM Hard Drive
HDD2: 1TB SATA-II 3.0Gb/s 32M Cache 7200RPM Hard Drive
CD: SONY DUAL FORMAT 20X DVD±R/±RW + CD-R/RW DRIVE DUAL LAYER (BLACK COLOR)
CD2: LG GGC-H20L BLU-RAY/HD-DVD Reader / DVD±R/±RW Writer (Black Color)
FLASHMEDIA: INTERNAL 12in1 Flash Media Reader/Writer

KEYBOARD: Logitech G15 Gaming Keyboard
SOUND: Asus Xonar D2X 7.1 PCI-Express Sound Card

OS: Microsoft® Windows Vista™ Home Premium w/ Service Pack 1 (64-bit Edition)

PRO_WIRING: Professional Wiring for All WIRINGs Inside The System Chasis with High Performance Thermal Compound on CPU

WARRANTY: STANDARD WARRANTY: 3-YEAR LIMITED WARRANTY PLUS LIFE-TIME TECHNICAL SUPPORT

Did the same spec using Q9550 and similar m/board & ram and came in about £130 cheaper so decided to stretch the extra

I'm looking for something to last a few years anyway. Pricewise it's an eyewatering £1876.00

Is it a good spec for the money? Should I be looking at anything else?

[accyuklad]

try pcworld for gaming system or search on google for gaming systems

[Craig_E]

It's a fairly OK system, but I don't think it's worth that money tbh. If you're intent on something prebuilt, have you checked out overclockers.co.uk? I used to hate them, but they've slowly won me over with some decent service over the past year.

I would prefer one smaller, faster system drive, and then one big storage drive. If you're spending megabucks, get the Intel SSD drive, that makes systems fly! Overclockers also have the 1.5tb drive for 118 at the moment.

2 CD drives is a little pointless. I have the LG GGC-H20L and it's fine for everything.

If I was going triple channel and 64bit, I'd go for 6gb of RAM tbh. (160ish on Overclockers)

All these seem pretty standard components, so it's probably going to be a bit noisy. Silent PSU and CPU cooler are the best things I've bought for my PC recently

I would also wait 'til after Xmas I'm afraid!

[WildeKarde]

Originally Posted by Craig_E

It's a fairly OK system, but I don't think it's worth that money tbh. If you're intent on something prebuilt, have you checked out overclockers.co.uk? I used to hate them, but they've slowly won me over with some decent service over the past year.

I would prefer one smaller, faster system drive, and then one big storage drive. If you're spending megabucks, get the Intel SSD drive, that makes systems fly! Overclockers also have the 1.5tb drive for 118 at the moment.

2 CD drives is a little pointless. I have the LG GGC-H20L and it's fine for everything.

If I was going triple channel and 64bit, I'd go for 6gb of RAM tbh. (160ish on Overclockers)

All these seem pretty standard components, so it's probably going to be a bit noisy. Silent PSU and CPU cooler are the best things I've bought for my PC recently

I would also wait 'til after Xmas I'm afraid!

I had compared the prices for just the parts on overclockers (as close as I could) and they came to £1759.33 that without being built or the 3yr warranty or the overclock

The overclock is about £50 so that would mean cyberpower are approx £50 to build and give a 3yr warranty

The only reason for the 2 bigger drives were to get the larger cache (was hoping for samsung F1)

[xxtokerxx]

Way too much dough to be honest mate, not that the spec isn't awesome but in 5/6 months that entire system will be a lot cheaper.

i7 is new, DDR3 is new and therefore your paying a premium,

also I don't recomend the Cosmos chassis from Coolermaster, the air flow isn't as good as it is made out to be and have you actually seen one, THEY ARE MASSIVE

Personally, right now, I won't go I7 or DDR3, they are new and so manufacturer is charging alot for it

Also Craig, just want to point out that larger drives are actually faster in the same spec, ie an 160GB 16Mb 7200 will not be as fast as a 750GB 16Mb 7200 - as the data is located closer on the disc the spindle takes less time to read right.

And Solid state has not yet been proven to provide much, if any benefit for performance in the desktop enviroment.

They are more reliable and in "theory" faster, but i don't think this is what you need.

Personally, I'd go E8600 or Core2Quad with DDR2 for the best price, the money you save will be immense and the performance difference you'll notice will be minimal.

you could go prebuilt with a cyberpower, beastcomputers, ocuk, yoyoetech and save yourself a bomb.

Good luck

[Craig_E]

Originally Posted by xxtokerxx

Also Craig, just want to point out that larger drives are actually faster in the same spec, ie an 160GB 16Mb 7200 will not be as fast as a 750GB 16Mb 7200 - as the data is located closer on the disc the spindle takes less time to read right.

And Solid state has not yet been proven to provide much, if any benefit for performance in the desktop enviroment.

Obviously I'm talking about a velocirapter or something similar. No point going all out with gfx and CPU only to have your hard drive holding you back.

Also look up some reviews of the Intel x25-m and tell me they "don't provide much"

[Theydon Bois]

Originally Posted by accyuklad

try pcworld for gaming system or search on google for gaming systems

The OP already laid out a spec, and wanted opinions on that, not where to go for a system...personally, I react like Damion from the Omen everytime I am forced to cross PCWorlds threshold as they are more like Staples now and deserve to lose the words PC from their title. They have missed a golden opurtunity in the growing HTPC market, and their piteful component section is more like a naughty shop containing instruments wrapped in non descript brown boxes.

Anywho...next time, try a post that is more in keeping with what is requested, or failing that, be helpful, search for the OP if you think you may know something he has missed, and link to that information or piece of kit. That way you get that special glowy feeling with someone pushes the thanks button on your behalf...

[WildeKarde]

Originally Posted by xxtokerxx

Way too much dough to be honest mate, not that the spec isn't awesome but in 5/6 months that entire system will be a lot cheaper.

i7 is new, DDR3 is new and therefore your paying a premium,

also I don't recomend the Cosmos chassis from Coolermaster, the air flow isn't as good as it is made out to be and have you actually seen one, THEY ARE MASSIVE

Personally, right now, I won't go I7 or DDR3, they are new and so manufacturer is charging alot for it

Personally, I'd go E8600 or Core2Quad with DDR2 for the best price, the money you save will be immense and the performance difference you'll notice will be minimal.

you could go prebuilt with a cyberpower, beastcomputers, ocuk, yoyoetech and save yourself a bomb.

Good luck

I've got a thermaltake xaser case just now so size wise it should be ok - I'm looking for a case with either no door or the power buttons NOT behind the door.

A core2 quad isn't much short of an i7. The cpu is the same cost really. I really need a board with 2 x Gb LAN on it so it limits my choice of boards for core2 quad's

I had considered a Q9550 on asus p5q pro deluxe with 4gb but current prices this would be about £510. I've trawled through a few builders and priced the parts on their own weighing what the extra cost is to get it built with a warranty.

The cost isn't from the basic spec of an i7 it's all the other parts like the case, the 2 HDD's, a blu ray drive, taking a GTX280, the xonar sound card, etc.

I'm being really picky on my parts and I'll probably pay for it but no matter what I pick it'll be outdated in a couple of months plus I'm not likely to actually upgrade what I buy so I'm trying to get what will give me the best life from it

[xxtokerxx]

Sure, I am picky too so know where your comming from, its a lot of cash, but if you got it, spend it you'll love the machine.

Regarding SSD's, indeed they are faster, but I don't believe they are worth their price tag.

The are compared with Vraptors on a custom PC review, and I personally don't think they are worth the price tag (For example, I got a Vraptor 160GB for £50, more like £160 in the shops) compared with the best part of £400 for a 6 second increase on loading a game? (I'd wait the 6 seconds personally :P)

Here is a quote for some idea on the drive, there is no doubt it is faster, but in my opinion not fast enough for the price tag:

SIZE AND SPECS

Despite having more than double the capacity of the majority of other 2.5in SSDs, the X25-M is fairly thin, thanks to its MLC technology (read more about MLC technology here). The main news is the disk’s performance, however. Intel claims that it has sustained read rates of 250MB/sec and a more sedate 70MB/sec write speed. By contrast, the Samsung SATA SSD (see Issue 60, p69) recorded a 174.1MB/sec sustained read and an 85.3MB/sec write speed.
TESTING

Most of our initial tests with Simpli Software HDTach RW 3.0.1.0 matched Intel’s claims. The X25-M racked up an average read speed of 225.7MB/sec, which is more than twice as fast as Western Digital’s VelociRaptor, and approaches the maximum transfer speed of 300MB/sec of S-ATA II. The read performance was faster than Intel claimed it to be, averaging 80.1MB/sec. This is still slower than the VelociRaptor, however, which averages 97.8MB/sec when writing.
Turning to the real-world tests, the storming read performance translated into the quickest time we’ve seen for loading the Relic level of Crysis. At 28 seconds on average, the X25-M beat the VelociRaptor by more than six seconds, and Samsung’s 32GB SSD by four seconds.
The slower writing speed held it back in the Gimp test, however; while the score of 944 is faster than any other SSD we’ve tested, the VelociRaptor is faster still with a score of 979.

Again, if you got the dosh get it,

[Craig_E]

SSDs are all about random access tho. The Intel is quick at bulk reads/writes, but absolutely awesome in real windows day-to-day stuff. All I'm saying is if I were ready to spend nearly £2k on a PC now, it'd have to include an x25-m.

I would really recommend building your own. You're gonna get a warranty on each individual part anyway, and the sense of achievement is fantastic... and you save a little as well.

[Joey2oo8]

Originally Posted by accyuklad

try pcworld for gaming system or search on google for gaming systems

[WildeKarde]

Originally Posted by Craig_E

SSDs are all about random access tho. The Intel is quick at bulk reads/writes, but absolutely awesome in real windows day-to-day stuff. All I'm saying is if I were ready to spend nearly £2k on a PC now, it'd have to include an x25-m.

I would really recommend building your own. You're gonna get a warranty on each individual part anyway, and the sense of achievement is fantastic... and you save a little as well.

SSD would be an option but to swap out the HDD and then replace with one of these would push my spending up more. Not to mention it would reduce my capacity on the first drive.

I considered building but the amount I'd save is not really much (if anything) when compared to saving the time of building, troubleshooting if required and getting it all set up with OS, drivers, etc

[WildeKarde]

Well I bit the bullet and ordered

Actually managed to get it with 6gb ram instead of 3gb and also saved another £50 on the price along with free delivery and far cry 2 bundled in

Guess dinner on the 25th will be beans WITH toast

[Doctor Hades]

Your PC is very similar to the one I've ordered, also from Cyberpower, although I limited myself to a £1,500 budget. Paying any more than that for a PC, knowing that it'll be outdated by next Easter is not something I feel comfortable with. I'd rather upgrade as I need to so if I want to add a BD drive at some point in the future then I will but right now I don't need one as I have a PS3.

For that I'm getting:

CAS: Coolermaster Elite 330 Mid Tower 420W Black
CASUPGRADE: NONE
CS_FAN: Maximum Case Cooling Fans for your selected case [+10]
CPU: (Quad-Core)Intel® Core™ i7 920 @ 2.66GHz 8 MB cache LGA1366 ***Overclockable XXX*** [+686]
CD: SONY DUAL FORMAT 20X DVD±R/±RW + CD-R/RW DRIVE DUAL LAYER (BLACK COLOR [-5])
CD2: NONE
CABLE: None
FLASHMEDIA: None
FA_HDD: None
FAN: CoolerMaster V8 Gaming CPU Cooling Fan (Extreme Silent Operation at only 22dBA + Overclock Proof) ***Overclockable S&S*** [+26]
FLOPPY: NONE
FREEBIE_CU1: FREE! (FarCry2) Game
FREEBIE_CU2: FREE! CyberPower Multi-Purpose Carrying Case
FREEBIE_CU3: FREE! Cyberpower Unleash The Power T-Shirt
HDD: Single Hard Drive (500GB SATA-II 3.0Gb/s 16MB Cache 7200RPM HDD [+9])
HDD2: NONE
IEEE_CARD: NONE
KEYBOARD: NONE
MOUSE: NONE
MODEM: NONE
MOTHERBOARD: Asus P6T Deluxe Intel X58 Chipset SLI/CrossFireX Mainboard SAS Triple-Channel DDR3/1600 SATA RAID w/ eSATA,Dual GbLAN,USB2.0,IEEE1394a,&7.1Audio ***Overclockable XXX***
MEMORY: (Req.DDR3 MainBoard)(3x2GB) PC10666 DDR3/1333mhz Triple Channel Memory [+103] (G.SKILL NQ Series w/Heat Spreader ***Overclockable XXX***)
MONITOR: NONE
MONITOR2: NONE
NETWORK: ONBOARD 10/100 NETWORK CARD
OVERCLOCK: S&S (Safe and stable overclock 10% to 20%) [+49]
OS: Microsoft® Windows Vista™ Home Premium w/ Service Pack 1 (64-bit Edition)
PS_VGA: NONE
POWERSUPPLY: 700 Watts Power Supplies [+90] (CoolerMaster Real Power PRO 700W Modular PSU SLI Ready)
PRO_WIRING: None
RUSH: NONE
SOUND: Creative Labs SB X-Fi Xtreme Audio 24-BIT PCI Sound Card [+32]
SPEAKERS: NONE
TEMP: NONE (AS SHOWN)
TVRC: NONE
UPS: None
USB: Built-in USB 2.0 Ports
USBHD: NONE
VIDEO: NVIDIA GeForce GTX280 1GB 16X PCI Express [+295] (Major Brand Power by NVIDIA)
VIDEO2: NONE
VIDEO3: NONE
WEBCAM: NONE
WNC: NONE
WAP: NONE
WARRANTY: STANDARD WARRANTY: 3-YEAR LIMITED WARRANTY PLUS LIFE-TIME TECHNICAL SUPPORT

Total cost is £1,498.25.

I already have a 22" widescreen Dell monitor, a Microsoft keyboard, an IntelliMouse Explorer 3.0 and Logitech 2.1 speakers, all in black, so that reduced the cost further.

I opted for parts that allowed for the safe and stable overclock of 10-20% at £49 extra so hopefully it'll be running at the same speed at the i7-965, i.e. 3.2 GHz. The Core i7 is very overclockable apparently according to CustomPC magazine, they managed to get an i7-920 to 4 GHz with air cooling so there's room for more overclocking if I need it in the future, although I'm happy to let Cyberpower do it for me for now.

The only thing I'm a bit miffed at is finding out that the Creative X-Fi Xtreme Audio sound card isn't actually an X-Fi card at all but a rebadged Audigy SE. I've asked Cyberpower if I can change it for the Xtreme Gamer which is a proper X-Fi card.

Hopefully it will arrive in the next ten days as I'm taking a two week break from work so it would really make my Christmas if it did.

[WildeKarde]

Originally Posted by Doctor Hades

Your PC is very similar to the one I've ordered, also from Cyberpower, although I limited myself to a £1,500 budget. Paying any more than that for a PC, knowing that it'll be outdated by next Easter is not something I feel comfortable with. I'd rather upgrade as I need to so if I want to add a BD drive at some point in the future then I will but right now I don't need one as I have a PS3.

For that I'm getting:

CAS: Coolermaster Elite 330 Mid Tower 420W Black
CASUPGRADE: NONE
CS_FAN: Maximum Case Cooling Fans for your selected case [+10]
CPU: (Quad-Core)Intel® Core™ i7 920 @ 2.66GHz 8 MB cache LGA1366 ***Overclockable XXX*** [+686]
CD: SONY DUAL FORMAT 20X DVD±R/±RW + CD-R/RW DRIVE DUAL LAYER (BLACK COLOR [-5])
CD2: NONE
CABLE: None
FLASHMEDIA: None
FA_HDD: None
FAN: CoolerMaster V8 Gaming CPU Cooling Fan (Extreme Silent Operation at only 22dBA + Overclock Proof) ***Overclockable S&S*** [+26]
FLOPPY: NONE
FREEBIE_CU1: FREE! (FarCry2) Game
FREEBIE_CU2: FREE! CyberPower Multi-Purpose Carrying Case
FREEBIE_CU3: FREE! Cyberpower Unleash The Power T-Shirt
HDD: Single Hard Drive (500GB SATA-II 3.0Gb/s 16MB Cache 7200RPM HDD [+9])
HDD2: NONE
IEEE_CARD: NONE
KEYBOARD: NONE
MOUSE: NONE
MODEM: NONE
MOTHERBOARD: Asus P6T Deluxe Intel X58 Chipset SLI/CrossFireX Mainboard SAS Triple-Channel DDR3/1600 SATA RAID w/ eSATA,Dual GbLAN,USB2.0,IEEE1394a,&7.1Audio ***Overclockable XXX***
MEMORY: (Req.DDR3 MainBoard)(3x2GB) PC10666 DDR3/1333mhz Triple Channel Memory [+103] (G.SKILL NQ Series w/Heat Spreader ***Overclockable XXX***)
MONITOR: NONE
MONITOR2: NONE
NETWORK: ONBOARD 10/100 NETWORK CARD
OVERCLOCK: S&S (Safe and stable overclock 10% to 20%) [+49]
OS: Microsoft® Windows Vista™ Home Premium w/ Service Pack 1 (64-bit Edition)
PS_VGA: NONE
POWERSUPPLY: 700 Watts Power Supplies [+90] (CoolerMaster Real Power PRO 700W Modular PSU SLI Ready)
PRO_WIRING: None
RUSH: NONE
SOUND: Creative Labs SB X-Fi Xtreme Audio 24-BIT PCI Sound Card [+32]
SPEAKERS: NONE
TEMP: NONE (AS SHOWN)
TVRC: NONE
UPS: None
USB: Built-in USB 2.0 Ports
USBHD: NONE
VIDEO: NVIDIA GeForce GTX280 1GB 16X PCI Express [+295] (Major Brand Power by NVIDIA)
VIDEO2: NONE
VIDEO3: NONE
WEBCAM: NONE
WNC: NONE
WAP: NONE
WARRANTY: STANDARD WARRANTY: 3-YEAR LIMITED WARRANTY PLUS LIFE-TIME TECHNICAL SUPPORT

Total cost is £1,498.25.

I already have a 22" widescreen Dell monitor, a Microsoft keyboard, an IntelliMouse Explorer 3.0 and Logitech 2.1 speakers, all in black, so that reduced the cost further.

I opted for parts that allowed for the safe and stable overclock of 10-20% at £49 extra so hopefully it'll be running at the same speed at the i7-965, i.e. 3.2 GHz. The Core i7 is very overclockable apparently according to CustomPC magazine, they managed to get an i7-920 to 4 GHz with air cooling so there's room for more overclocking if I need it in the future, although I'm happy to let Cyberpower do it for me for now.

The only thing I'm a bit miffed at is finding out that the Creative X-Fi Xtreme Audio sound card isn't actually an X-Fi card at all but a rebadged Audigy SE. I've asked Cyberpower if I can change it for the Xtreme Gamer which is a proper X-Fi card.

Hopefully it will arrive in the next ten days as I'm taking a two week break from work so it would really make my Christmas if it did.

Pretty much the same spec
I'd added a few extra bits as I needed a new keyboard and wanted to get a couple of HDD, also blu ray drive as I don't own any console.

Also got myself a 24" HP LP2475 for it and a set of Logitech Z2300 outwith the order

My last update is it's been built on 09/12 and currently at quality checking - hoping to get sent today for Monday