Building my first computer - tight budget. General advice needed.

[Deleted]

http://www.piriform.com/speccy

Seems to do a good job.

Yeeeeah.
Would help if the trashcan could actually go on the internet.
Thanks anyway. :3

---------- Post added 2011-03-29 at 05:38 PM ----------

Okay...
<snip>

Also, the AMD Phenom II X4 970 3.5GHz is only 14 or so euro cheaper than i5-2500k (at least in most danish webshops). Still worth it to grab Phenom over sandybridge?

[Scoobasteve1226]

Sandy crushes the Phenom, especially in WoW.

[ayako]

Thumbdrive?

[Deleted]

Sandy crushes the Phenom, especially in WoW.

Yep sanybridge pwns .. until the BULLDOZER comes xD

[Deleted]

Yeeeeah.
Would help if the trashcan could actually go on the internet.
Thanks anyway. :3

---------- Post added 2011-03-29 at 05:38 PM ----------



Also, the AMD Phenom II X4 970 3.5GHz is only 14 or so euro cheaper than i5-2500k (at least in most danish webshops). Still worth it to grab Phenom over sandybridge?

In that case take the i5-2500K if you can afford it. Else a lower end Phenom.

[Deleted]

Okay; but how about fans etc? Wont I need one of those? Or will it keep relatively cool if I stay away from overclocking? How much can I overclock for if I don't have a fan? (talking i5-2500k here)

[Wrestler10307]

With the immediate performance increase you'll see from this new setup you won't even need to overclock. Wait till you have a few bucks, depending on the case you get, and buy another fan or 2, another heatsink for your CPU (not sure how the one on the 2500k is)

[Scoobasteve1226]

Okay; but how about fans etc? Wont I need one of those? Or will it keep relatively cool if I stay away from overclocking? How much can I overclock for if I don't have a fan? (talking i5-2500k here)

You can get a Coolermaster 212+ for 35$ American, which takes it to about 4.8ghz.

[Deleted]

Okay; but how about fans etc? Wont I need one of those? Or will it keep relatively cool if I stay away from overclocking? How much can I overclock for if I don't have a fan? (talking i5-2500k here)

No offence, but this being your first build... I'd say, one step at a time. The stock cooler is 'okayish' (if you buy a box that has one), so you might want to buy a Coolermaster of some such. Overall the fans should be fine that come with the case.

And as stated by Wrestler, you'll see such an increase in performance what you won't need to bother for the moment with OCing

[Deleted]

No offence, but this being your first build... I'd say, one step at a time. The stock cooler is 'okayish' (if you buy a box that has one), so you might want to buy a Coolermaster of some such. Overall the fans should be fine that come with the case.

And as stated by Wrestler, you'll see such an increase in performance what you won't need to bother for the moment with OCing

Okay. I see.

[Deleted]

ive just ordered a new computer to my cosine cost arund 300 eruo
Cooler Master Elite 310 Black/Silver Fans: 1x 120mm Rear, ATX, mATX, 2x USB, 1x Audio, 17 dBA
Silver Power SP-SS400 400W PSU, ATX 12V V2.2, 80 Plus, Standard, 2x 6pin PCIe, 4x SATA, 120mm Fan
AMD Athlon II X2 250, Dual Core, 3.0Ghz, AM3, 2MB, 65W, Boxed
MSI GF615M-P33, Socket-AM3 m-ATX, GeForce 6150se, DDR3,SATAII, GbLAN, PCI-Ex16
Corsair Value S. DDR3 1333MHz 2GB CL9 Unbuffered, CL9-9-9-24, 240pin, 1.5V
Gainward GeForce GT 430 1GB PhysX CUDA PCI-Express 2.0, GDDR3, DVI, native-HDMI, 800MHz, 128bit
Samsung SpinPoint F3 500GB 7200RPM, SATA 3.0 Gbps, 3,5", 16MB Cache, 8.9ms.
will get it tomorrow (ill have to put it together since he's only 12 yrs and ill might have time to try it so ill can post a quick reviev of it.


sorry for my spelling and grammar

[darkblood14]

Okay; but how about fans etc? Wont I need one of those? Or will it keep relatively cool if I stay away from overclocking? How much can I overclock for if I don't have a fan? (talking i5-2500k here)

No offence, but i think it will take some time until u will touch serious overclocking (my advice here). As some other guy said, the jump will be so high that u will feel that u are already overclocked like mad.
About fans, don't take that guys advice the more the better. That is untrue, ventilation should be done with brains not with "raw power" because muscles are not everything. U should always try to generate as much airflow as possible in your case to keep it really cool.

@myrsina: give the kid some credit, at that age i had my pc always opened ready to be "shredded" (trial and failure was my best teacher, i haven't broke anything by doing so... the failure was in unable to fix at that time). It might be a good idea to boost him in this domain (teach him while u do it), otherwise he will just call and call every god damn time the windows "won't" boot (some kids these days rly get on my nerves with that kind of stuff). If he wants his toy, he should be able to fix it by himself.

[pacapaca]

There is a lot of debate here about case/fan choices, but have you ruled out using your old case completely? Assuming its large enough for your new motherboard, you could just run it without a cover or cut a hole in the side and just hack in a cheap case fan which would give more than adequate cooling. You would save a few bucks and be able to put it towards more important parts than a metal box .

[Deleted]

There is a lot of debate here about case/fan choices, but have you ruled out using your old case completely? Assuming its large enough for your new motherboard, you could just run it without a cover or cut a hole in the side and just hack in a cheap case fan which would give more than adequate cooling. You would save a few bucks and be able to put it towards more important parts than a metal box .

It's a mu-ATX, the small investment to get a normal ATX case with a MB that has enough upgrade space while pay of better in the long run in my opinion.

[Zakamutt]

About the AMD vs Intel cpu -- the 2500 will be quite a lot faster and more future-proof; but indeed more expensive, witjh especially the mobo for it (a p67) able to cost as much as the actual processor. Personally I would still go for the faster processor, since WoW is a very processor-dependent game especially in raids / cities. As for graphics the 5770 should be a go-to choice, if you do get it or another card with dx11 support make sure to enable using that, great fps increase apparently.

A 500W PSU will last fine unless case fans draw a lot of power, I'd be careful about getting a case absolutely riddled with them. With that said, I'm not an expert in how much power fans actually draw, so this might be a non-issue. Getting something a bit higher is great for overclocking and stuff but likely won't be needed if you're not doing that.

I personally run a system quite similar to what you're thinking of with a 2500k and an hd 4890 as my card which is comparable in performance to the 5770 in dx9 tests but will fall behind if you use dx11 stuff in WoW; I do have 8gb RAM though which is quite awesome (around 40-50 euros more than 4gb; I have a 2x4gb kit of g-skill ripjaws if it helps). 10-mans on mostly ultra likely won't be a problem; you might even be able to go full-on ultra if the dx11 factor is as major as people claim.

[Deleted]

Here's a full build dominated by your budget including everything.
CPU: http://www.dabs.ie/products/amd-phen...-6mb-6K8D.html
GPU:http://www.dabs.ie/products/evga-gef...aust-78R4.html
MB: http://www.dabs.ie/products/asrock-m...-atx-748K.html
RAM: http://www.dabs.ie/products/kingston...-cl9-5FSR.html
HDD:http://www.dabs.ie/products/western-...sata-69T6.html
ODD:http://www.dabs.ie/products/sony-24x...rive-73PL.html
PSU: http://www.dabs.ie/products/corsair-...-psu-75S2.html
Case: http://www.dabs.ie/products/coolerma...lack-7B18.html

Totaling at 514 Euro. OS of Windows 7 Premium at 86 euros=600.

Monitor: http://www.dabs.ie/products/samsung-...7.html?refs=12

Budget build but will last you a good while and WoW won't even be an issue.

[Wrestler10307]

Here's a full build dominated by your budget including everything.
CPU: http://www.dabs.ie/products/amd-phen...-6mb-6K8D.html
GPU:http://www.dabs.ie/products/evga-gef...aust-78R4.html
MB: http://www.dabs.ie/products/asrock-m...-atx-748K.html
RAM: http://www.dabs.ie/products/kingston...-cl9-5FSR.html
HDD:http://www.dabs.ie/products/western-...sata-69T6.html
ODD:http://www.dabs.ie/products/sony-24x...rive-73PL.html
PSU: http://www.dabs.ie/products/corsair-...-psu-75S2.html
Case: http://www.dabs.ie/products/coolerma...lack-7B18.html

Totaling at 514 Euro. OS of Windows 7 Premium at 86 euros=600.

Monitor: http://www.dabs.ie/products/samsung-...7.html?refs=12

Budget build but will last you a good while and WoW won't even be an issue.

- The motherboard could be better, at this point i'd look for something with a 870 chipset instead of the 770.
- Hard drive I'd really try to get a WD black instead of a green for your primary disk.
- The phenom x6 is a lttle more expensive and *might* be better for performance/futureproofing
- Syncmaster displays are overpriced for the size, stick to an ASUS or something similar for bigger monitor for the best price

[Lichkang]

I made this setup for a friend a month ago and i explain why the choices as best in my humble knoledge:

Case: Nox NX-1 EVO Black - Cheap, light weight, some smooth red lights on front, uses 120mm fans (high intake/outake for low noise), can have fans in front, back and side, dust filters in front grid, but this is personal choice.
CPU: Intel Core i5 2500K - OC like a madman, recent tech.
MB: Asus P8H67 - Suits the needs, SATA 3, USB3, blabla.
RAM: 3xTeamgroup Elite DDR3 1333Mhz 2GB - Was the cheapest option we could find, you can have better luck in other better brands.
PSU: Corsair TX-650W - 52A in a single rail, stable as f*ck and good price/quality.
GPU: Well, here we had 2 choices, Nvidia GTX460 or ATI HD6850, we went for a Shappire HD6850 thinking in a future dual setup, they consume about less 40 watt in a dual setup, in terms of performance its like discussing religion, toe to toe.

Use your optical drive , probably you gonna use it once a year and 2x120mm fans whit red light for front and side.

THis costed about 750€, but you can get it cheaper, was just an example and hes happy as hell comparing to is previous AMD setup (socket 939) but theres alot of gear out there, going Intel costs money and a AMD solution wold be a better bang for buck, but Sandy Bridge is recent tech making a safer choice, AMD is still to release their new cpu's this year i think so lets see.

Just to let you know, that motherboard and the cpu contradicts eachother. P8H67 boards cannot be overclocked, and you got him the i5 2500k, made for overclocking.
@OP; be aware to find a P8P67 board, so you can overclock, since it is fairly easy now.

[TanAxys]

just gunna throw this out there...

If you keep your 17" monitor, you only need to spend about $50 (USD) on a GPU to make wow run like a champ.

If you upgrade to a 19" (1440x900) a 5670 will allow you to max out wow graphics.

The money you save on GPU now can be used to better components, like a better MB, PSU, and a case you actually like. The case, MB and PSU are the hardest components to change out so you really don't want to skimp on those.

You can upgrade CPU, GPU, RAM, HDDs and everything else later, and they're all easy to do.

I'd splurge on a ASUS SABERTOOTH P67. Get a nice 80+ Silver rated PSU like a Corsair 750HX. Get a nice wide case with some airflow like a HAF series.

Grab some basic stuff to round out the build, like an i3-2100, a 5670 gpu, 4GB of cheap ram.

Then over time, upgrade that stuff. When you really want a bigger monitor, get a good one and get a good GPU at the same time--like a 560 or even a SLI/CrossFire set-up.
If the i3 starts to hold you back at that point, step up to the i5 series. Get more or better RAM if you need to.

If your foundation is good, you can upgrade to whatever components you feel like spending the money on.

I'm recommending this approach because your current system is so old, that even lower end components will make a huge improvement in your quality of life [Going from an ancient P 4 to even a lowly 2100 sandybridge will blow you away]. If you go this route, then you can build a really awesome rig over time--instead of compromising now and getting all mid range stuff.