CPU, Motherboard and other new hardware confusion

[DavidTJ]

APPROXIMATE PURCHASE DATE: 30 August

BUDGET RANGE: UK £700-1000

SYSTEM USAGE FROM MOST TO LEAST IMPORTANT: School work, Gaming, watching films(encoding them into other formats at times) surfing internet

PARTS NOT REQUIRED: Mouse, OS, (I have also got 320gb external hard drive that could serve to lessen the cost of the build by removing need for back up hard drive)

PREFERRED WEBSITE(S) FOR PARTS: any UK on-line store that are reliable, sites I have looked at while thinking up an am3/i7 build were: www.ebuyer.com, www.overclockers.co.uk, www.scan.co.uk, www.cclonline.com, www.dabs.com, www.amazon.co.uk, www.aria.co.uk

PARTS PREFERENCES: These are what i've pencilled in at the moment:

CPU: CPU options
AMD:
AMD 3 motherboard with x3 720 or x4 955/965 with dual channel 4gb ram (maybe even 975 but that may arrive too late for me to consider I haven’t seen any firm speculation really on its release)

Intel:
an LGA 1336 socket motherboard with i7 920 with triple channel 6gb ram
an LGA 1156 socket motherboard with i7 860 or I5 750 with dual channel 4gb ram


Motherboard: I was thinking the crosshair 3 if I go with am3

Ram: any suggestions I’m thinking 1600mhz low voltage and low cas from ebuyer dabs or oclonline

Case: £71.82 Haf 922 (seems good for a novice builder and large fans indicate slightly quieter than other full out gaming cases)

PSU: £67.19 OCZ StealthXStream 700w Silent SLI Ready Power Supply it seemed ok for the price not totally sure on power though

Hard Drive: £59.13 Western Digital Caviar 1TB (Up To) 7200RPM 32MB S300

CPU cooler: £35.47 Scythe Mugen 2 Socket 478, 775, 1366, 754, 939, AM2+ Processor Cooler with i7

Graphics card: I’m not sure any more what to do with graphics card if dx 11 is going to be so much superior.

optical drive:£19.33 LG GH22LS50 22x LightScribe DVDRW seemed decent price light scribe may be useful at some point

Monitor:£136.84 BenQ G2220HD 22" TFT Monitor 1920x1080 300cd/m2 40000:1 (dynamic) 5ms 16:9 VGA/DVI Glossy Black any other suggestions for a monitor or is this pretty good

Speakers:£9.62 Trust 2.0 Speaker Set - 7W RMS

Keyboard:£8.60 Logitech Internet 350 Black Keyboard - USB - OEM

Thermal paste:£5.50 artic silver 5

cost without cpu/mobo/ram/graphic card: £413.5

OVERCLOCKING: Yes (if pointed to an article showing how) SLI OR CROSSFIRE: Yes at some point either by October or a year or two

MONITOR RESOLUTION: 1920x1080 or 1920x1200

ADDITIONAL COMMENTS: I would like quality components, and maybe components airing on the quieter side. I've spent £100 already on windows 7 pre-order and microsoft office 2007 enterprise edition so the lower side of £900 would be much preferred to the upper limit of £1000

1 other things do I need to build and maintain a pc properly, I assume there's a screwdriver in our house somewhere, but is there anything else I require that's not listed in the purchasing section, like cables screws etc

I’ll be purchasing this stuff by august 30th at the latest since I wont have time to wait for i5 release.

I will be purchasing ram, cpu/mobo on September 6th-around September 20th


Anyway thanks for spending your time reading this and I hope to hear your thoughts.

 

[overshocks]

"buy 1 4870/4890 when I buy cpu/mobo (i've heard 4890 may not be worth extra price) then buy a dx 11 card to crossfire (I would like to know if there's any point to this or if the new card will just mimic the older card)"

dude, you cant crossfire cards in different generations. you must be new to the computer/graphics world.

also it's quite diffcult for everyone/experts to help you when you have a large text context that can be reduced fairly easily..

the case, psu you listed are pretty good, but why u gettin stuff from different websites, stick with one

i wouldnt get that "powercolor" graphics card if i were you, maybe you're fairly new to this, but the best/better(taken from some reviews i've read) manufacturers for ati is Sapphire, XFX, HIS

also what kind of games ? at max settings/ near max

get bigger monitor if gaming is a big part


"CPU cooler: £35.47 Scythe Mugen 2 Socket 478, 775, 1366, 754, 939, AM2+ Processor Cooler I'm assuming it would work with I5/newer I7/phenoms not sure though. "

i5 is socket 1156..will not work.
try the Core contact freezer, it is a very good cooler (using it myself)
http://www.frostytech.com/top5heatsinks.cfm
the site has good review on it , it is top 2.


"I really see no advantages to not waiting on processor/mobo as I think the price I might save on waiting for it would be substantial, plus I would get to see real comparisons between I5 and am3 processors. I do think amd will drop prices (more expert thought on this would be nice)"

amd will drop prices, believe me they have to unless they want intel to dominate the whole market cuz i5, i3 is coming out. also i7 920 will drop too..so does i7 series

 

[hunter315]

Yeah, the DX11 cards will blow the current generation away and a single 4870 or 4890 should be able to handle that resolution reasonably well. Pay the extra pound for the xfx version, it comes with a lifetime warranty and likely a better cooler than that powercolor one.

I agree with overshocks, reading through that wall-o-text is rather difficult, i kept getting distracted.

Also dont buy your parts in portions unless you are going to be able to install them and test them to make sure they work when they get to use, often times people who buy in waves end up missing the RMA period, its best just to buy them all together, prices will be lower by then and you dont risk missing the RMA window.

 

[DavidTJ]

Thanks for your help so far
I've managed to at last edit the first post i've cut it back to just the part after the last bold line which used the sticky template originally when using edit it kept on telling me I could not edit this message.

I have a 7-8 year old pc that overheats so is awaiting repair for fans its my dads pc, I assume I can transplant that into the new build to test it.

Do motherboards come with the sata cables to connect the oem dvd rw and oem hard drive.

regarding buying off of one site only, I've seen that I only got one item off of overclockers so ill change that over to ccl for £67.19, so I think it will be a lot cheaper overall than buying off of 1 site.

Why am I buying of multiple sites, the price for buying everything of ebuyer considered one of if not the cheapest uk online retailer is at least £25 more (not a lot but enough)

I don't think a 24" 1900x1200 monitor is for me, I currently use a 15" monitor which I find ok. 22" is the smallest i've seen you can get the 1900x1080/1200 resolution at the moment which I believe will become the new standard in a few years

Any ideas about graphics card, my only option seems to buy a 4870/4890 now I guess then another after they are really cheap after dx 11 wipes the floor with them.

I play quite mediocre games in terms of graphics requirements usually such as wow or older pc games with lesser requirements, but I do have crysis somewhere around that Id like to play in high settings with playable fps 40-60.