The P4 must go

[maxnaylor]

My Pentium 4 is about to be retired from main desktop use and on to be recycled into powering an MP3 jukebox (I'll put that in another thread though).

So after much web research/review reading/forum lurking/asking for advice and guesswork, my eyes are now bleeding and my brain is oozing from my ears . Please have a look over what I've come up with so far. Any input most welcome.

Case - Antec P183 Super Midi Tower Case (pretty set on this)

Mobo - Gigabyte GA-P55M-UD2

Processor - Intel Core i5 750

CPU Cooler - Titan TTC-NK85TZ Fenrir

RAM - Corsair XMS3 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz

PSU - Antec TP-650

SSD (for OS+some apps) - Intel X25-V Value 40GB 2.5" SATA-II Solid State Hard Drive ??
or OCZ 60GB 2.5" SATAII Solid Series Solid State Drive ??

HDD - Samsung SpinPoint F3 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache

GPU - Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 5770 Vapor-X 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express (bit lost on this one - help!)

Keyboard - open to suggestions in the £30 - £80 region, not looking for feature-rich, just good quality/nice to touch.

OS - time to get Windows 7 I believe (which version though?)

Total hits about £950 excl VAT


APPROXIMATE PURCHASE DATE: within the next month

BUDGET RANGE: approx £800 - £1000 (excl VAT)

SYSTEM USAGE (all equally important): Surfing, gaming (I only play EvE Online though), photo editing, general business use (this will be my home comp but I will use it for business as well), streaming music + vids.

PARTS NOT REQUIRED: mouse (I have a Logitech G9), monitor (Samsung syncmaster 226BW although I'll probably upgrade to a 24" within the next year), speakers (I have no problems with my 12-year-old Cambridge Soundworks 5.1 system), X-Fi soundcard.

PREFERRED WEBSITE(S) FOR PARTS: Usual suspects in the UK - ebuyer / Overclockers (any others you might suggest)

COUNTRY OF ORIGIN: UK

PARTS PREFERENCES: Only really set on the processor and the case.

OVERCLOCKING: Yes, I'll give it a go this time. Only to safe levels though.

SLI OR CROSSFIRE: No need

MONITOR RESOLUTION: 1680x1050 at the moment - will upgrade to a 24" screen at some point

ADDITIONAL COMMENTS: I'm looking at having a quiet PC that will serve me well enough for the next 3-4 years before looking at upgrading certain components.

Cheers.

 

[maxnaylor]

Hmmm.....no replies. Anyone? Which SSD? Graphics card ok? Windows 64-bit?

 

[maxnaylor]

Ok. A 100 views and no opinions? Is my proposed build such a shocker that it doesn't even warrant a response?

 

[osu43130]

Alright here is my 2 cents.

Ditch the SSD idea and get a HD5850 or HD5870 (Preferred). reason being is that when you upgrade your monitor the 5770 will struggle at anything equal or greater then 19XX resolution.


SSD's are over priced at the moment and need a sufficient amount of free space before the performance starts to degrade. If you are stuck on getting an SSD a 40 gb SSD is a bad idea. there really is not enough room on it. I would not recommend anything less then an 80 gb eventhough you might be able to get by with a 60.

The mother board is not a very good choice. 1 it does not have USB3 or Sata 6. Something like this one....MOBO

Also i would look to get CL7 sticks because they will be close to the same price as the CL9's and will be faster.


Cooler I would suggest the Hyper 212 plus usually around 35 USD. This is the best Price to performance cooler you can get (IMHO).....


WINDOWS 7 64 BIT ALL THE WAY......

Again just my opinions on the build.

 

[maxnaylor]

Thanks for the reply OSU. The mobo you suggest was actually on my list before I decided to change on the strength of a review. As I need to make this pooter last for a few years I'll take that on board.
The SSD is merely because I like faster booting/loadups as the home computer is switched on/off quite regularly and I use a wide variety of apps. May wait on that one.
The card makes sense for the monitor upgrade although its over 2x over what I had in mind to spend. Back to the drawing board on that one.
And I'll look into the CL7 sticks....RAM specs aren't my strong point.

Thanks.

 

[osu43130]

SSD's are a great feature but it is really not needed for the current price. I would definitely hold off and maybe get on later when the prices drop or their are more sata 6 SSD's on the market.

Here is a decent set of sticks.

corsair

Or there is a set of GSKILL's that are pretty much the same.

If you rely on MIR's then the best buy is probably this set of Muskin for 105 but probably wont be that price for very long.


Muskin

 

[maxnaylor]

Thanks again OSU. I'll hold off on the SSD for now and see what happens to prices this year.

 

[verst]

Here's a cheaper set of RAM: G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL7D-4GBRM

+1 on the SSD and a stronger video card, especially since you don't intend to crossfire...

 

[maxnaylor]

Thanks for the input. The HD5870 is a big leap up in price. I think the way to go for me is to stick to the 5770 for now and upgrade the card when I get the 24" monitor later in ther year. The 5770 and old monitor will then go into my work computer rebuild at that time. As I'm only playing EvE online the 5770 will do but thanks for the heads up on that anyways.

Cheers

 

[osu43130]

Here's a cheaper set of RAM: G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL7D-4GBRM

+1 on the SSD and a stronger video card, especially since you don't intend to crossfire...

Damn the price went up on the corsair again...lol Need to switch back to the GSKILL