Advice on specification

J

Jack

Member
I need some advice on the specification that I am planning on buying, my budget isn't very high, £800 is pretty much my max price.

The PC will mainly be used for playing games, my current PC is 5 years old so I have missed out on many new releases. I'm not really desperate for a PC which will play all new games on max settings with extremely high FPS, just running them smoothly at medium would be fine. I do play World of Warcraft quite often so I had that in mind when putting this together, but I am certain this specification could run 25 man raids just fine.

Case
COOLERMASTER ELITE 310 BLUE CASE
Processor (CPU)
AMD PHENOM II X4 955 (3.20GHz/8MB CACHE/AM3) - BLACK EDITION
Motherboard
ASUS® M4A87TD/USB3: DUAL DDR3,SATA 6.0GB/s, USB 3.0
Memory (RAM)
4GB KINGSTON HYPER-X GENESIS DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz (2 x 2GB KIT)
Graphics Card
1GB ATI RADEON™ HD 5850 PCI EXPRESS - DirectX® 11
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
500GB SERIAL ATA 3-Gb/s HARD DRIVE WITH 8MB CACHE (7,200rpm)
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
Power Supply & Case Cooling
600W Quiet 80 PLUS Quad Rail PSU + 120mm Case Fan (£59)
Processor Cooling
STANDARD AMD CPU COOLER
Sound Card
ONBOARD 8 CHANNEL (7.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Facilities
ONBOARD 10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT
USB Options
6 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL (MIN 2 FRONT PORTS) AS STANDARD
Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£79)
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£5)

Price: £768.00 including VAT and delivery.

A few questions:
  • How well would it be able to run new games?
  • Will the CPU bottleneck the system? After reading up, it seems to be quite old.
  • Should I stick with the Radeon 5850 or maybe go for the GTX 460 1gb or 2gb?
  • Is a 600w power supply over doing it? I was told I could go with a 450w on the order screen, but other websites say 600w minimum.

Thanks for the help!
 
Sleinous

Sleinous

Author Level
Its not an overly old cpu so id say no to bottleneck. Id also say switch the RAM for the Samsung 1333mhz if u arent overclocking, its more stable and cheaper, then deffinatly put the extra funds towards a gtx 460 1gb or 768mb.

Id also seriously recommend the 1tb WD10EARS 64mb cached hdd over that 8mb cached drive especially gor gaming and editing as ur not using a solid state drive, the larger cache is the next best option. Hope all that helps.
 
J

Jack

Member
Sleinous said:
then deffinatly put the extra funds towards a gtx 460 1gb or 768mb.
Click to expand...

Would it be better to go for the 2gb GTX 460 or was there a specific reason you didn't mention it?

Also if I was to go for the GTX 460 I could then afford to move up from the Phenom II X4 955 to the X4 965 would that be ideal?
 
Sleinous

Sleinous

Author Level
yes that would annihilate any bittlenecking, nah the 2gb version would be even more preferable, but then u could go for the gtx 465 for less, has mord cuda cores than the 460. 1
GB vram is dnouh tbh, id go for the 465 then + it has the same new dusl fan cooling design as my new rma gtx 470 has, it looks awesome! Check out palit to see pics :) Obviously pcs cant guarantee it will be a palit but theres a v v v strong chance it would be.
 
Meds

Meds

Moderator
Moderator
A perfect example of what you can get for £800 :)

Case
COOLERMASTER ELITE 310 BLUE CASE
Processor (CPU)
AMD PHENOM II X4 965 (3.40GHz/8MB CACHE/AM3) - BLACK EDITION
Motherboard
ASUS® M4A87TD/USB3: DUAL DDR3,SATA 6.0GB/s, USB 3.0
Memory (RAM)
4GB SAMSUNG DDR3 DUAL-DDR3 1333MHz (2 X 2GB)
Graphics Card
1GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX465 GDDR5 PCI EXPRESS - DirectX® 11
Free Item
FREE MAFIA II Game (RRP: £34.99) with a qualifying GTX 4xx Series GPU!
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
1TB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD1002FAEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
Memory Card Reader
INTERNAL 52 IN 1 CARD READER (READS XD, MS, CF, SD, etc)
Power Supply & Case Cooling
CORSAIR 650W PSU (TX650) 80+ ULTRA QUIET (£76)
Processor Cooling
SUPER QUIET 22dBA TRIPLE COPPER HEATPIPE CPU COOLER (£19)
Sound Card
ONBOARD 8 CHANNEL (7.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Facilities
ONBOARD 10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT
USB Options
6 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL (MIN 2 FRONT PORTS) AS STANDARD
Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£79)
Office Software
FREE Microsoft® Office Starter 2010 (Limited functionality Word & Excel)
Anti-Virus
BULLGUARD INTERNET SECURITY - FREE 90 DAY TRIAL
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£5)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 9 to 12 working days
Quantity
1

Price: £802.00 including VAT and delivery.
 
J

Jack

Member
I still need a bit of help choosing a graphics card, I have pretty much decided to go with either a 1gb GTX 460 or the 465 which you recommended. However after researching a bit some websites have said that the 465 underperforms compared to the 460 when it comes to gaming. Is that true?

Now the only thing which is making me consider going for the 465 is the free Mafia II. :eek:
 
Sleinous

Sleinous

Author Level
One of the games doesnt come with 460 if i remember correctly. Generally: for folding and cuda application the 465 is better as it has an extra 30 odd cuda cores. Like paul said for gaming the 460 has slightly higher core clock speeds so better.
 
Rakk

Rakk

The Awesome
Moderator
Nemesis said:
nope only gtx 465 and above (470 & 480) whilst stock lasts THREAD
Click to expand...

Oops, suppose I shouldn't try and play on-line games with 11 other people, eat and reply to forum threads at the same time (especially after a long day at work where I was metaphorically running round like a lunatic) :)
 
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