Need a bit of advice lads!

Y

yorkshire.lad

Active member
Alright Lads?

Was wondering if you could give me a bit of advice. My girlfriend doesnt like the 3/4 computers I have around my house and has insisted that I must sell them all. Well I have sold them all and have around £800-900 for a new PC. I'm leaning towards getting a laptop as I have never ever had one from new before in my life. I'm going to be doing quite a bit of gaming on it (gta iv etc) and was wondering what kind of laptop I should pick. I'm thinking of going towards the Viper II as stock but with 8gb ddr3 ram. Then selling the i3-370M and using part of that money to get a i7-940XM off ebay and happy days but im thinking the ATI gfx may not be any good. Let me know what you think.

Cheers.
 
Phoenix

Phoenix

Prolific Poster
I think you should go with a desktop instead if you're wanting to play games, while you can play games on a laptop the hardware isn't as powerful and it's much more expensive so you could get more for your money with a desktop.
 
Rakk

Rakk

The Awesome
Moderator
yorkshire.lad said:
My girlfriend doesnt like the 3/4 computers I have around my house and has insisted that I must sell them all.
Click to expand...
Oh dear .........

Phoenix said:
I think you should go with a desktop instead if you're wanting to play games, while you can play games on a laptop the hardware isn't as powerful and it's much more expensive so you could get more for your money with a desktop.
Click to expand...

Definately agree with this, as well as that if you want to upgrade anything later, it's much easier in a desktop than laptop
 
PCS

PCS

Administrator
Staff member
I would agree that you should get a desktop if your primary use is gaming! If however you decide to proceed and get a laptop the Enigma II is better for gaming because its got a more powerful graphics card. You can configure this here: http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/notebooks/enigmaII/

And I think you should adopt your girlfriends rules and use them against her: you don't the 17/18 pairs of shoes she has lying around the house so she can sell them all! :D
 
Sleinous

Sleinous

Author Level
the 5165 will be useless for gta iv, Gtx460m as a minimum, drop down to 4gb, i3 is more than ample, gpu upgrade is what youll need. However for £900 u can get a much much better desktop, i7, 6gb ram, gtx 470
 
Y

yorkshire.lad

Active member
Lol. And wow you live in huddersfield too? Same I live in the "HD2" area. I wish I could have got a laptop but knew it probably wouldnt fully suit my needs. Do you think I would be able to get a 1090T Crossfire system for within my budget?
 
PCS

PCS

Administrator
Staff member
Of course. Here's a full system that fits right in there:

Case
STYLISH PIANO BLACK ENIGMA CASE + 2 FRONT USB
Processor (CPU)
AMD PHENOM II X6 1090T (3.20GHz/9MB 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 GTX460 GDDR5 PCI EXPRESS - DirectX® 11
Free Item
FREE H.A.W.X.2 Game (RRP: £39.99) with a qualifying GTS450/ GTX460 GPU!
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
1TB WD CAVIAR GREEN WD10EARS, SATA 3 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
Memory Card Reader
INTERNAL 52 IN 1 CARD READER (XD, MS, CF, SD, etc) + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT
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)
Office Software
FREE Microsoft® Office Starter 2010 (Limited functionality Word & Excel)
Anti-Virus
BULLGUARD INTERNET SECURITY - FREE 90 DAY TRIAL
Monitor
22" Wide TFT Silver/Black 1920 x1080 2MS D-Sub, DVI, 21.6" Panel (£119)
Keyboard & Mouse
Logitech® Internet 350 USB Keyboard (£9)
Mouse
Black Logitech® Optical Wheel Mouse USB (£5)
Warranty
3 Year Standard Warranty (1 Month Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 9 to 12 working days
Quantity
1

Price: £918.00 including VAT and delivery.

Don't choose Crossfire - choose the most powerful single card within your budget.
 
Gorman

Gorman

Author Level
Pc Specialist is based in Brockholes near Holmfirth, we all live in or around the area, staff anyway.

You might be able to get a Phenom II system within your budget, crossfire isnt really something you should be looking at for a budget under 1k though.

Case
COOLERMASTER CM690 MKII ADVANCED CASE
Processor (CPU)
AMD PHENOM II X4 955 (3.20GHz/8MB CACHE/AM3) - BLACK EDITION
Motherboard
ASUS® M4A79XTD EVO: DUAL DDR3, S-ATA II, 2 x PCIe x16, 2 x PCIe x1, 2 x PCI
Memory (RAM)
8GB SAMSUNG DDR3 DUAL-DDR3 1333MHz (2 X 4GB)
Graphics Card
1GB ATI RADEON™ HD 6870 PCI EXPRESS - DirectX® 11
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
640GB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD6402AAEX, 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 (XD, MS, CF, SD, etc) + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT
Power Supply & Case Cooling
CORSAIR 750W PSU (TX750) 80+ ULTRA QUIET (£88)
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)
Office Software
FREE Microsoft® Office Starter 2010 (Limited functionality Word & Excel)
Anti-Virus
BULLGUARD INTERNET SECURITY - FREE 90 DAY TRIAL
Warranty
3 Year Standard Warranty (1 Month Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 9 to 12 working days
Quantity
1

Price: £875.00 including VAT and delivery.

As an example, with a view to adding another 6870 later on as the crossfire scaling on this series seems to be closer to the recent improvements with fermi and SLI scaling.
 
Y

yorkshire.lad

Active member
Cheers lads. I think I'm going to sell my iPhone 4g to make up some more funds. Orange just sent me one as im a high usage customer for free :D. Gonna be sad to see it go but needs must and i want a crossfire pc lol. Also now that i come to think about it I wouldnt really want to be spending £500+ on the i7-940xm chip only to find out that it is an ES with no intel RMA. I also heard that ES chips are like bad batches of silicon so thats my laptop out of the window.
 
Last edited:
Y

yorkshire.lad

Active member
Yeah - also im thinking of removing the windows 7 as i already have a ultimate 64bit at home and upgrade the cpu cooling to the CoolIT Watercooling for £59. Might also consider getting rid of the TFT and using my LCD tv at home as a monitor.
 
Y

yorkshire.lad

Active member
yeah. the only reason i dont like nvidia/sli and intel combos is because my old pc had a 8600GS chip and a core 2 duo which both stopped working as the 8600GS reached over 100 degrees and the plastic pipes for the watercooling melted. water all over the motherboard. nvidia failed to accept liability when they know all G86 chips are faulty. Thats why I hate nvidia and Intel. just absolutely hate them. AMD all the way - 6 core for £200 or £800 (intel) i know which one i would pick :D
 
Gorman

Gorman

Author Level
Wait, what?

First thing i dont get is a watercooled gpu got to 100c? Surely the only way that can happen is if the pump stops, second thing, you watercooled this GPU?

geforce%208600%20gs.png


Opening a window would probably provide enough cooling for that bad boy!

Or did i read it wrong and am being dumb.
 
Y

yorkshire.lad

Active member
i was an idiot and OC'ed it to mentally high speeds trying to act like one of those "5GHz P4 liquid nitrogen" doodz on youtube. And I also believe the watercooling was faulty. I dont think it had an autostop - im a bit of a newbie when it comes to watercooling but all I know is the nvidia is BAAD
 
Gorman

Gorman

Author Level
I once nearly had a pipe burst, it was when the flow stopped due to a dead pump, i didnt notice it and it proceeded to boil the liquid in the tubing around the cpu, luckily i caught it but not before the pipe had expanded considerably.

So lets recap:

  • GPU is watercooled, flow must have stopped
  • GPU had a massive overclock
  • The tasty doom cake baked up with this recipe of doom is somehow Nvidias fault?

Im not meaning to sound harsh or give you a hard time, but ive heard better reasons to dismiss a make!

Ps, props for giving the WC and OC rig a go. Big hobby of mine.
 
Y

yorkshire.lad

Active member
Yeah lol. I've been reading up on setting up custom WC loops. Haven't got a clue how to do it. Is it possible to cool a 5870 and a Phenom II x6 1090t with the same system? Cheers.
 
Gorman

Gorman

Author Level
Using a custom loop yes it is, a bit like mine, I7 and 480 on the same loop:

attachment.php


Yes i will use any excuse to post my rig pics.
 
Y

yorkshire.lad

Active member
Wow... I want it!!! Can you let me know what components etc you used? Thanks. And wow very nice rig, Did you use UV watercooling liquid?
 
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