budget gaming

[Folly]

Hi guys and girls.

I'm lookin into a upgrade. I have just recently sold my i5 and was looking into a i7 budget/ongoing build.

Parts i already have for this system are...

Antec p183 case

Antec 85ow psu

4x 5oo gb sata 2 drives.

A few bits in need then lol. So to get it up and running I am semi settled on...

Asus Sabertooth X58

i7 960

G-Skill 4GB DDR3 1333MHz Ripjaws 9-9-9-24

Asus HD 6950 2GB

These come it at a shade over £6oo

In time I would like to add more ram that's why I like the 4gb stick and also planned to x-fire and add C14 cpu cooler or D14 but like the look of the top down more myself. I am going to raid 5 the drives as the buget won't allow for a ssd just yet lol. Any sugestions. Has intel got anything in the pipeline yet as I would b happy to wait for mobo and cpu as I could do my build in a differnt order. I have a i3 server that I could used with the gfx and ram for temp gaming setup

Cheers Ben

 

[DragonPC]

First of all you need triple channel memory and id change the psu to corsair or so

 

[Grizzly]

A RAID 5 set up would be painfully slow on the onboard chipset. You either need to dumb it down to RAID 0 or 1, or get a PCI RAID controller.

The memory you've chosen isn't what you should be getting, you need triple channel memory, they come in packs of 3.

First of all you need triple channel memory and id change the psu to corsair or so

Antec are a good PSU choice as well. I think he'd be fine staying with that.

 

[Folly]

I must have pulled up the wrong ram on there website. Or have I got that part compleatly wrong and g.skill don't have a triple channel that looks almost identical. I'll check when I'm home later.

I will probably look into a new psu when I look into adding more ram to the system. At the min I would like to get it up and running.

Are corsairs really that good. Mind you I've neva had a bad psu. Had the antec 85o for a good year or so from my old q66oo. Suppose it can be added to the list lol

 

[ruthless_villain]

why not go with sandy bridge get a i7 2600k and a £150 motherboard, some mushkin ram and a gtx 560/570????

 

[Excalabur50]

why not go with sandy bridge get a i7 2600k and a £150 motherboard, some mushkin ram and a gtx 560/570????

+1

 

[Folly]

I was thinking about the 57o don't really no why I picked the ati card they both would do what I'm after perfectly. I was once warned away from sandy briges so I guess I could be open to ideas on them. I will price up few of them and read a few reviews etc.

Does sandy bridge p67 motherboards pci-e lanes only run at 8x when in sli or x-fire. Is this not going to be a issue when I add a second card.

I am sure the x58 chips run both at 16x

About raid. There is no point me getting a raid card as its more than a ssd. I don't get why onboard would be to slow. I'm not after super speed from them but reliablilty. Any speed boost is a bonus.

 

[Grizzly]

I was thinking about the 57o don't really no why I picked the ati card they both would do what I'm after perfectly. I was once warned away from sandy briges so I guess I could be open to ideas on them. I will price up few of them and read a few reviews etc.

Does sandy bridge p67 motherboards pci-e lanes only run at 8x when in sli or x-fire. Is this not going to be a issue when I add a second card.

I am sure the x58 chips run both at 16x

About raid. There is no point me getting a raid card as its more than a ssd. I don't get why onboard would be to slow. I'm not after super speed from them but reliablilty. Any speed boost is a bonus.

Onboard RAID 5 is so slow it's slower than using a single drive by itself, at least that's the impression I got from TTL when he was building Hayley's server.

Most Sandy mobos will run 8x 8x, if you want 16x 16x you'll have to get the Gigabyte P67 UD7 at least, which is a brilliant board.

 

[Folly]

I will watch TTL server build video review again. I kinda thought it was going to slow as far as servers go.

So form what I'm getting is the sandy bridge would be the better route for games with a sligtly higher cpu speed but only x8 x8 for crossfire or sli. And that the gtx57o would be better than the ati card for around the same cost. And my purse won't stretch to double for a motherboard at the min lol. Does look very good tho

 

[ruthless_villain]

I was thinking about the 57o don't really no why I picked the ati card they both would do what I'm after perfectly. I was once warned away from sandy briges so I guess I could be open to ideas on them. I will price up few of them and read a few reviews etc.

Does sandy bridge p67 motherboards pci-e lanes only run at 8x when in sli or x-fire. Is this not going to be a issue when I add a second card.

I am sure the x58 chips run both at 16x

About raid. There is no point me getting a raid card as its more than a ssd. I don't get why onboard would be to slow. I'm not after super speed from them but reliablilty. Any speed boost is a bonus.

linus does a vid on difference between 8x/8x and 16x/16x and the different is about 2 3d mark 11 points, so nothing really

 

[tinytomlogan]

Onboard raid 5 is proper poo.

Im deffo with the guys on the 570 aswell. Kicks a 6950 to the curb and does it like a ninja in silence.

 

[DragonPC]

I must have pulled up the wrong ram on there website. Or have I got that part compleatly wrong and g.skill don't have a triple channel that looks almost identical. I'll check when I'm home later.

I will probably look into a new psu when I look into adding more ram to the system. At the min I would like to get it up and running.

Are corsairs really that good. Mind you I've neva had a bad psu. Had the antec 85o for a good year or so from my old q66oo. Suppose it can be added to the list lol

Its your choise

 

[GuyIncognito]

I am going to raid 5 the drives as the buget won't allow for a ssd just yet lol.

I think you mean raid 0, raid 0+1 or raid 1+0. If you do regular backups, you probably won't have to fear raid 0. Raid 5 is meant to introduce redundancy if you can't afford raid 1 or raid 0+1/1+0. As far as I know, Raid 5 *always* reduces performance, especially with small and random writes.

Google "BAARF" (Battle Against Any Raid Five).

 

[Karlos_the_n00b]

What do you want to build this rig for? If its just a gaming rig you'd be better off with a 2500K and a good P67 mobo. All the extra 2600K gives you for your extra money is more threads which isn't going to do a lot for your gaming.

x16/x16 only matters if your running multiple monitors. If you're just running one then x8/x8 with be next to no different to x16/x16.

On scan the 6950 is about the same price as a TI 560 which it seems to be able to hold its own against and if you manage to get it runnin like a 6970 then I think it makes it a very good value card. But even with the 6970 BIOS it can't keep up with a 570 but then that is a more expensive card so it depends how much you want to spend. If you are a AMD fan though and your not going to get a second card later than you might want to look at two 6850 compared to a 570.

Have a play with this tool though to compare GPU's.

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/302?vs=306

 

[Folly]

i was looking for that site today, im going to say its mainly for games although i will be using it for vm's and music editing.

been though more reviews and took onboard all of your comments, does this sound more mouth watering.

i7 2600k

Asus P8P67 EVO R3 ?????? is this a decent board. i normally dont sway from asus

EVGA GeForce GTX 570

Mushkin Blackline LV DDR3 1600MHz 9-9-9-24

thats another £100 onto the build cost but does look alot more spec/price wies

ssd, cpu cooler and sli after the pennys are in

what do you peeps think?