19 replies to this topic

[Swordfish]

Yeah, I know, it's been a while since I posted. Any way, I Need a new comp as my current one is starting to crap out on me. Here's what I'm thinking for as my next one:

Product Name

Qty

Price

Line Total

 

MSI HD 7950 Twin Frozr III Boost Edition 3072MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card **NEW REVISION** with FREE GAMES

 

£199.99

 

Intel Core i5-4670K 3.40GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - OEM

 

£191.99

Asus MAXIMUS VI IMPACT Intel Z87 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ITX Motherboard

 

£191.99

 

Patriot Viper "Black Mamba" Generation 3 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 PC3-17000C11 2133MHz Dual Channel Kit (PV316G213C1K)

 

£119.99

 

Seagate SSHD 7200RPM 2TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST2000DX001) SSHD Hybrid Drive

 

£94.99

 

BitFenix Prodigy 'Tiger' Mini-ITX Cube Case - Orange/Black

 

£69.95

 

XFX Pro 650W Core Edition '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply

 

£64.99

 

Corsair Hydro H80 High Performance Liquid CPU Cooler *Manufacturer Refurbished Unit - 90 Day Guarantee

 

£37.55

 

OcUK 20x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM

     

 

huh, copy and paste straite from the website, awesome, any way, It comes to about just under £1k which is in my budget but I want other's opnion on it since I've always gone for AMD cpu's, I'm dead set on a that asus mini ITX since it has a lot of nice features so I have to use INTEL but I won't LIE, I have no idea which CPU is latest or best or whatever since I don't keep up with them, that and there product naming scheme is hella confusing.

so, what you think?

 

p.s., AMD GPU since the site is giving away free games + amd on top of that are giving away free games how can I not go for that?

EDIT: Totally unrelated but, what does "salty Members" under my name mean?

[hobo2]

A refurbished liquid cooler? Refurbished products can be spotty and I wouldn't risk it with a liquid cooler.

[Barack Obama]

I'd skip on the liquid cooling altogether. that's one of those things that has always struck me as completely unnecessary and potentially a hassle.

[Barack Obama]

also, consider getting a dedicated SSD for your boot/system drive, I haven't heard good things about the hybrid drives. Samsung and Crucial are good options there

[Swordfish]

Thanks for the input, I'll consider changing the refurbished for a new one. I want the sealed loop water-cooler because they make for great over-clocking.

I don't see what's so bad about an SSHD, it's just a normal drive that will work faster for frequently used stuff.

 

EDIT: I just looked but I could get a 3TB for the same price, not a SSHD but, at the price..

 

EDIT: I could get an SSD for booting, 60gb for around 40-50 which isn't bad.

[hobo2]

Those closed loop systems are low-end liquid cooling. A decent air cooling system will give the same sort of temperatures without the possible risk of a leak and without the maintenance (the pump is more likely to give out in the water cooler than any part in a decent air cooling system).

[Swordfish]

then what do you recommend? I've been exclusively using sealed loops in my last few builds..

[ATARI]

pffft im still using my cyrix 333

[Swordfish]

fuck, my first computer was a Cyrix P166, they were good processors.

but as usual money comes first, it's why powerPC isn't used everywhere despite being more efficient and more powerful, it costs a bit more.

[dada]

idk I'd sincerely doubt the PPC architecture would be faster than the status quo if we could somehow recompile all standard x86 software to it and run a benchmark. it's good for specialized applications these days like supercomputers and game consoles but that's different from standard PC usage.

[Swordfish]

I'd always been led to believe that powerPC was more efficient, just not cost effective.

[ATARI]

I feel as though there are a lot of things that you have been led to believe.

[Swordfish]

Ouch, now that's just mean.

[Warped655]

ATARI is grouchy. Or mean.

[Swordfish]

Does he know Oscar the Grouch ?

[ATARI]

nope

[Swordfish]

awww, oh well, any way.

I'm going to go with a sealed loop but not the H80, I've decided to go with thermal take's water 2.0 extreme, it's only a little bit more (compared to new H80) BUT it's a lot better, plus it's not as loud, the case I'm going for is VERY Versatile so it will easily fit the 240 radiator along the top and a full length graphic card along the side. 

You're right btw, I'm going for an SSD for a boot disk and then a large secondary drive for storage, though to increase airflow I will need to replace the front panel to a mesh and the fan to a massive 180mm fan.

I should be able to get a mean over clock with this system, even on the graphics card since the cool air drawn from the front will go straight to the cards intake fans and cooling fins.

I will have to be careful with the Power supply though, can take a max of 160mm, still apparently you can use motherboard mounting screws to extend the backplate and gain a few extra mms if you need it.

 

I can afford it since i've decided to by half the parts I'm 100% going to get with my next pay check and then the rest of the parts after my next one; though just because I can afford it doesn't mean I'm going to be stupid about it, I won't be buying anything more then the i5-4670k since anything beyond £180 gives you diminishing returns and that's the only k model that Overclockers sell for around that price, still i'm saving a bit of money by getting OEM since I don't need the cooler the retail version comes with since I'm using an aftermarket one.

[DDay]

I agree with both suggestions also what PSU are you rolling with in your current build because you can reuse it to make things cheaper for you unless you think the PSU is the culprit or dose not have the right amount of pins.

[Swordfish]

The old PSU is 100%, compatible (hardware wise, but probably not size) but I've decided not to use my old one, mostly because it's a full ATX/EPS power-supply so I can't guarantee it will fit any way, plus It's had some ware, so I will be getting a new one (they don't even sell the model I had any more).

From what I can work out I will need a PSU of about 650, most calculators put the system use at 490 wat-ish so the extra 100w will allow for overhead and  an extra 50 w to make sure (though I'm not sure if I will need that even if I'm over-clocking)

 

AS for OS, I'm going to Dual boot, windows 8 and a linux distro (though I was thinking of trying that Steam OS that's come out) and if it's good enough I'll ditch windows 8 (I have a copy lying around so I don't need to buy it at least).

Is there any way to sort of quick switch between OS's? I can use Steam OS for gaming and Linux OS for general purpose stuff.

 

There is the problem of drivers though but, i'm guessing that driver support is now a lot more mature then it once was.

 

I've also had a re-think of the cpu cooler, I can fit a 240mm but if I do, I can't fit a disk drive and I want a BD drive (Blu-ray reader, not writer). so it's a toss between using an 120mm single fan radiator like the H80 OR going with something like the noctua NH-D14 (the prodigy has PLENTY of space).

 

EDIT: what linux distro would you recommend? (not ubuntu with unity desktop, yuk, perhaps with gnome?)

[Swordfish]

Yeah, back to this topic again, I've bought most of the components, save the graphics card; this was because I heard AMD were launching a new line of GPUs and have been waiting for non-reference 290's to come out (according to overclockers they will come out around the 15th of jan).

However, after some more research, AMD aren't that good for linux (well, actually I've heard conflicting information on that) and My next computer is going to be a linux box, or at least have linux on it.

SO, question is, should I get the Zotac GTX 780 !AMP edition I can see on scan for £400 OR get R9 290 (most probably ASUS) for about £30 cheaper, keeping in mind that I want to be able to use linux(Mint) and play games and so on.

My current spec is as follows:
CPU: i5 4670k
MOBO: ASUS ITX Impact
RAM: Patriot Viper "Black Mamba" Generation 3 16GB (2x8GB) 2133MHz
PSU: OCZ ZS Series 650W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply
Boot drive: 128GB SSD scandisk.

 

Oh and for the cooling thing, I bought the Zalman reserator 3 (becuase It's good at cooliing the mobo as well)

Any advice, is well appreciated.

 

p.s. I asked this on tom's hardware but I've received no response.

 

p.p.s. O2 wants me to verify my age to log on to SALTW, apparently this is an adult website (though I get around this with hotspot shield)