Wanted - hardware for complete system upgrade

[diluzio91]

The biggest difference is features. The 6950 supports 3 displays with a single card, 560 does not.

i series breakdown
i3 = hyperthreaded dual core... 2 physical cores, 4 logical cores ( shows up as a 4 core in performance monitor) includes anything below a 2400
i5 = standard quad, 4 cores in windows 2400 to 2500k
i7 = hyperthreaded quad. 4 physical, 8 logical, shows up as 8 core in windows. 2600 to 2700k

Just the CPU, popping in your own chip is easy, just line up the notches, and flip the bar into place. The motherboard you purchase (should be a p67 or z68 chipset, avoid h67/h61 for high performance machines) should give you a step by step guide for the install.
I'll get back to you on price ect when im a little better off financially, i'm thinking around december is most likley. It might be a bit in shipping over to you in the old world.

Corsair is an awesome brand for PSU's.

Windows 7 Kicks a**....

SSD Pro and CON

Pro
Fast
How fast? DAT FAST. no lie...
Fast...

Con
Money
size

Gigabyte == Win, Asus == Mostly good, ROG == Poop in a bucket, ASRock == good for budget minded. Look at size, case, planned upgrade path.

[Munty]

Thanks Diluzio this is excellent stuff. I think I'm getting close to what I want in my box now, it's just a matter of finding everything at the right price and ensuring it's all compatible! My biggest concern right now is RAM as I bought some Corsair Dominator which I was never able to get working on my current mobo so I don't want to do that again! (coincidentally if anyone wants it give me a shout!)

Anyway, I'm looking at P67 and Z68 mobos but the latter seem to be rather rarer so it may well be a gigabyte P67 board. Currently I'm looking at a GA-P67A-UD4-B3 which is one of the above. Will give me dual PCI-e slots, 4 sticks of DDR3 RAM and the ability to mount any of the i-cores. Anyone have any thoughts on this?

I think in order to future proof myself a litte (as my cheap-ass PSUs always die on me!) I'll go with the 850W PSU that you chaps have as it'll give me LOADS of space to grow! Plus going with a good manufacturer I'd expect it to last at least long enough to pay for a few cheap alternatives which is kind of the point!

The CPU can quite happily be the 2500k that you have Diluzio as that's probably what I'll go for anyway. The extra money I'm going to end up spending on PSU and GPU will probably make it rather difficult to go for an i7 and I don't strictly need one anyway.

The GPU situation is certainly leaning towards the 6950 but it's not looking to be a cheap addition to the build so will most likely come later on.

Lastly there's the RAM situation which I absolutely do not want to get wrong! I have no idea how to read compatabilities into this stuff so if someone could help me out with mobo/RAM selection that'd be great! The only good deal I've come across so far is 16GB of Corsair Vengeance DDR3 for less than £100 which sounds like a pretty sweet deal. Can't see myself EVER needing more than that anyway! Is this compatible with the mobo I linked to earlier though? If it is then I think I've found my match, otherwise I need some help finding some that will match. I don't really need any more than 6/8GB for now but hell if I can get 16 for the same price why not?

[Just checked the memory compatibility from the page I posted earlier and seems this memory (CML16GX3M4A1600C9) isn't listed so will keep looking!]

EDIT:
I think I may be learning this compatibility nonsense... It seems to me that there is no corsair 4GB stick compatible with this mobo (a real shame, the vengeance stuff looks mean ) I've just looked through the 4GB options that are available though and G-Skill turns up a whole bunch of very affordable options. I can get 2x4GB sticks for around £40 which is actually even cheaper than the Corsair stuff I found. Trouble is I've never heard of G-skill before, who are they? Is it cheap for a reason or might this be a good place to steal a bargain?

Also the only thing here that I don't understand is that the chart I'm looking at lists mobo type as 'P67A-UD4-B3' which is correct as that's what I'm considering. It's then suffixed with 'DDR3 2400 (downgrade to DDR3 2133)' ranging to 'DDR3 800' the number decreasing before each table. What does that value correspond to? I'm guessing it's a measure of speed or something but how does that affect compatibility? Is it just significant to performane? I'm still slightly confused :p

But yes, big question is, what do we think of G-skill? Any good or would I be better off sticking to 2/3GB sticks from a different manufacturer?

EDIT AGAIN!:
Just found that I can get hold of a GS800 PSU locally for £20 less than I can find a TX850 online. Can anyone explain the difference between the GS and TX prdoucts? I've googled it a little but there doesn't seem to be much in it. As far as I can tell there is a longer warranty on the TXs but some people say there's actually more power per £ in the GSseries.

I can drive down the road right now and spend £75 on a GS800, still giving me way more power than I'll need for the forseeable future. Is that a good idea or is the TX850 worth the extra dosh? Considering the fact that I don't NEED half of the power I'll be purchasing in either case leads me to believe that the former will be just fine but I would rather garner some other opinions before I shell out for either one.

[diluzio91]

Haha... I have that exact mobo. its a champ. Ram is pretty easy, just pick up a 2x4gb kit of ddr3 1600 and you'll be good.

The difference in corsair products as i remember
AX - Professional products, Modular (overclockers, servers, ect)
HX - Professional products, non modular (same as above)
TX - enthusiast products, Non modular (overclockers ect)
GX - Gaming series, (lighted to look l337, decent supply, i think it falls into a tier 2 or 3, but i can't remember ATM... )
CX - budget series, still a good PSU, but it wont run as hard as ax, hx, or tx, and will probably be lower wattage, slightly less stable, ect ect.

[Munty]

I just let this mobo slip through my fingers for £100 but with my finances in their current state I'm sadly not able to splash out on an item that will go un-utilised until the purchase of several other components. It's unfortunate given the high price of the board first hand but I seem to already have a bottleneck in the system thanks to my crappy PSU so that must take precedence! Still no bargains to be had regarding that, so will have to keep looking but hopefully there will be a crash sale on power supplies soon to help me out!

As an NB, the amount of alcohol currently in my system doesn't really help with my logical selection method so fingers crossed I don't buy anything stupid between now and my next sober post!

Good night to all and here't to a good night's sleep! T

[Munty]

I did it, managed to get a decent sleep and there are no questionable purchases to deal with this morning which is always a bonus! Pretty gutted to have missed out on that mobo last night but it was an eBay deal so no telling how much it could've gone for.

Good news is I've found another one (6 actually) which are selling for just a touch UNDER £100 so this could be the silver lining I was hoping for. These items are listed as **B grade** though and I wanted to ask what in the world that means to me. Are they different to other ones that aren't B grade? I just have no idea what it means...

Anyway, there's that so I can still get the mobo for around the £100 which is ok I guess. Still majorly confused regarding PSUs. I'd like a modular one but not many of the corsair ones seem to be and those that are knock the price up a fair whack. I'm also trying to get a more powerful one NOW (around 850 as suggested) so it's future-proof somewhat but these are of course not cheap either!

Just found a TX850M which is modular and apparently extremely quiet (something that noone has ever said about the other models!) and it's not priced too much higher than the others in the range. I can see a load of places selling it for just under £100 which isn't a great deal more than the standard TX850. So that's an option to set me up for dual GPUs in the future, shame it's not cheaper though!

So that's up to around £200 for the PSU and mobo, add another 40 for 8GB of RAM and the only thing I'm missing from the short term plan is a processor! Does anyone know anything about buying CPUs on ebay? There are a lot on there for really good prices (the i7s especially) but they all look very different and I'm pretty sure that they aren't all what they're advertised as. There's one i7 2700k that ends in a few hours and has 0 bids so it could be picked up for as little as £100 in theory but the seller has zero feedback so I'm guessing you'd never receive that item!

I'm just looking as I would obviously be happier with an i7 than an i5. I don't necessarily need it but who doesn't want the better option? Besides if I can find a good deal then why not? I'm dubious though as all of these processors seem to be too cheap, many aren't boxed and most aren't even printed with intel let alone the chip details!

Anyway I'll be happy with an i5 which I don't want to spend more than £150 on. That takes my running total to just under £400 if I have to buy the CPU brand new. Diluzio, if you're ready to upgrade soon then maybe we can both help each other out Right now I'm just putting together the cash I'll need so will probably be happening over the next few weeks (I hope!)

Wish me luck and please keep the advice coming. Nothing is set in stone yet after all.

[diluzio91]

My experience with ebay boards is: Started folding @home friday. sunday morning i woke up to silence.

Modular is overrated if you have space behind the back panel.

That suits me well. I don't have upgrade funds until my rent for the month and my bills are paid.... I'm one of those pack rat money guys... But i should have that taken care of in the next 3, maybe 4 paychecks. (starting tomorrow i get paid every week) and i have a few other things i'm holding my breath on (im selling my monitors *gasp** to get a single panel.

[Munty]

Bought the first piece of the jigsaw today. Went pretty much top of the Corsair PSU range and splashed out on an AX850. Fully modular which is nice as I'm considering building this rig into a new desk that I so desperately need and highly efficient with automatic variable fan. At 20% load and below there is actually no fan noise and it's something pretty quiet right up to 50% which (considering what I'll end up running) is probably as high as it'll go for at least the first year of it's life. To top it off I get a 7 year warranty, that feels pretty good in itself! Couldn't find anything for less than £140 in the end (cheaper abroad but postage makes it the same or higher) but that works out at just £20 a year with the warranty and I currently spend more than that on cheap ones!

Will be here between the 8th and 10th apparently so chances are there will be a delay in actually installing it as my partner is likely to be giving birth on the 7th. Still, I guess that's a bit better than a new PSU anyway so I'll be happy either way

[diluzio91]

congrats! haha, just be sure the psu is midget safe. lol

[Munty]

congrats! haha, just be sure the psu is midget safe. lol

No fear of that, had one of the buggers running around for the last 3 years as it is. Everything I value is well out of reach

[Munty]

Well, the new addition to the family is now 2 days late and counting but the good news is my PSU arrived yesterday! Was very impressed as that was actually the first date they suggested it could arrive so good delivery time. (For any fellow Brits, I used dabs.co.uk)

I was rather surprised by the size of the box this thing was delivered in, my 3 year old can quite comfortably hide underneath it and you'd never even know he was there! Once inside that one, the retail box is pretty big too, just not toddler sized. I took some pics of the unboxing but the last 2 are a little dark.

Fitted it as son as I got it obviously and all of my issues are now gone! No more random restarts so it was clearly down to an insufficient power supply as I initially thought. Very good news for me. Looks very tidy inside my case now but still needs improvement which will come when I upgrade the other components. I used 1x24pin cable, 1x8 pin cable (which is odd as I was only using a 4 pin before with the other 4 empty...) a 4xmolex cable and a 2xSATA cable. Needless to say it's a vast improvement.

I'm currently drawing up plans to build myself a new desk and I'm considering building my new components into it but the current design doesn't really allow for it. I'll share a worklog either way if I do get round to building the thing, should be good!

Now I'm ready for mobo and processor which look set to come from the US. I can get the RAM here. Will be ready for that in the next few weeks but hopefully there'll be another child in the house by then so it may take a back seat for a while!

Will update with any new happenings as they occur! T