32 replies to this topic

[mark_90]

Hi folks,

I'm starting to look at a new system to replace my 4 year old dell that just about manages with FS9 on medium-medium/high settings. I have FSX as well and after buying the PMDG JS41, it's inspired me to upgrade. First off, is now a good time to be looking at a new system? By this I mean is there some new ground breaking hardware around the corner? Ideally I'd love to buy the parts separate and build it myself but i'm not sure if I have the time of the knowledge to do it.

My budget is £850 and your ideas for parts would be much appreciated. I've had a look at http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/ which seems a good site for customizing a system which they then build.

Many thanks.

[Peter797]

Jeez mate with that budget. Just order from pwn. I think pwn is Ed Computer's guy right?

[Mr-Sim]

It would be cheaper to just build it.

[mark_90]

Any ideas for specific parts guys? I really don't know where to start with this one.

Forgot to mention that I don't need a monitor, I'm going to keep my Dell and Acer ones

Thanks.

[ukmatthew]

That site is very expensive and that ed guy is based in US. So either way id suggest building your own.

[Peter797]

Oh my bad then. Well with that budget. I'd build a core i5 system. With a GTX 295 ....actually just wait till Windows 7 is out. You can wait another month!

[mark_90]

Ok i've done a bit of fiddling and come up with the following. Peter a GTX295 takes me slightly more over my budget than i'd want to go so i've gone core i7 and GTX275. Would that work ok? I know FS is a CPU intensive game.

PCSpecialist (they'd build it)
Processor (CPU) Intel® Core™i7 Processor i7-860 (2.80GHz) 8MB Cache + HyperThreading
Memory (RAM) 4GB CORSAIR XMS3 DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz - LIFETIME WARRANTY!
Motherboard GIGABYTE GA-P55M-UD2: DDR3, SATA II, 2 PCI, 1 PCI-Ex
Operating System Genuine Windows Vista™ Home Premium 64-bit + Windows 7 Upgrade Voucher (£84)
USB Options 8 x USB 2.0 PORTS (6 REAR + 2 FRONT) AS STANDARD
Memory - 1st Hard Disk 500GB SERIAL ATA 3-Gb/s HARD DRIVE WITH 8MB CACHE (7,200rpm)
1st CD/DVD Drive 22x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
Graphics Card 896MB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX275 PCI EXPRESS
Sound Card ONBOARD 8 CHANNEL (7.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Facilities ONBOARD 10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT
Memory Card Reader INTERNAL 52 IN 1 CARD READER (READS XD, MS, CF, SD, etc)
Case COOLERMASTER SILEO 500 QUIET MID TOWER CASE
Power Supply & Case Cooling 700W Quiet Quad Rail PSU + 120mm Case Fan (£69)
Processor Cooling SUPER QUIET 22dBA TRIPLE COPPER HEATPIPE CPU COOLER (£19)

£872 inc VAT and Delivery

Ebuyer (buying parts individually and building)
Intel Core i7 860 2.8GHz Socket LGA 1156 8MB L3 Cache Retail Boxed Processor 172754 2 in stock £219.38
Corsair 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 1600MHz/PC3-12800 XMS3 DHX Memory Kit 148818 32 in stock £80.00
Gigabyte GA-P55-UD3R iP55 Socket 1156 8 channel audio ATX Motherboard Ebuyer Exclusive 173525 79 in stock £102.99
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium - Complete package - 1 PC - DVD - English - United Kingdom (Expected date: 22/10/2009) 168373 903 in stock £75.00
Seagate ST3500418AS 500GB Hard Drive SATAII 7200rpm 16MB Cache - OEM 158860 1582 in stock £37.40
LG GH22NS50 22x SATA DVD±RW Dual Layer & RAM Black Bare Drive - OEM 169683 > 200 in stock
£16.13
Inno3D GTX275 896MB GDDR3 Dual DVI HDTV Out Cuda and PhysX ready PCI-E Graphics Card Includes Batman Arkham Asylum Download & 3D Discover Glasses 161684 > 10 in stock £187.45
Galaxy Black Mid Tower Case with Blue Bubble Light LED Strip - 450W PSU 136491 334 in stock  £27.98
Arctic Power 700W PSU - With PCI-E, 4x SATA, 20+4, ATX12V, 8pin +12V Connectors - Retail Boxed 124927 46 in stock  £42.99
Cart total inc vat: £789.32

[tropicalfish]

Don't go with that power supply...
Get something from Antec, OCZ, PC Power and Cooling, Corsair, or Seasonic.

[Buziel-411_RED]

mark_90, on Sep 23 2009, 04:26 PM, said:

Ok i've done a bit of fiddling and come up with the following. Peter a GTX295 takes me slightly more over my budget than i'd want to go so i've gone core i7 and GTX275. Would that work ok? I know FS is a CPU intensive game.

PCSpecialist (they'd build it)
Processor (CPU) Intel® Core™i7 Processor i7-860 (2.80GHz) 8MB Cache + HyperThreading
Memory (RAM) 4GB CORSAIR XMS3 DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz - LIFETIME WARRANTY!
Motherboard GIGABYTE GA-P55M-UD2: DDR3, SATA II, 2 PCI, 1 PCI-Ex
Operating System Genuine Windows Vista™ Home Premium 64-bit + Windows 7 Upgrade Voucher (£84)
USB Options 8 x USB 2.0 PORTS (6 REAR + 2 FRONT) AS STANDARD
Memory - 1st Hard Disk 500GB SERIAL ATA 3-Gb/s HARD DRIVE WITH 8MB CACHE (7,200rpm)
1st CD/DVD Drive 22x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
Graphics Card 896MB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX275 PCI EXPRESS
Sound Card ONBOARD 8 CHANNEL (7.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Facilities ONBOARD 10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT
Memory Card Reader INTERNAL 52 IN 1 CARD READER (READS XD, MS, CF, SD, etc)
Case COOLERMASTER SILEO 500 QUIET MID TOWER CASE
Power Supply & Case Cooling 700W Quiet Quad Rail PSU + 120mm Case Fan (£69)
Processor Cooling SUPER QUIET 22dBA TRIPLE COPPER HEATPIPE CPU COOLER (£19)

£872 inc VAT and Delivery

Ebuyer (buying parts individually and building)
Intel Core i7 860 2.8GHz Socket LGA 1156 8MB L3 Cache Retail Boxed Processor 172754 2 in stock £219.38
Corsair 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 1600MHz/PC3-12800 XMS3 DHX Memory Kit 148818 32 in stock £80.00
Gigabyte GA-P55-UD3R iP55 Socket 1156 8 channel audio ATX Motherboard Ebuyer Exclusive 173525 79 in stock £102.99
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium - Complete package - 1 PC - DVD - English - United Kingdom (Expected date: 22/10/2009) 168373 903 in stock £75.00
Seagate ST3500418AS 500GB Hard Drive SATAII 7200rpm 16MB Cache - OEM 158860 1582 in stock £37.40
LG GH22NS50 22x SATA DVD±RW Dual Layer & RAM Black Bare Drive - OEM 169683 > 200 in stock
£16.13
Inno3D GTX275 896MB GDDR3 Dual DVI HDTV Out Cuda and PhysX ready PCI-E Graphics Card Includes Batman Arkham Asylum Download & 3D Discover Glasses 161684 > 10 in stock £187.45
Galaxy Black Mid Tower Case with Blue Bubble Light LED Strip - 450W PSU 136491 334 in stock  £27.98
Arctic Power 700W PSU - With PCI-E, 4x SATA, 20+4, ATX12V, 8pin +12V Connectors - Retail Boxed 124927 46 in stock  £42.99
Cart total inc vat: £789.32

I would go for the i5 750 instead of the i7 CPU.

[mark_90]

Thanks Buziel.

I've had a look at things and decided to give a build a go. I've read a few tutorials (mul's on here) and watched a few videos and it doesn't seem as daunting as I first thought. Running from the top, can we confirm all the parts I need?

Case
Motherboard
Processor
Heatsink?
CPU Cooler
RAM
Hard Disk Drive
Power Supply
Graphics Card
Sound Card
DVD Drive
Network Card?

I can then start to put together a list of the best available components for my budget.

Many thanks
OS (best to pre-order Windows 7?)

[tropicalfish]

If you are not overclocking and you are ordering a boxed processor, you will not need an additional heatsink. (The heatsink is the same as the CPU cooler)
If you are using standard ethernet, you won't need another network card. Almost all motherboards nowadays have built-in ethernet ports.
If you are not doing any intense audio editing or producing, you will not need another sound card. Almost all motherboards nowadays have built-in audio.

[mark_90]

Ahh thank you, shows how behind the times I am then!

[Atomic_Sheep]

Don't go for the i7 860 as Buziel said, go for the i5 or the i7 920.

Speed wise...

i5 < i7 860 <i7 920

Price wise...

i5 < i7 860 ~i7 920

So why the 860?

Also try getting SATAII... much faster (pretty sure its much faster than SATA I, like it should be but whether it's much is what I'm hazy about but I think it's a lot) and get 2x250GB rather than 1x500... the way SATA works is you can write to 2 HDD at the same time. If you have SATA or SATAII and only one HDD it's as slow as the old IDE (technology wise)... the HDD may be faster on a 1 v 1 comparison basis but with 2 HDD, you're writing say a 1 gig file in 500meg lots onto two HDD at the same time... what's quicker? In fact if my maths serves me correctly, thats 4x the speed!

If I've made a mistake then corrections are welcome.

Edited by Atomic_Sheep, 24 September 2009 - 07:39 PM.

[Atomic_Sheep]

I think the comparison b/w the CPU's is closer to this:

Speed wise...

i5 < i7 860 << i7 920 (the emphasis here is the much quicker 920)

Price wise...

i5 < i7 860 ~ i7 920

[VFR_Pierre]

I think those rigs are great for pre-built, but try to select a better CPU cooler, for some heavy OCing.

BTW the i5 would be the cheaper route to go, but the i7 860 is better if you can afford it.

[Buziel-411_RED]

Atomic_Sheep, on Sep 24 2009, 07:33 PM, said:

Don't go for the i7 860 as Buziel said, go for the i5 or the i7 920.

Speed wise...

i5 < i7 860 <i7 920

Price wise...

i5 < i7 860 ~i7 920

So why the 860?

Also try getting SATAII... much faster (pretty sure its much faster than SATA I, like it should be but whether it's much is what I'm hazy about but I think it's a lot) and get 2x250GB rather than 1x500... the way SATA works is you can write to 2 HDD at the same time. If you have SATA or SATAII and only one HDD it's as slow as the old IDE (technology wise)... the HDD may be faster on a 1 v 1 comparison basis but with 2 HDD, you're writing say a 1 gig file in 500meg lots onto two HDD at the same time... what's quicker? In fact if my maths serves me correctly, thats 4x the speed!
When did I say i7 860? I said get the i5 750.


If I've made a mistake then corrections are welcome.

The extra few megahertz on the i7 CPU's aren't really necessary, as we can just overclock. As for hyperthreading, it isn't really needed in MSFS.  

And where did you get that the i5 was the most expensive of the three? It's the cheapest.

Edited by Buziel-411_RED, 25 September 2009 - 07:29 AM.

[Atomic_Sheep]

< means less than... so i5 < i7 means i5 is less than i7

[Atomic_Sheep]

Forogot to say that the most important difference is that the i7 has a much faster bus speed, hence my recommendation to go for the 920 at the very least if you go for the i7 and stick with the i5 if you don't want to splurge that much on a CPU.

[mark_90]

Ok take 3...

Coolermaster Elite 335 Case - No PSU £29.66
Gigabyte GA-P55-US3L P55 Socket 1156 8 Channel Audio ATX Motherboard £92.96
Intel Core i5 750 2.66GHz Socket LGA1156 8MB L3 Cache Retail Boxed Processor £146.97
OCZ 4GB KIT (2 x 2GB) DDR3 1600Mhz PC3 12800 GOLD SERIES DUAL CHANNEL KIT (8-8-8-26) £81.00
Samsung HD103SJ Spinpoint F3 1TB Hard Drive SATAII 7200rpm 32MB Cache - OEM £54.99
Antec EarthWatts 650W PSU - 80Plus Certified 12cm Fan 3x 12V Rails £64.04
Inno3D Inno3D GTX275 OC Edition 896MB GDDR3 Dual DVI HDTV Out Cuda and PhysX ready PCI-E Graphics Card £181.93
Samsung SH-S223 22X DVD±RW/RAM/DL Serial ATA Black Bare Drive - OEM £16.39
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium - Complete package - 1 PC - DVD - English - United Kingdom £75.00

Total £742.94

A few questions; is a 650w PSU powerful enough? I can't seem to find any socket 1156 cooling fans apart from one at £42 - are they really that expensive? I know the i5 comes with a heatsink that sits on top of the CPU, where does the CPU cooler go? Also when building from scratch, is there anything else that you need? I have read about thermal paste for the processor for example.

Many Thanks.

[Atomic_Sheep]

Not sure about the PSU, but the cooler and the heatsink should be the same thing I think... you use one or the other. The standard fan is fine if you're not planning on overclocking, but if you are then you need aftermarket fans or other forms of cooling systems and yes, they aren't the cheapest thing you can buy, but you have to remember that a lot of them are made from copper I think and that isn't cheap. The good news is your computer will be cooler and quieter as the fans and the radiator looking things (heatsinks) on the aftermarket ones are bigger.

Other than that it looks like a good system. Might double check about the ram because something is telling it's not optimal (might be overkill or too slow I don't know), either way it stands out as a point of interest to me at least. And with the hdd's, as I said, you really need two to utilise SATA II tp its full potential. So maybe get 2x500gig ones.

Edited by Atomic_Sheep, 26 September 2009 - 03:29 AM.