Full PC build on a budget < £670

Did you see in some applications it was 30%??

Yes because changing platform makes the Core 2 chip magically perform twice as fast

 

If you check the first page you'll actually find I did, do you read threads before you post?

 

A decent branded 500w PSU should be more than enough for any single GPU rig, its just a case of buying a quality PSU with high efficiencey, all the necessary safety features, decent 12V rail output and from a respected brand.

Ebuyer sell 700w+ PSUs that aren't a patch on some decent 360w units. Honestly , the actual wattage figure is one of the last things you should be basing your PSU purchase upon.

A 16% performance advantage that totally vanishes in GPU bound situations (i.e. 90% of the games on the market with a single GPU config) for huge jump in price is hardly what I'd call slaughter. In fact I'd say it demonstrates just what bad value a socket 1366 rig is for gamers.

Now Core i5 has been fully unveiled, the i5 750 is absolutely a great option, but if you can't stretch to that, a cheap Phenom ii quad (especially once overclocked) is more than enough to shift the bottleneck in modern games onto the GPU, and as such, represents great value. Socket 775 is a terrible option, the decent quad processors on the platform are horribly overpriced in the UK, a Q9550 is more than £40 more than a x4 940 (or £30 more than a 955) despite the fact they trade blows at stock and the unlocked multi makes the 940 easier to OC. You've got literally zero upgrade options if you go with that Q9550, but potentially a whole host of places to go with an AM3 board.

 

30% is not a slaughter either. Measurable and perhaps even noticeable, but not a slaughter. You want to see a slaughter compare a Core 2 Duo to a Pentium D. That's the sort of generational performance gap that would qualify a slaughter. Not this incremental 10-30% b.s.

It does, actually. Nvidia chipsets are CRAP. Go research what the multi-threaded memory performance of an NV chipset compared to an equivalent Intel chipset.

 

That's funny, moving from a 780i to a P45 didn't remove any CPU bottleneck I had or make my core 2 twice as fast

 

It's only twice as fast in benchmarks with multi GPU systems.

 

So let me get this straight, moving from an Nvidia chipset to a Intel one doubles the CPU power when running multi GPU's?

 

I bloody well hope so, the price of those x58 boards is horrendous

ps: the mag I read reviewed the phenom2 x4 965 black, and benched it against the q9550 and the i920
the numbers are what percent better they were (1st number q9550 second number the i920)

sysmark 2007 +2.6% +10.3%
photoshop +1.5% +17.4%
divx -15% +4.3%
cinebench -14% +15.2%
winrar -21% +25%
warhead -3.7% -2.1%
farcry2 +7% +23%

 

The mag i read micromart (who reviewed the phenom 965 above) reviewed the asus m4a785td-v evo £70 they said good things about it. It also has a radeon hd4200 (which is a good igp I beleive) and managed to overclock that by 40% (you said you dont want to spend much on a gpu cos your getting a dx11 card when they come out)

ps: its an am3 board as oppsed to the am2+ board you linked to
it also unlocks the 4th core of the phenom x3 the 2.8 x3 is £89

 

DFI mother boards are not easy to work with. The BIOS is for very complex and for knowledgeable people that know mother board setting. Gigabyte has a 790FX motherboard that is easy to use and setup and has a better voltage regulator. Its called GA-MA790FX-UD5P.
http://www.gigabyte.us/Products/Motherboard/Products_Overview.aspx?ProductID=3029

I don't know the UK shops much because I live in Texas but I'm sure there are some shops that have the mother board.

 

woah, that boards £175 in the uk

 

That a ripoff. I got one on sale for $130 us and that was the AM3 one too so I was thinking about 110 for over the pond.

 

I'm going to build a new PC as well... Probably going to pick most of the parts tomorrow. The processor is either the i7 920 or i7 860 and I'm having difficulties on deciding. The 900 series seems to be a bit better with multigpu situations, better stock voltage overclocking + better upgrade path for future processors that have more than 4 cores, at least some of the reviews seem to think so. i860 has some benefits also like cheaper motherboards and should be faster at stock clocks. The processors are priced identical at my shop...

The GPU situation is also a bit problematic since Ati's DX11 chips are just around the corner, but not here today. I might go for a crossfire 4870 or 4890 setup now, because you can get pretty good deals on those now + 58xx range does start at pretty high prices. I think I would be more than ok with that Crossfire setup and maybe look at the overall situation and the prices after nVidia launches it's own DX11 line up, and 32nm should be quite close also, but not quite here today. Other option would be something like a single 4850 now and a 5870 in few months, but it's going to be hard to resist going all out tomorrow

I purchased a 52" Sony Bravia as the display, that'll get some other action also thus taking a little bit of stress out of my projector but it'll take a week to arrive, so I have plenty of time to build my new rig, unless the store has a cheap option to have it built there. I have built few rigs in the past, but don't enjoy it that much + I once wasted a P4 northwood... Tomorrow is going to be interesting, anyone has any suggestions for me?

 

Are there some makers of PSU's or Ram or similar things that I should avoid/know of?

 

Out of the s1366 and s1156 I would go with the 1156 because I believe S1366 will go away in the near future. The only CPU for the 1366 is the I7 920 and no new CPUs have been released ether but only EOL like the 950 and 975. I believe Intel will dump the S1366 and go over to the S1156 for all the new CPU's. By doing this, it will save Intel money by not having to support two sockets. As for PSU, I have to go with Corsair for reliability, prices, and performance. There are better PSU but the price really jumps up for somthing a little better. For running two or more GPU's, get a 850W or higher PSU and its better to not get a modular one. For high wattage uses, its better to have the wires soldered on the PSU's main board then have connections that add resistance and cause some power loss and heat build up on the connectors.

 

Thanks for the suggestions. I went with the i920 though with Asus P6T deluxe v.2 motherboard. Anandtech test seems to imply that the X58 might be worth it with multigpu solutions and I liked some of the other benefits as well, but I was in the store pondering whether I should go i7 860 or 920 for a looong time. I got 1000w Corsair PSU and these for the memory:

http://www.ocztechnology.com/products/memory/ocz_ddr3_pc3_12800_gold_low_voltage_triple_channel

I got two GTX275's, because I got pretty good deal on them. I'll look DX11 next year, yes I know I probably should have waited a bit, but these will do for a while.

Antec P193 black case and a Blu-ray burner as a optical drive, one TB HDD and Vista home premium with upgrade path to 7. I'll probably overclock the processor a little bit and I bought some after market cooler, which should be silent and offer a little bit better cooling than the stock cooler.

 

P193? Sooo fugly I don't think your CPU cooling will enter into the noise of your system ... Antec fans on their lowest setting are very far removed from silent and the reference NVIDIA cooler is likewise.

If you really want a silent system you replace the GPU coolers with Accelero Extremes and replace the 140mm with D14SL-12s and 120mm fans with say Slipstream Ms and put in a fan controller to run them at 600-800 RPM (the 200mm fan is a limiting factor in how quiet it can go, but there are no lower RPM alternatives ... and it's decent).

 

The GTX275's I got don't have the reference cooler and they should be little quieter than the reference cards, but they still are most likely the noisiest component. I'll have to wait and hear how loud they are and then act accordingly. I don't need it to be ultra silent though. Lot's of money spent in few days well maybe I can save it back with cheaper multiplatform games hehe.

 

You know what im going to suggest now