I've been giving alot of thought recently to getting a new PC. My current one can't really stand up to new games. I dont play games that much anymore so it's not easy justifying it right now, but on the other hand, I dont want to do a half arsed job and skimp.

I might order it within 3-4 weeks or leave it until xmas, so i have more time to build it (doubtful since im going skiing this xmas).

I'm going for a self-build:



I hear quad cores arent really utilised for gaming yet.

No, quads aren't worth the entry price yet.

Personally, I'd probably aim a little higher on the cpu, if you can spend the money. Going with Vista I take it?

Id actually go for a cheaper cpu, 2,5 or something, then oc to 3ghz. Id also use a 500w psu.

actually on that tack, you could tone down the RAM some. High speed RAM doesn't really make much of a difference unless you're planning on doing some overclocking.

Not bad, overclockers uk eh?

Possible alternative to the CPU cooler, getting some good reviews

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showprodu ... =HS-029-AR

Also watch the size of that case, are you sure it's big enough?

Like the CPU and GPU

Doesn't the E8500 come with a very decent boxed cooler? I thought so.

Its certainly ok but the aftermarket coolers are far better.

So having overlooked all of your opinions I went ahead and bought a similar setup. It was very much an impulse buy. Now i need to save up for my skiing holiday

- Powercolor ATI Radeon HD 4870 512MB GDDR5 TV-Out/Dual DVI/HDMI (PCI-Express) - Retail £0.00 1 £159.99
- Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 LGA775 'Wolfdale' 3.16GHz (1333FSB) - Retail £0.00 1 £119.99
- Asus P5Q-E Intel P45 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £0.00 1 £104.99
- Corsair HX 620W ATX2.2 Modular SLI Compliant PSU (CMPSU-620HXUK) £0.00 1 £79.99
- G.Skill 4GB DDR2 PK PC2-8500C5 (2x2GB) CAS5 Dual Channel Kit (F2-8500CL5D-4GBPK) £0.00 1 £61.99
- Antec Three Hundred Ultimate Gaming Case £0.00 1 £39.99
- Samsung SpinPoint F1 640GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD642JJ) £0.00 1 £38.99
- Tuniq Core Contact Freezer CPU Cooler (Socket 754/939/940/AM2/LGA775) £0.00 1 £37.99
- Samsung SH-S223F/BEBE 22x DVD±RW SATA Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM £0.00 1 £12.99
- Sharkoon Silent Eagle 1000 120mm Fan - 3/4 Pin £0.00 1 £6.99
- Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound (3.5g) £0.00 1 £4.99
- City Link Parcel Next Day Afternoon (Delivered Mon-Fri): £16.05

VAT: £119.86
Order Total: £804.80

Grats. We expect full reports and 3dmark testing. Or 3d vantage or whatever it is now.

Good shout. ill give that a stab.

Wow, im up and running already.

It's all more or less working now. I dont have a sound card yet but i still get sound from the onboard HDA.

Basically i got home from work yesterday at 7-ish and worked on it flat-out until midnight. I am really surprised there have been no major problems since I know very little of how this stuff works or what i bought.

The only minor problem at the moment is that i wasnt able to install the aftermarket cpu cooler, so im going stock for now. the problem was that the motherboard has big chip heatsinks in the wrong places, so this somewhat blocks the mounting of the cpu heatsink.

It's hilarious actually that this is working because i had to do alot of guesswork regarding DVD / HDD cables and it seems like i got it right first time.

Booted up and only got 2 messages. 1st was that the video card didnt have enough power. so i had to connect 2! friggin power leads from the PSU to the card. That mofo must be hungry. To be honest, it seems to be the main generator of heat.

The 2nd message was something regarding chassis intrusion. i cant remember how i fixed that, but it made sense to me at the time.

Overall its pretty quiet. the loudest thing is the DVD drive. im very impressed with the aftermarket chassis fan that I got. very very silent. Perhaps in a month or so, ill go and buy another 2. 1 for the CPU and the other as an extra chassis fan.

I fired up armed assault on almost max settings and it seemed to piss all over it. ill try and download 3d mark now.

shit! lol

as i was typing the work "3d mark" i started getting artifacts on the monitor. lol

i did an emergency shutdown (yank the power cable).


checked the insides for silly heat levels, but found none. right now the graphics card is at 75 C.

oh by the way the corsair psu manual is really awful.

ill try and do some frantic browsing to see whats going on.

That would be the normal working temperature for that monster. On the other hand, I was getting some silly screen results once I broke into drivers and whenever I was playing meanly on the level of the third party elements. It could be something else that is screwing it. But do check hardware, hardware settings (starting from bios) and drivers.

Yeah, thanks gman. It was the motherboard drivers that needed reinstalling.

Can we assume from your F3 antics that your machine is running like a dream now, mr. Derf?