fed up of playing on bloody consoles.. Time for a Gaming PC build

Well to put it simply im getting fed up of playing first person shooters on the xbox.

Main reason being , team work is so hard to make tactics work etc
and obviously mouse and keyboard is the all time best fps setup.


so with this in mind im going to build up a new gaming pc. For any boffings out there im using the i5 750 cpu and plan to try to clock this up to around 4.0ghz.

Its not the cutting edge , but its not far off it and the i7 would offer no real performance benefits..

Im still finding it hard to click the buy it button though atm as its worked out just under 1k in parts.

Hi mate this is the precise reason I prefer PC gaming, mouse & keyboard! I recently bought a 360 purely for Halo 3/ODST as they will probably never come to PC and my god I struggled at the start.

Anyway gaming rig....

Is 1K your budget then? have you already bought the i5 chip?

I work away from home and built a second desktop as it was cheaper than a gaming laptop and it plays all the current games fine at a relatively high resolution (1680x1050 and 1920x1200 when I take my big monitor home).

This is the spec of my one at home and I'm not saying you should do the same as me it is just an example of what you could do (I also just built similar spec for my mate).

• CPU e4300 core2duo (1.8Ghz stock) running at 3.0Ghz 24/7 no problem (these are about £30 used)
• 8800GT (512mb) about £50 used
• ddr2 dual channel kit 2 x 2gb getting more expensive at the min
• P35 motherboard (can get gigabyte g31/41 for about £40 new)

With that setup I can play most stuff at max to high settings, fps wise cod4 and mw2 on max.

i5 will be fine, but an i7 would allow you to move to the LGA1366 socket motherboards which should be future proof somewhat.

Since i built my rig 3 year ago ive only upgraded to a HD4870x2 and it still runs everything at 1920x1280, 4x AA 8xAF etc.. Also runs my multi-screen setup when needed, and im still on a core 2 DUO @ 3.4Ghz.

I cant stress enough how much you should get a GOOD power supply thuogh. Something like a Seasonic will power your stuff for your 'next' build should the need be.

Nothing worse than wanting to add an extra graphics card or HDD to find your PSU is not up to the job !

Especially with the big GPU's and if you plan on overclocking your gear.


Good luck man.

Add me on Steam: ' Jessop '

Well reason i was going for the i5 over the i7, is that on benchmark results the i7 barely has any upper hand on the i5 and is only really any faster when it comes to encoding etc.

I was going with a corsair 650 watt psu due to there warranty and good performance etc.

I thought about bulding a system using some older parts 8800 gt etc, but i decided against it mainly due to the fact that given a years time ill be wishing i made a slightly more future proof system.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by djinuk

I thought about bulding a system using some older parts 8800 gt etc, but i decided against it mainly due to the fact that given a years time ill be wishing i made a slightly more future proof system.

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Well there is two sides to that you pay alot more for a future proof system and to be honest pc hardware rarely remains cutting edge for anything more than a few months.

I just upgraded to an i7, before that I had a e8600 and at home I have an e4300 (as previously stated) and I can play the same games without a problem on all of them.

I can max out all quake/source based games, including mw2 on my budget rig.

ive purchased the system

Gigabyte ud4 mobo
650 corsair psu
4 gb of ddr 3 1600mhz corsair
h50 watercooler and rad
i5 750 cpu cooler
f3 samsung 1tb hd
hd5850 sapphire
g15 keyboard
mx 518 mouse
antec 902 case

Some good stuff there, I see you're going on water sweet, what waterblock you getting?

Thought i'd just add with regards to the motherboard.

If you plan on installing windows in AHCI mode alot of gigabyte boards are still coming with the older AHCI bios (my new X58 did), if you update to the latest bios it also updates the AHCI bios which shaves about 10 seconds of the POST time.

The AHCI update probably isn't listed in the bios revisions but it's in there.

left4 dead 2 is awesome on the pc, especially with yer mates. Add me on steam mat_r5.

As for the rig, i run an old Dell XPS600, 9600gt card 2 gig ram. It still runs most games and its 5 years old!!!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by MATT C Ringworm Tuning

left4 dead 2 is awesome on the pc, especially with yer mates. Add me on steam mat_r5.

As for the rig, i run an old Dell XPS600, 9600gt card 2 gig ram. It still runs most games and its 5 years old!!!

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Did you upgrade the card though? 9xxx series is only like 2 years old.

I got a old laptop which is five years old an all although it doesn't really cut the mustard on todays games (radeon 9800) can still play them albeit on mega low crap settings :cry:

lol the system i upgraded from was a 2500+ amd, oced, with a 9800 pro..

Its a simple spec water system made my corsair , its a full sealed unit etc..

Ill check the bios thanks for that :) , just got win 7 into it :D yay

Quote:

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Originally Posted by tiff_lee

Did you upgrade the card though? 9xxx series is only like 2 years old.

I got a old laptop which is five years old an all although it doesn't really cut the mustard on todays games (radeon 9800) can still play them albeit on mega low crap settings :cry:

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Yes the card is about a year old. I did have 2 x Radeons in there(cant remember the model) but its still a fair system.

tried to add you on steam, cant find you, my id is djinuk2009

Quote:

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Originally Posted by MATT C Ringworm Tuning

left4 dead 2 is awesome on the pc, especially with yer mates. Add me on steam mat_r5.

As for the rig, i run an old Dell XPS600, 9600gt card 2 gig ram. It still runs most games and its 5 years old!!!

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yeah ive been spending some time on this love the versus when you play as infected :sad:
mudslinger_sco is my steam tag

My little PC's not bad... though never run a game on it ...

Chip AMDII Phen64bit 12.8Ghz
RAM 8G
ROM 2T
Iiyama FullHD 24"



I use it for Word and Matlab *lol*

alien vs predator 2 demo has been released 2day

Quote:

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Originally Posted by djinuk

alien vs predator 2 demo has been released 2day

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It has!? thanks for the headsup will be downloading that very shortly, I got it on pre-order can't beat some Aliens action.

If you dont mind let us know what load temps you are getting once you've overclocked that chip.

Anybody else on Steam ? :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by djinuk

tried to add you on steam, cant find you, my id is djinuk2009

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Try MATR5 matey.

could do with setting up an RTOC steam club!:D

Chaps im looking at replacing the chip in my xps600 dell machine. I think a pentium d 965extreme edition will work, but cant find any for sale as its quite old tech. Any advice?

What motherboard do you have? and just for reference how much does a p'extreme cost?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by tiff_lee

What motherboard do you have? and just for reference how much does a p'extreme cost?

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Its a Foxxcon/dell Mobo 0HX241 rings a bell socket lga775. My problem is the locked BIOS which i have previously mentioned in another desperate help thread. I just feel with a better chip i could stretch it out for at least another year.

Does that board support core2duos?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by tiff_lee

Does that board support core2duos?

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A core 2 duo should fit in but its the bios that wont allow it. Im not totally sure matey, i need someone who's well into pc gubbins to do a bit of digging and come up with an answer.:cry:

Aye, a c2d will fit as its the same socket but like you say the board/dios needs to support it as well.

Can you get a model/reference number off the board itself, should be printed on it somewhere

Edit: Belay that request I just found the old thread you made with the details in it.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by MATT C Ringworm Tuning

A core 2 duo should fit in but its the bios that wont allow it. Im not totally sure matey, i need someone who's well into pc gubbins to do a bit of digging and come up with an answer.:cry:

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I remember now, its an nforce 4 so the chipset is quite old and wil not support core2duos.

I ask how much a p'extreme is as you can pick up a cheap mother and cpu for £60-80

aye matey i asked before but no answers. I think the board is a BTX config too so a normal atx board wont fit although i think im going to mod the case as its really good. What board and chip do you suggest then matey thats better than the stuff i have now?

Seeing as BTX is larger than ATX I would of thoughth you could fit one easily just be aa matter of fitting the little posts for the board to sit on or having all the correct screw positions there, I know with every ATX case i've owned it also has screw holes to accommodate mATX.

Well i'm sure everyone has their own opinion on what you could get, any current/recent cpu will be better than a pentium D or whatever it is you have but then with that will have to come a new board. All depends how much you're willing to spend if you want to spend anything at all, cause you could also upgrade your ram as you are running 4 x 512mb?

The problem is where to stop next thing you know you've built a whole new pc.