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  Tom's Hardware UK and Ireland Forums » Homebuilt Systems » New System Build » What would you do to this build with $300???
 

What would you do to this build with $300???

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 Thread : What would you do to this build with $300???
 
Profile: journeyman
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Hey, So, my parents have given me a budget of about $1750 for this build for my birthday. The problem is that I have found everything I need and I'm about $300 short. I am going to order everything in about 2-3hrs hopefully. Could you guys look over my final build and tell me what to upgrade/add with the extra money and if everything is perfect? Thanks!

Motherboard: Gigabyte X48 (225) http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6813128336
Memory: Corsair Dominator 4GB DDR2 1066 (96) http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6820145197
CPU: Q9450 (330) http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6819115042
GPU: Sapphire Radeon 4870 (310)
Hard Drives: Western Digital 640GB x 2 (190) http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6822136218
Case: Antex Nine Hundred (88) http://www.provantage.com/antec-ni [...] NTG049.htm
Cooling: Xigmatek HDT-S1283 + Mounting Bracket + Arctic Cooling MX2 (51)
Optical Drive: Samsung DVDRW (29) http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] k=SH-S203B

Accessories that I'm using it with: Samsung 32in HDTV 1360x768
Klipsch ProMedia GMX 5.1 Speaker System
Sennheiser HD280 Pro Headphones

So yeah.
1. Is everything absolutely perfect?
2. What should I add/upgrade, it could even be a peripheral

Thank you guys so much, you have been a ton of help in the last few weeks. Without you I would have been an idiot and ordered a system or something. This forum is awesome!!!



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Profile: member
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If you have $300, I would throw on an extra 4870 for crossfire, everything else looks good to me.

LANiMAL
Profile: member
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$300 = going out and getting smashed my friend!! Its what bdays are about!

kkthanksbye

Profile: old hand
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if you have $300 to effectively burn, maybe get a DDR3 board and spend the extra on DDR3 ram? other than that, i think just adding another 4870 would be good, but that would be $100 over budget.

Profile: journeyman
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Really? 4870 in crossfire with only a 1360x768 monitor?

Profile: member
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I don't see what else you would spend it on, so that's what I would get, but it's up to you.

Profile: old hand
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darkmatter7 wrote :

Really? 4870 in crossfire with only a 1360x768 monitor?



i missed that little detail. ok your best bet would be to get a 20-22" monitor. the resolution would be alot higher than your tv and would look overall a lot better.

Profile: journeyman
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Do you think it's worth it, going from a 32in 1360x768 to a 22in 1680xwhatever? If so, can you recommend a few models?

Profile: old hand
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darkmatter7 wrote :

Do you think it's worth it, going from a 32in 1360x768 to a 22in 1680xwhatever? If so, can you recommend a few models?



it would be a fairly big difference. anything from samsung and probably dell would be good. i have a dell 20" and it's very good. i have nothing bad to say about it.

Profile: enthusiast
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I didn't see any any mention about a power supply?

Edit:

If you plan to overclock, $300 will get you a decent water cooling set up.

Message quoted 1 times
Message edited by sciggy on 07-03-2008 at 02:00:34 AM

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NZXT Apollo PCP&C Silencer 610 watt
VisionTek 4870x2
Seagate 7200.10 500gb
Profile: old hand
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sciggy wrote :

I didn't see any any mention about a power supply?



+1

Profile: journeyman
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Oh, sorry, I just forgot about the PSU. It's a PC Power and Cooling 750W. I already had that factored into the price though. My tv is samsung and I love it, so I guess I'll go with a samsung. Would the single 4870 be ok doing dual monitors w/ the 32in and 22in samsungs? I see it has 2 dvi out. Oh and where did the Sapphire dissappear to on newegg?

Profile: old hand
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darkmatter7 wrote :

Oh, sorry, I just forgot about the PSU. It's a PC Power and Cooling 750W. I already had that factored into the price though. My tv is samsung and I love it, so I guess I'll go with a samsung. Would the single 4870 be ok doing dual monitors w/ the 32in and 22in samsungs? I see it has 2 dvi out. Oh and where did the Sapphire dissappear to on newegg?



consider that the card would then have to drive 2 monitors, so it would need a fair bit of extra power, but the resolutions aren't too high, so i would say a single 4870 would be ok. but having a second one wouldn't hurt :D

Profile: journeyman
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