Edit: Neglected a couple of mentions that I have now included, sorry for the kerfuffle
Hi there, building a new computer for the first time in 4-5 years or so! I could really do with advice as I am very much out of touch (SATA was a big surprise for me when I last built something).
Approximate Purchase Date: 2 weeks - 1 month or so (moving to a new property, housewarming gift to myself)
Budget Range: £600-700 (about $1000)
System Usage from Most to Least Important: Gaming, watching movies (may be buying a projector down the line)
Parts Not Required: Two Asus VE247H monitors, keyboard, mouse, speakers (I would happily upgrade to surround sound if possible). Essentially I have two hard drives I can use as well, so if less the cost of a new hard drive can get something better, go for it! Old computer Sapphire ATi Radeon HD 2400 PRO 256MB MSI P35 NEO2-FR Socket 775 Mobo Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 PRO 2 Arianet 1GB PC2-6400 Intel Pentium Dual Core E2180 2.0GHz (Retail 775) 160GB Samsung Spinpoint SATA2 8MB not sure on the power supply, but I assume everything here is redundant now anyway
Preferred Website(s) for Parts: Not bothered, but clearly I am best off from uk sites, like aria.co.uk
Country: (e.g.: India) United Kingdon: London, England
Parts Preferences: A friend of mine is strongly advising I get an Ivy Bridge when it is released, so it would seem that the most logical thing to do is make sure the build is compatible to upgrading to that processor. I would like to make use of Eyefinity in League of Legends, as I understand this may require specifically amd radeon? I believe this puts me in contradictory hardware requirements though. I am not sure
Overclocking: Maybe, I prefer not as it is less hassle, but I know these things can be set to specific profiles for ease of use, so whatever
SLI or Crossfire: Maybe, I have no idea; I seem to be able to play video in one monitor and play games in the other without too much choppiness, but if it is a consideration for this then yes
Monitor Resolution: currently using two 24" 16:9 1920x1080
Additional Comments
As mentioned, this is largely a gift to myself for the new house. I'd like to get back into gaming seriously rather than playing League of Legends and TF2 on lowest possible settings, and we'll be using it as our media device in the living room. Some time down the line I hope to grab a projector, and I'm told I should be looking at Ivy Bridge, but clearly I am entirely out of the loop regarding computers. Luckily I am good at jigsaws.
Scan is a good UK website, so you can either go through them or put the build together on the site of your preference.
The motherboard is S1155, which is what Ivybridge will be when it arrives. However, although Ivy will be an improvement over Sandy, you're not really going to lose out by going Sandy now...it's still a fine CPU. The motherboard doesn't have the most comprehensive overclocking suite of tools, but should be find for your needs. You can shave some money off of that build by replacing the chassis to taste.
------------------------------Main PC: i5-2500K / P8P67-Pro / Corsair Force GT / 1GB MSI GTX 560Ti (Kuhler 620 Mod) / 2x4GB Vengeance / XFX 750W Pro Core / H100 / 700D
HTPC: G620 / P8H61-M LE / 2x2GB Ripjaws X / Be Quiet! 480W / Corsair Nova / HD 6450 Passive / GD06B Reply to diellur
I realise I should probably add in that there is a feature I have been shown called eyefinity, which I would like to make use of in my gaming; does this require specific hardware? Thanks for input so far~
I realise I should probably add in that there is a feature I have been shown called eyefinity, which I would like to make use of in my gaming; does this require specific hardware? Thanks for input so far~
Eyefinity requires one or two AMD cards, both posters above have listed Nvidia cards and whilst there is a similar feature available from Nvidia you have to use two cards in SLi whereas AMd cards are capable of running three monitors from a single card provided you use the Display Port. Before you get too excited though I would advise you look into it a bit more carefully as there have been many posts about the difficulty of getting the right DP adapters and the right AMD card that is powerful enough to actually run three monitors at a decent framerate.
I take it both cards in the case of a dual SLi would need to be equally as powerful given they are operating independently, rather than say two weaker cards working in tandem?
Edit: Blimey, just found out how to set my Sapphire ATi Radeon HD 2400 to use both monitors and stretch resolution across both and play with both monitors... didn't realise it was that simple
Message edited by Spiku on 02-06-2012 at 04:06:49 PM
For SLi the cards need to be of the same GPU and same memory bandwidth, there was a time when it was possible to SLi cards with different memory amounts but that may have changed.
Change form my build the 560Ti with 6870 if you want Eyefinity. If you can raise your budget with 30 pounds more buy an 6950 video card.If you have 2 monitor setup then go with 560Ti.
Message edited by sosofm on 02-07-2012 at 09:27:18 AM