PC Buying help wanted....

[Jimi Hughes]

What about using one GTX 460? Because this was my plan...?

 

[Rob Simms]

If you want to buy, that card. Then try to find the best card performance for the lowest price on the 460. I would not got too crazy on price. I would put a $200 max on price for one. Then upgrade in a 1-2 years. Try $120-150 if you plan to upgrade in the next year. It save money unlike, when I bought 2x HD 2900 XT cards for a hefty price tag for crossfire. You only get so much of an increase in performance. My cousin bought a 4670 and it was faster than both in crossfire.

 

[Damian Henderson]

460 is the best card out there for the money. Price/Performance it's the king. It also scales very well in SLi, so 2 of them gives you twice the performance pretty much Two are faster then a single GTX480. Which is massive performance. 2 Cards is great these days especially with Nvidia's fermi, they scale very well (allot better then AMD) And have no problems.

http://www.guru3d.com/article/geforce-gtx-460-sli-review/6

 

[Rob Simms]

I have always thought of Nvidia's as FPS for gaming, but I have considered ATI as the better overall cards with some of the features only with less FPS for gaming.

 

[Eddie Mann]

If your looking at a Intel setup on a modest budget, this might be food for thought?

Picking a motherboard is determined by which CPU you choose, therefore if your looking at the best mid range Intel quadcore cpu's prior to the release of the Core i7's and subsequent model releases i3 and i5, it would be hard to ignore either the q9400(2.6mhz) or q9550(2.8mhz), why Quadcore and not Core2 duo?.. Best bang for buck imo eg:Core2 duo E8600(3.33mhz) priced about the same, minus 2 cores.

Once you've selected your CPU the rest is going through the motions..

CPU $172:
The P45 chipset's will accept Core 2 duo and Quadcore Intel CPU's, best bang for buck at the mo' Q9550(quad) 2.8mhz (o.c 3.0mhz+, addtional cooling req'd) or E8600 3.33mhz bth priced about the same, recommend QUAD.

Motherboard $70:
Recommend Any Intel P45 (775) chipset (Asus P5 series, Gigabyte etc), make sure it's DDR3 memory & PCI-E 2.0 compliant, put more priority on finding something that will allow you overclocking head room if req'd eg: (1600mhz o.c)..1333mhz standard "side bus".

VideoCRD $175:
Evga GTX460 (SC) EE, it's Nvidia's latest offering in the mid range DX11 card's, good feedbk in general regarding this model (evga460 sc). GTX470 and 480 owners were experiencing major heat issues, seems Nvidia have now sorted this with the new Fermi lineup.

(Total $417 Pounds) for the core parts, throw in a 24inch lcd ($130 pounds) and some decent DDR3 ram you should be sweet running all the latest titles regardless @ max settings.
I've had a GTX460(SC) for 2 months now, and confirm no performance issues what so ever, this includes running games in Nvidia 3D (resource & framerate hog), just keeps going.

Price wise, no huge performance advantage for me going to i3 or i5 setup compared to my current rig (P45evga790i, E8400(3.8mhz). Will move to Core i7 once i7930's hit my price point, of course that means a new mobo.:frown:

Hope this helps.

 

[Damian Henderson]

I have always thought of Nvidia's as FPS for gaming, but I have considered ATI as the better overall cards with some of the features only with less FPS for gaming.

Am afraid this is not true, it don't matter what type of game it is, racing or FPS, all depends on the coding in the game. nVidia also as better features currently, 3D Stereo Vision, PhysX, better driver support, profiles and of course better performance in SLI.

AMD 6*** are coming soon though.

 

[Jimi Hughes]

Hi guys, just thort I'd post on here to let everyone know that I have now finished buillding my PC, and I wanted to say a big thank you to everyone on this Forum who helped me out with ideas and tips. It is all appriciated so thanks guys. Once again you have proved to me why I choose RD to do my sim racing, as it is not only fantastic for online races and leagues, but the knowledged and willingness to help out others on here is fantastic.
I ended up with an AMD quad core (black edition) running 500GB HD, 4GB RAM, and using a GeForce GTX460 all running on windows 7 (kindly donated by a friend for free). The build came to roughly £400 and it was all well worth the money. I cant believe how much better than running GTR-E off a laptop was!
Huge thanks again for all your help on here, and please feel free to carry on using this thread if you are building a PC or want advice on anything PC related.

Cheers all,

Jimi

 

[Peter Duivelaar]

I am looking to buy a new PC, and I have a few things that I find very important:
It has to be future proof, so I'm thinking about 4 years or so, without any need to upgrade.
At the moment it will only be used for gaming, and then especially simracing games.
I want to buy everything from this site: www.4launch.nl (the site is in dutch) I have very good experiences with them and it is also quite cheap to let them build the system and test if everything works properly.
I don't have any budget in mind, the most important things are the things mentioned above.

 

[Martin Vrba]

Peter, are you looking for only a general advice on what to buy or a should I post a complete system built from components from the website you posted?

 

[Peter Duivelaar]

Peter, are you looking for only a general advice on what to buy or a should I post a complete system built from components from the website you posted?

It would be great if you could do the last one.

 

[Chris Butcher]

If you want to buy, that card. Then try to find the best card performance for the lowest price on the 460. I would not got too crazy on price. I would put a $200 max on price for one. Then upgrade in a 1-2 years. Try $120-150 if you plan to upgrade in the next year. It save money unlike, when I bought 2x HD 2900 XT cards for a hefty price tag for crossfire. You only get so much of an increase in performance. My cousin bought a 4670 and it was faster than both in crossfire.

Was crossfire about a 20% boost?

 

[Christopher Aponte]

I am looking to buy a new PC, and I have a few things that I find very important:
It has to be future proof, so I'm thinking about 4 years or so, without any need to upgrade.
At the moment it will only be used for gaming, and then especially simracing games.
I want to buy everything from this site: www.4launch.nl (the site is in dutch) I have very good experiences with them and it is also quite cheap to let them build the system and test if everything works properly.
I don't have any budget in mind, the most important things are the things mentioned above.

I always use that sight for buying pc parts...great site
I will put something for you...



Peter, I have put this for you as I have set this up for my girlfriend...except this one does not have a Blueray and I have put a sound card which should do awesome goody (hey you said no budget )
it has 2 cases in the budget, for you to choose which one
http://www.4launch.nl/shop/winkelwagen/97195

 

[Peter Duivelaar]

Thanks Chris, I already have a good sound card in my old pc so I can switch it to my new pc.
For a case I was looking for this one as it seems good for cooling: http://www.4launch.nl/shop/#p-4-productid-059908
And is it necessary to have a processor cooling?
For the other parts I was already thinking about the same parts, only I would have chosen for a 8GB instead of 6gb, and then I would have chosen this one: http://www.4launch.nl/shop/#p-4-productid-081103
Can you tell me which one is better.
And I want a little bit bigger HD, so I thought about this one, is it as good as the other? http://www.4launch.nl/shop/winkelwagen/97195#p-4-productid-076535
As for the prize, I think it is much, but if it is necessary to be future proof then I don't mind.

 

[Martin Vrba]

Peter,

what about this?

Intel Core i5 760 2.80GHz 2.5GT/s 8MB Box
Gigabyte GA-P55-USB3 iP55, SATA2 RAID, GLAN, USB3.0
Corsair 4x2GB DDR3 PC10666 CL7 Dominator
Sapphire Videokaart PCI-e Radeon HD6870 1GB 2xDVI/HDMI/2xDP
Corsair SSD 2.5", 120GB, SATA, Force
Samsung 1TB SATA300 32MB, HD103SI/Y
Samsung DVD-/+/RAM SH-S223C 22x/22x/12x SATA Bulk (zwart)
Cooler Master Midi Tower Sileo 500 ATX No PSU (zwart)
Corsair Voeding VX550W 550W

totals to 1019.50 €... if it's too much, you can just remove the SSD drive and it will be 200 € cheaper

 

[Peter Duivelaar]

Thanks Martin.
I already have a ssd, so I don't need it. As for the motherboard, I don't think it is future proof enough, as it only supports socket 1156, and I want to go for the i7 that Chris posted and that is a socket 1366.
It is indeed a lot cheaper, but I think I can better pay a bit 200-300 euro's extra for a better system.
But keep the advice coming guys! I really appreciate it!

 

[Martin Vrba]

to be honest, the performance difference between the i5 760 and i7 950 is NOT worth the money... anyway, here is a motherboard for the i7:

Gigabyte GA-X58-USB3 iX58, SATA300 RAID, USB3.0

 

[Peter Duivelaar]

Is that motherboard an improvement over the one Chris posted?

 

[Martin Vrba]

It's got USB 3.0 support... you said you want future-proof, so USB 3.0 would be useful

 

[Peter Duivelaar]

Thanks for the advice guys.
I have another question: Is the GTX 460 future proof, will it be good to run at maximum settings for a couple of years?
Any other advice is also always welcome.

 

[Jari Vinnari]

Thanks for the advice guys.
I have another question: Is the GTX 460 future proof, will it be good to run at maximum settings for a couple of years?
Any other advice is also always welcome.

No.