Build Gaming PC Advice

  • Thread starter Thread starter Craig Coope
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Craig Coope

Hi all,

I'm looking to get back into PC gaming and want to build my first PC.
I'm by no means a PC novice but I've been out of the scene for 7 years
or so, so I'm oblivious about current CPUs and Mobos etc.

I'm looking to spend around £800 (or maybe a bit more) on the
components excluding the monitor, keyboard and mouse.

I would like to go down the Intel route and probably start on the
Nvidea path as I've always been ATI previously.

I was looking at this CPU:

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/inte...d-core-34-ghz-gpu-850mhz-8mb-cache-95w-retail

What mobo would be best for this?
And then which RAM and PSU should I get?

When I bought my old AMD A64 3400+ back in the day the whole line (of
that socket set) was about to be phased out which to be honest wasn't
a problem as I never wanted to upgrade the CPU. Now I don't want to
buy something that's about to die. Are we on the cusp of something new
I need to wait for?



Thanks
 
Craig said:
Hi all,

I'm looking to get back into PC gaming and want to build my first PC.
I'm by no means a PC novice but I've been out of the scene for 7 years
or so, so I'm oblivious about current CPUs and Mobos etc.

I'm looking to spend around £800 (or maybe a bit more) on the
components excluding the monitor, keyboard and mouse.

I would like to go down the Intel route and probably start on the
Nvidea path as I've always been ATI previously.

I was looking at this CPU:

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/inte...d-core-34-ghz-gpu-850mhz-8mb-cache-95w-retail

What mobo would be best for this?
And then which RAM and PSU should I get?

When I bought my old AMD A64 3400+ back in the day the whole line (of
that socket set) was about to be phased out which to be honest wasn't
a problem as I never wanted to upgrade the CPU. Now I don't want to
buy something that's about to die. Are we on the cusp of something new
I need to wait for?

Thanks
Click to expand...

You might want to wait for a Z68 motherboard.

A Z68 was spotted today, inside an Apple product, and ahead of
any official Intel launch. And that implies that Z68 LGA1155
motherboards can't be far behind. Such a chipset, allows
QuickSync computing without a monitor connected to the
built-in GPU.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4314/apples-imac-the-first-z68-for-sale

http://semiaccurate.com/2011/04/15/intel-pulls-in-z68-launch-date/

Based on the last article, Z68 launch should be very soon, and
you'll be a "bleeding edge, early adopter". :-)

Paul
 
I'm looking to spend around £800 (or maybe a bit more) on the ...
I would like to go down the Intel route and probably start on the
Nvidea path as I've always been ATI previously.
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/inte...d-core-34-ghz-gpu-850mhz-8mb-cache-95w-retail
What mobo would be best for this?
And then which RAM and PSU should I get?
Click to expand...

There were some buggy Intel 67 chipsets (can't remember the exact
detail). Just avoid them!
When I bought my old AMD A64 3400+ back in the day the whole line (of
that socket set) was about to be phased out which to be honest wasn't
a problem as I never wanted to upgrade the CPU. Now I don't want to
Click to expand...

AMD now has 6-core CPUs! In general, AMD solutions are still better in
terms of price vs performance, unless you want ABSOLUTE speed of Intel.

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Craig Coope said:
Hi all,
Click to expand...

Hi one,
I'm looking to get back into PC gaming and want to build my
first PC. I'm by no means a PC novice but I've been out of the
scene for 7 years or so, so I'm oblivious about current CPUs and
Mobos etc.
Click to expand...

I play Supreme Commander 2 (RTS), by voice, competitively.
I'm looking to spend around £800 (or maybe a bit more) on the
components excluding the monitor, keyboard and mouse.

I would like to go down the Intel route and probably start on
the Nvidea path as I've always been ATI previously.
Click to expand...

Generally speaking...

Multiple CPU cores is it. Use Performance Monitor to observe the
load on each of your cores. You can use Task Manager Set Affinity
to distribute processes among those cores. That can be help make a
game run smoothly. Do not mess with Set Priority, it is mostly
voodoo.

Do not trust power supply ratings. You do not need a 1000 W power
supply if you buy a quality name brand. Cheap power supplies are
overrated for wattage. By a $20 (US) wattage meter like a "Kill A
Watt" and you will be surprised how little power your system
actually uses.

Use two hard drives, one SDD and one conventional. The SDD drive
is small and used for drive C, Windows and programs. The
conventional drive is used for copies of drive C and other data
that can be easily kept there. With two drives, you can easily
have copies of your most important data on both drives.

Buy a sheet of polyethylene plastic HDPE/VHMW/UHMW for a mouse
pad, it is self lubricating and keeps your mouse sliding smoothly
forever. No more messing with the mouse pad or the mouse. Black
might be best.

Good luck and have fun.
--
 
Sorry, forgot to mention...

Stock Intel heatsink/fans suck! Mine did not include a backplate, so
the motherboard/mainboard is badly warped (even though it still appears
to be working properly). And it was very difficult to install.
 
You might want to wait for a Z68 motherboard.

A Z68 was spotted today, inside an Apple product, and ahead of
Click to expand...

What sort of time frame are we talking about?
 
Craig said:
What sort of time frame are we talking about?
Click to expand...

The second link I provided, says May 8 to May 15 as a best guess.
The launch is synchronized, unless someone jumps the gun. Product
will already be sitting in warehouses, and once the launch is official,
they can start selling them. In a "paper launch", there is no product,
but there would be review articles from Anandtech or Tomshardware or
the like. But this will be a real launch, because the Apple box is
shipping, and that means the chips were available some time ago, to
start production. For a company like Apple, they'd have to
stockpile (spend days and days building motherboards), to be
ready for an Apple product launch, and that means the PC motherboard
makers will have done the same thing.

Occasionally, there are idiotic issues with "shipping containers
versus Europe or USA", and one continent gets product while another
waits four weeks for their container shipments to arrive. And some
retailers, under those circumstances, might even stoop to doing
gray market transfers (Fedex from one continent to another), to
provide a limited supply. Fedex being faster, that waiting for
a container ship to arrive.

But I don't expect anything like that in this case. This is too
important to Intel, for it to be fouled up. They have to get this
right, to make up for the lost business on the "SATA bug" on their
other chipsets. (LGA1155 stopped shipment for a while, until
new chips could be provided. You shouldn't have to worry about
the bug at this point in time, if dealing with regular retailers.
The mess has already been cleaned up.)

You can read this article, to get some idea how the three chipsets
fit together.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4083/...el-core-i7-2600k-i5-2500k-core-i3-2100-tested

Paul
 
Hi all,

I'm looking to get back into PC gaming and want to build my first PC.
I'm by no means a PC novice but I've been out of the scene for 7 years
or so, so I'm oblivious about current CPUs and Mobos etc.

I'm looking to spend around £800 (or maybe a bit more) on the
components excluding the monitor, keyboard and mouse.

I would like to go down the Intel route and probably start on the
Nvidea path as I've always been ATI previously.

I was looking at this CPU:

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/inte...d-core-34-ghz-gpu-850mhz-8mb-cache-95w-retail

What mobo would be best for this?
And then which RAM and PSU should I get?

When I bought my old AMD A64 3400+ back in the day the whole line (of
that socket set) was about to be phased out which to be honest wasn't
a problem as I never wanted to upgrade the CPU. Now I don't want to
buy something that's about to die. Are we on the cusp of something new
I need to wait for?



Thanks
Click to expand...



Also this may sound retarded but is everything pretty much 64-bit now?
My 7 year old PC is an AMD 64 but I never installed a 64 bit OS as at
that time there wasn't much support.
 
Craig said:
Also this may sound retarded but is everything pretty much 64-bit now?
My 7 year old PC is an AMD 64 but I never installed a 64 bit OS as at
that time there wasn't much support.
Click to expand...

AMD and Intel processors are available which support both 64 bit
and 32 bit instructions.

http://products.amd.com/en-us/DesktopCPUDetail.aspx?id=682

AMD Phenom II X4

Operating Mode 32 Bit Yes
Operating Mode 64 Bit Yes

http://ark.intel.com/Product.aspx?id=52214&processor=i7-2600K&spec-codes=SR00C

Instruction Set 64-bit

A variety of modes are supported.

http://www.codeproject.com/KB/system/AMD64_EM64T_architectur/02000000.png

( http://www.codeproject.com/KB/system/AMD64_EM64T_architectur.aspx )

"Compatibility mode is intended for executing existing 16-bit and 32-bit programs
in a 64-bit OS. Applications are launched in compatibility mode with the use
of 32- or 16-bit address space and can have access to 4Gb of virtual address space."

HTH,
Paul
 
Craig said:
Also this may sound retarded but is everything pretty much 64-bit now?
My 7 year old PC is an AMD 64 but I never installed a 64 bit OS as at
that time there wasn't much support.
Click to expand...

By the way, there are currently (13) Z68 based motherboards listed on newegg.com.
Priced from $119 to $349. I tried to download the manual for the $349 one,
but apparently it isn't on the Gigabyte site yet.

And the first Z68 review for Anandtech just went up. The LGA1155 limits
the video configurations to x16/x0 and x8/x8, similar to LGA1156, and
that is the only limitation someone interested in SLI or Crossfire might
be concerned with. And there really aren't a lot of review articles that
test that out.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4330/asus-p8z68v-review

Supports ATI Crossfire
Supports NVIDIA SLI

So now you can decide whether Z68 is the right answer, or punt and go LGA1366
(budget permitting).

HTH,
Paul
 
By the way, there are currently (13) Z68 based motherboards listed on newegg.com.
Priced from $119 to $349. I tried to download the manual for the $349 one,
but apparently it isn't on the Gigabyte site yet.

And the first Z68 review for Anandtech just went up. The LGA1155 limits
the video configurations to x16/x0 and x8/x8, similar to LGA1156, and
that is the only limitation someone interested in SLI or Crossfire might
be concerned with. And there really aren't a lot of review articles that
test that out.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4330/asus-p8z68v-review

Supports ATI Crossfire
Supports NVIDIA SLI

So now you can decide whether Z68 is the right answer, or punt and go LGA1366
(budget permitting).

HTH,
Paul
Click to expand...

Thanks Paul and everyone else...

Will look into all of this.
 
By the way, there are currently (13) Z68 based motherboards listed on newegg.com.
Priced from $119 to $349. I tried to download the manual for the $349 one,
but apparently it isn't on the Gigabyte site yet.

And the first Z68 review for Anandtech just went up. The LGA1155 limits
the video configurations to x16/x0 and x8/x8, similar to LGA1156, and
that is the only limitation someone interested in SLI or Crossfire might
be concerned with. And there really aren't a lot of review articles that
test that out.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4330/asus-p8z68v-review

Supports ATI Crossfire
Supports NVIDIA SLI

So now you can decide whether Z68 is the right answer, or punt and go LGA1366
(budget permitting).

HTH,
Paul
Click to expand...


Would the following go together well?

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/267772

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/252535
 
Craig said:
Would the following go together well?

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/267772

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/252535
Click to expand...

The 2600K is listed here for the P8Z68-V PRO.

http://support.asus.com/Cpusupport/List.aspx?SLanguage=en&m=P8Z68-V PRO&p=1&s=39

It would be nice to have a downloadable PDF manual
for the motherboard to read first, but a previous
poster has noticed that only the German version
of the manual is available for download as of
today. I suppose you can always look at the pictures...

http://dlcdnet.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb/LGA1155/P8Z68-V_PRO/G6502_P8Z68-V-PRO.zip

Paul
 
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