Buying a poweful new PC, what do you think of this spec/price?

JasX

Landprofits wrote: »

Meh - I have several people who know more about computers than I, Gonzo says i7, but other say it's overkill.

Well put it this way, you'd probably be fine with flight sim and a few other applications running at the same time with a weaker processor, you might find your PC slowing down a little sooner as it ages (read :you fill it up with junk ). The i7 is faster and not unreasonably more expensive than the i5 range.

Basically you will get what you pay for and personally i'd go for an i7 'just in case' a more demanding game comes along 2 years down the line you pick up.

gonzo127

ha i am not saying it isnt overkill, as it is for your current needs,

all i am saying is that i would do so if i could afford it due to the extra power it gives for future applications for not 'that' much more money

Landprofits

Cheers guys i7 it is then, definately. Speed of the computer is important. I won't bore you with why....but it is important. So i7-930 it is.

Jasx - yes my old computer is definately filled up with junk, so that could well have been the reason. It's definately slowing down now. It's been a good workhorse but it does have an AMD processor - I didn't know at the time that Intel were better.

JasX

Landprofits wrote: »

It's been a good workhorse but it does have an AMD processor - I didn't know at the time that Intel were better.

Actually AMD and Intel historically swap the lead/2nd place depending on when you're buying, my last one was an AMD 4800+ based machine I bought in 2005, at the time AMD were beating intel into 2nd place but Intel re-overtook them soon after and AMD have tended to struggle since.

My new one is an intel 950 (bought later on last year), its all down to checking benchmarks/reviews at whatever time you come to be buying a new PC

[Deleted User]

JasX wrote: »

My new one is an intel 950 (bought later on last year), its all down to checking benchmarks/reviews at whatever time you come to be buying a new PC

And then overclocking them as far as they are able to handle, which is where AMD are pretty much preferred as most of their Black range can be clocked up to 4Ghz on air alone, for less than £150 too.

Landprofits

Just a short note too say thanks to all who contributed to this thread - particularly Jas and Gonzo - I have now finalised my order, which included for the i7-930 processor and the Samsung F3 hard drive - a decent cooler for the processor (not liquid!), various other bits and bobs...

£1171.48 including VAT.

I decided to purchase a 24" BenQ TFT HD LED Monitor from the same company (cyberpower systems). My final price is £1378.26 including the monitor and £25 delivery.

Including the monitor pushes the EX VAT price over £1,000. If England win the World Cup, I will get 15% cashback on the EX VAT price. Unlikely I know (we have a good group to start with though!), but there are a couple of posters in this thread who's names I recognise who will smirk at that offer.

gonzo127

well thats not bad a £700 saving on your original configuration including a Monitor glad to have helped

pendulum

JasX wrote: »

SSDs? expensive, unproven long term reliability, small? why would you want one of those?

Because they are fast, which was his number one requirement. The Intel X25-M he originally specified totally wipes the floor with the Samsung F3. These benchmarks show that the average read speed in Mb of the X25-M vs the Samsung F3 is double the speed, and then you have other advantages like seek time on top.

The Samsung F3 is a great mechanical hard drive, but even the best mechanical hard drives don't stand a chance performance wise (overall)against a good SSD and I'm sure you agree. Windows and program load time is slashed with an SSD, and with his budget he could easily afford 2 in RAID. Nice.

You mention they're expensive and have a small capacity - their two biggest drawbacks! But that's why understanding what someone's requirements are is most important before recommending a system. From what he did tell us (not alot) he said he had a big budget and low storage requirements (with what he does store tending to be to external hard drives) - so he could afford SSD and didn't need a high capacity main drive, so the two biggest drawbacks of SSD don't apply here. As for unproven reliability, SSDs have been around for years now, and compared to mechanical harddrives (the #1 most likely component in a computer to fail incidentally) I doubt they are any more unreliable! Their shock resistance and the fact they have no moving parts means you can expect years of use out of them.

I'm not saying all this to be an !!!! and give him buyers remorse - its never too late to add an SSD or two as main drive(s) if he decides to do more research into SSD's and takes a liking to them. He could then just use the rather good F3 for big file storage.

You did make other points e.g. heat in the case but I'd have chosen an Antec 1200 or something rather than keep that case - I'll try and end on a positive note? Good choice with the CPU and mobo, look into the advantages and disadvantages of overclocking if performance is important.

thor

pendulum wrote: »

its never too late to add an SSD or two as main drive(s)

I think they would be ideal dedicated as the boot drive. You don't need to have a superbig capacity and can use the other non ssd drive for storage.

pendulum

Yep, just to clarify, boot drive is what I meant when I put 'main drive' so we are thinking the same thing.