The Official Budget-Conscious Dream Machine!

I know what you mean sam. My parents didn't trust me with my own money at first. Didn't think I could do it at all.

I showed them

As to budget builds... I would take the 5200+ over the 5000+. Even with the 5000+ being unlocked. You'd be hard-pressed to find an AM2 processor with the 2 x 1MB L2 cache. It's a good opportunity to get one while they're still available.

I'm seeing a $10 difference over at newegg.com. Surely, it's similar on UK sites? It would be worth it to me.

Also, if the price difference on the Corsair 520W vs the 620W is so small, get the 620W. Good future investment as that PSU will still be awesome in three years. That is unless the industry pulls a flip from the current path(less power consumption). At which point you'll be in a position to deal with it.

 

5000 x2 is 65 nm and f3 / g2, it has very low power consumption even when overclocked to 3.1ghz with no vcore boost it will only use 75w, and at that speed its only 2.5% slower than an e6550 and 2.8% slower than the 6000.

as I want my pc to be pretty silent from the start chosing this processor will give me this as less heat = less rpm on the cooler, it clocks to 3.1 with no worries even with a standard amd cooler put on it it can oc to 3.2 with no worries, and with a high end cooler 3.5ghz is obtainable. as it also was a budget build that the mobo / processor might only be used for 6 - 8 months before moving the other components to a new mobo/ processor combination i think it will suffice and it wont break the bank either Ok well it wont break the bank unless i buy it from Overclockers P

 

Estuansis: We're now using a better store, if you read up. The 520W is far less than the 620W from there (and indeed from every store other than overclockers). As for the CPU, If you're going to spend any more money, you may as well go with a Core 2 Build. Above the 5000+ region, AMDs lose their cost-effectiveness. With regard to power consumption, it can only really go down from here. If it went up, there'd be uproar because of the environmental concerns.

 

lol beaten the price again )

 

Pff, I'd go with that Gigabyte board over that Asus any day.

 

fanboy

but will either of those boards OC?

 

Says he to the man who's owned three Asus boards and just one Gigabyte.
Also, the gigabyte has 4 RAM Slots not 2, and an extra PCI slot.

 

A Gigabyte would be better for an OC. I have used both Gigabyte and Asus. Asus boards are nice, but the BIOS only allows certain voltages and are notorious for "failed overclock" messages on what is actually an extremely stable OC(Orthos tested, 65Hrs).

Gigabyte boards seem to have more robust overclocking features(to me anyway). They are very stable and dependable. I would recommend them over ASUS, if only for the features.

 

ah but i would only use the multi to o/c so no strain on the board and as it is i only use 1 pc1 slot for my delta 66 so i can output through my power amp and monitor speakers )

the mobo / cpu are simply a stop gap until later in the year when we have seen more of amd's cards on the table then ill choose the route to go )

 

Hmm, well in that case they're about equal. Personally though, I'd stick with Aria. I've ordered around 15 times each from OcUK and Aria, I've never had a problem with Aria, and I've had 4 problematic orders from ocUK, some very serious, taking up to a month to arrive and all the goods being damaged from being thrown in a van dozens of times (they kept giving the address wrong)

 

cheapest one is eclipse computers, havent had any problem with them, they have some pretty good award winning full systems for a few quid more than im spending, but , i dont want nvidia graphics so building my own, not sure if ill stick with xppro or get vista for the system and 4 gig ram . COD4 has improved gameplay in vista or so my mate recons, ill see i guess, i have a nice student edition of vista that doesnt need activation ;o)

 

I haven't used Eclipse but my housemate Paul has. The service from them was so appalling neither of us will ever be ordering from them again. No item, phone lines don't answer, emails take a week to respond and were thoroughly unhelpful. Why were we contacting them? They sent us the wrong item...
Aria have once sent Paul a wrong item as well, but he got hold of them instantly on the phone and they sent another one out to him which arrived in 2 days.

 

I used them a i think about 10 times last year without problem, they are better than they have been in the past, I think companys tend to sort things out nowadays, as a few slatings on well chosen forums can cost them trade overclockers are the most tedious company i have ever had to deal with, and dolphin music in liverpool, their customer service is crap, but theyre one of the biggest pro music suppliers in the uk, and i think its gone to their heads lol.

 

Parts are all ordered went with aria as they had a few other bits I slapped on for a mate, so fingers crossed should turn up saturday, so maybe by sunday should have it all running all hunky dory silentish unsure how loud the 3870 will be but i dare say the soundproofing in the case should knock a hell of a lot of the noise out.

Will run some benchies at stock 2.6ghz,2.8ghz,3ghz & 3.2ghz
to see how the graphics scales with cpu speed.
I expect the benchies will be around tuesday / wednesday time. now i just have to decide on which os to install as you can unlock alot of the dx10 on xp by editing files in games, not looking forward to a vista future lol )

 

The 3870 is not a noisy graphics card, unlike the 8800GT. That won't be the problem.
You paid for saturday delivery? Good show, that costs an absolute fortune, but it's what I did for my PC though...

 

yeh Well i got the price down by a few pound as the processors are on superspecial now , so i thought I would spend the savings, just glad the xp pro genuine advantage disc, is ok for activation on a new pc, glad they didnt sell me some oem licence with it )

Out on the razzle on saturday night and will probably wake up next to some strange girl sunday , so I might not even get to start the build til monday lol, but at least I will have the parts sat their waiting )

 

just remember experiences are not fact. like my crap with scan has been horrible, but they have been nothing but superb for other people, and OcUK have been crap for you, but for me flawless.

 

To be pedantic, experiences are fact, but represent a small minority. I don't know anyone who's had a majorly bad experience with Aria or Specialtech.

 

Ebuyer used to be total muppets to deal with, lots of bad reports about them, but now theyre one of the easiest companys to deal with,

but hey were moaning about generaly good companys. lol just as well its not pc world )))

 

I used Eclipse computers a couple of times. And the suck, dont respond to emails for about two weeks no answer on phone lines, items (both times) damaged, there actual lines are pretty crap aswell as their systems. The only time i got through to them was when they phoned me asking about my payment ha!

In other new

I recently brought a new system from Ebuyer, top company, spent about £1000 plus with them now, never any problems, i even added up all the components i brought with them on other companies and it was £50+ cheaper