So having spent a month thinking about this and about another week trying to find the best prices, I've finally ordered all my components and they should arrive early next week. This is my first complete rebuild I will have done - so thought I'd post how this all goes and more importantly if it bloody works!

Case - Silverstone FT01
PSU - Be Quiet - Dark Power 850W
CPU - Intel Core i7 - 920 2.66
CPU FAN - Akasa Nero
Mobo - Asus PT6 Deluxe
Memory - Corsair XMS3 6GB (3x20484MB) DDR3 Memory 1600MHz
GPU - ASUS 1GB RADEON HD 4870 DARK KNIGHT
Sound - X-fi
OS - Vista 64bit
DVD Drive


I'm hoping that when I won't need to make any major changes for at least 2 (hoping 3) years.

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The stats below lie. I'm actually much much worse.

Sounds nice. Pretty much the same setup I would have bought if I were to buy a new computer right now except for the Radeon HD 4870. I'll wait a couple of months though - not because of the "oh, in a couple of months new things will come out and hence this setup will be cheaper" reasoning (since it will be, relatively speaking, less powerful as well) I don't approve but because everything is bloody expensive before Christmas.

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War does not determine who is right - only who is left. - Bertrand Russell

Yeah the GPU was the one area where I eventually got sick of reading different reviews of products which in reality were pretty similar (when comparing at a price range). I've taken the view that GPU is the one thing I am likely to change in 18mths-24mths so I found a good deal on the card (£200) so I thought sod it and ordered it. I've never had a radeon card before so thought I'd give it a go (plus its mean't to be quieter than most other 4870's which was a key need for me).

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The stats below lie. I'm actually much much worse.

yeah, the exact reason I won't go look for a new computer till at least January
Christmas >_< Expect my "help me`one!1oneshift1! with my new computer" thread 0_0

Nice rig~

this should be interesting, that's a pretty serious bit of kit you'll be putting together. keep us updated on how it's going and such.

also, will you be overclocking it at all? not that you'll need to with a bigass cpu like that :p

anyways, good luck with the build! :>

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ュ~ちゃんgamer.jp Pinky: true genius
ュ~ちゃんgamer.jp Pinky: doesn't make sense
ュ~ちゃんgamer.jp Pinky: till you're senseless

£200 is a really good deal, mate. Indeed I wouldn't have given it a second thought if I were faced with such a price. The new line of NVIDIA cards performs only a tiny-teensy bit better in SOME (not all) games and benchmarks so you can basically go with whatever is cheapest.
I also don't think that you'll be changing your card any time soon - Radeon HD 4870 is pretty much top of the range so your prediction of 24 months is more realistic than 18 months IMHO. :-D
My GeForce 8800 GTX served me well for ~2 years now and I still don't regard it as underpowered but then again the GF8 line was a huge success (I'm making a note here) for NVIDIA.
If you buy an i920 then you SHOULD overclock. Overclocking is so easy and safe nowadays, only people who are completely cluess about BIOS settings shouldn't attempt it. My Core2Duo E6600 has been running at 3.1 GHz (2.4 GHz stock) for 2 years now - with air cooling. It's nowhere near overheating (<60 degrees under full load for extended periods of time) but I simply see no reason to overclock it more, especially since this frequency tunes in nicely with my overclocked RAM speed (managed to keep it at CL4 =).

P.S. Yes, I know that the new CPU architecture has more parameters to consider when overclocking but these still amount to changing some values in the BIOS, not soldering and whatnot like in the olden days.

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War does not determine who is right - only who is left. - Bertrand Russell

Nice setup indeed! Good choice of hardware, especially the GFX card!

i lolled, great looking machine man.. no more long loading times in l4d <3

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Sebas the avenging zebra's sidekick! <3

Say, i don't see any HDD listed there.

Recently i upgraded my PC with a new harddisk, a Raptor Velocy. I had no idea the performance impact would be that HUGE. I can really advice putting in one of these beauties to install your windows + games on!

Lim

I was really surprised to get the GPU for £200 - if anyone else is looking for a new card this is where I got it:

http://www.ginger6.com/asus-radeon-4870 ... 31702.html

Overclocking - yes, but not striaght away. I've done any before but am keen to do so in the future which I have hopefully considered when choosing the components.

Saint
You have spotted the one missing gap! I'm going to use my existing Samsung Spinpoint drives (400&500gb) for the time being. The reason for not changing at the moment is I may go over to the new super fast SSD, but at £400 for a minute storage I couldn't justify it to myself - howver I'm hoping that by mid-next year they will of come down in price and I will make the move and get say a 100gb version for just the OS and running games.

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The stats below lie. I'm actually much much worse.

Yeap I will be so quick I will have a fair chance of beating you to those car alarms......

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The stats below lie. I'm actually much much worse.

Ooh tempted - it even comes with a free mouse mat

G'luck with the build.

Awesome mate, when's your stuff due to arrive?
And do you happen to know a store where they do actual wife pricings? Cuz I'm well interested in those
Saint, the card sells for 221 euros here as well (even cheaper then in the uk ) .

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M.A.S.K. , is the mighty power that can save the day

Very nice rig.

I've got the same PSU very impressive however it IS very large, but on the side of the box "will fit any standard slot" so if you've bought case with "fancy pants features" like the Antec p180.

...

...

I had to take the lower fan out to fit the barsteward in

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Computer is fixed. That is all.

It all arrived yesterday - look at those lovely boxes! Might try and build it later

I've already fitted the PSU into the bottom of the case, luckily there was sufficient space.

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The stats below lie. I'm actually much much worse.

I love PC hardware boxes, too.

Edit: Does that baby fit into the case, too?

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SaintK: I'm completely lost

I love the big box.. but then again I can smell the word "Japan" from miles away~

ooh.. you got haxx! I see steam! and hardware boxes -are- pretty

love this pic of the little kid in the back, makes it so much cooler =]

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Sebas the avenging zebra's sidekick! <3

You should have got a Lionel Blair-Cut. Like mine;

HOLLLLLYYYYYY F***********CCCCKKKKKK

Put it all together - turned it on....nothing - tiny flash of light and thats all. Figured it must be a short so took the board out of the case and plugged it in - fans spin up - excellent!

Put it back in the case plug it in to test it without anything else plugged in ....... BANG smoke - all electric in house goes off.

HOLLLLLLLLYYYYYYY F********CCCCCCCKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK

My £150 power supply has def blown up - not sure if it has effected the mobo and cpu. Going to PC world right now to buy a replacement fingers crossed I don't have an expensive pile of crap sitting in my case

Stay tuned

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The stats below lie. I'm actually much much worse.

Tagan 900 W over here, rules the nation!

Hope things are alright jedi

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M.A.S.K. , is the mighty power that can save the day

Looks like I'm going to be ok phew ! Will update soon

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The stats below lie. I'm actually much much worse.

Power supply calculator: http://www.extreme.outervision.com/psucalculator.jsp

The most important thing is for them to have a stable electrical current flow (+-5% variation on the +12V, +5V, +3.3V rails and +-10% on the 12V one at peak loads). The power consume calculator takes into account a component at over 90% load (or around that percent) so even if your total is around 600W, 500W will do. If you don't want to do the math but also not have your system be unstable or get stuff burned again I suggest you go for good power supplies even if they are a bit more expensive:

Fortron-Source based (Sparkle/SPI, Powertech, BFG, some PC P&C models, Aopen, OCZ GameXstream, Antec Basiq, Zalman)
Seasonic based (Antec Neo HE/TP Trio/EarthWatts, PC P&C Silencers, Corsair)

This taking into account that you don't want to spend a fortune on industrial classes (Zippy/Emacs, Etasis, Win-Tact).
Also it's a good point to see if they are certified 80+.

I don't know what power supply you picked up but you could have also just had bad luck with faulty one.
On the jonnyguru.com forums there was a fabulous thread about power supply models. unfortunately I see that it's closed now since it hasn't been updated over the last 6 months.

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Comfortably Numb

no tagan in your list...


NOOB

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M.A.S.K. , is the mighty power that can save the day

Tagan are very good too (they use Topower hardware afaik)..just not as good as the other two.



NOOB

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Comfortably Numb

Now where are the diesel powered generators ?

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M.A.S.K. , is the mighty power that can save the day

Looking good, good luck with the building.