Putting together a new rig. Need opinions

PsiSoldier

PsiSoldier

Well-Known Member
Well, after what's almost been 10 years on the same PC, I finally pooled enough cash together to build a new rig.

My maximum budget is around the £800 mark, however I'd like to keep it below £600 if possible.
Due to the age of my current PC I doubt anything will be reusable, AGP graphics card, DDR-400 RAM, 300W~ PSU lacking SATA and PCI-e connectors, IDE HDDs and optical drives, so I plan to keep it together and hand it down to my brother.

Build 1 - Q9550 Rig:

HDD - 640 GB Western Digital WD6400AAKS Caviar Blue, SATA 3Gb/s, 7200rpm, 16MB Cache, 8.9 ms

PSU - 550w Corsair VX Series PSU, ATX, PS/2

Mainboard - Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3, iP45 Express, S 775, PCI-E 2.0 x16, DDR2 1066/667/800, SATA II, SATA RAID, ATX

Graphics card - 1GB Sapphire HD 4890 Vapor-X, PCI-E 2.0, 4200MHz GDDR5, GPU 870MHz, 800 Cores, DVI/ D-Sub/ HDMI/ DP

Processor - BX80569Q9550 - Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550, S775, Yorkfield Core, 2.83GHz, 1333MHz, 12MB Cache, 8.5x Ratio, 95W, Retail

RAM - 4GB (2x2GB) Corsair TwinX DDR2 XMS2, PC2-8500 (1066), 240 Pin, Non-ECC Unbuffered, CAS 5-6-6-18, EPP


Net Total - £485.81
Carriage - £9.99
VAT - £74.37
Total - £570.17

__________________________________

Build 2 - i7 920 Rig

HDD - 640 GB Western Digital WD6400AAKS Caviar Blue, SATA 3Gb/s, 7200rpm, 16MB Cache, 8.9 ms

PSU - CMPSU-620HXUK - 620W Corsair HX Series Modular SLi PSU, ATX, EPS 12V, whisper quiet, 5 year warranty

Mainboard - Asus P6T SE, Intel X58, Sok 1366, PCI-E 2.0 (x16), DDR3 2000/1866/1800, SATA 3Gb/s, SATA RAID, ATX

Graphics card - 1GB Sapphire HD 4890 Vapor-X, PCI-E 2.0, 4200MHz GDDR5, GPU 870MHz, 800 Cores, DVI/ D-Sub/ HDMI/ DP

Processor - BX80601920 - Intel i7 920, D0 SLEBJ S1366, Nehalem, 2.66 GHz, QPI 4.8GT/s, 8MB Cache, 20x Ratio, 130W, Retail

RAM - TR3X3G1600C8D - 3GB (3x1GB) Corsair Dominator DDR3, PC3-12800 (1600), 240 Pin, Non-ECC Unbuffered, CAS 8, DHX, EPP


Net Total - £613.25
Carriage - £9.99
VAT - £93.49
Total - £716.73
__________________________________

Difference of £190~, so is it worth it to get the i7 and DDR3 RAM?
 
PsiSoldier

PsiSoldier

Well-Known Member
Updated the list with this beasty, and it's not a grand amount more than the e8400! :)

One thing running through my mind is; will a 550W PSU be enough?
 
Ronin Storm

Ronin Storm

Administrator
Staff member
PsiSoldier said:
One thing running through my mind is; will a 550W PSU be enough?
Click to expand...

I would have thought so. It's probably more important that your PSU gives a clean supply than it has lots of raw horsepower. You're only running a single GPU, CPU and hard drive so I'd imagine that'd work just fine.
 
PsiSoldier

PsiSoldier

Well-Known Member
Would the timing differences really make that much difference? 5-5-5-18 with 800 5-6-6-18 with 1066.

EDIT: Updated OP with an i7 build for comparison.
 
PsiSoldier

PsiSoldier

Well-Known Member
Update:

Parts all came yesterday (Went for the i7), and everything went together smoothly apart from a small hicup with me reading the mobo manual wrong and putting the RAM in the wrong slots, causing it not to boot and me to -almost- meltdown before re-reading it... Test ran it yesterday night with a friend on Supreme Commander, ran fantastically apart which is more than I can say for us against the AI hordes!

EDIT: So it appears MS are refusing to let me activate my copy of XP, so uhm, if anyone has a spare XP Pro key they wouldn't mind letting me use, I'd greatly appreciate it! :)
 
T

[THN]Buffalo_Hunter

In Cryo Sleep
Is this a new copy of XP or one you've transferred from your previous machine? If the latter, you'll have to ring MS and explain why the build has changed significantly from when it was originally activated.
 
PsiSoldier

PsiSoldier

Well-Known Member
[THN]Buffalo_Hunter said:
Is this a new copy of XP or one you've transferred from your previous machine? If the latter, you'll have to ring MS and explain why the build has changed significantly from when it was originally activated.
Click to expand...

Yeah, after phoning about 6 times I managed to get through to a real person and managed to activate it that way, though I have to also activate XP on my brothers PC within the next 30 days (Rebuilt with new parts), so with it being OEM will they allow me to activate it on multiple systems or will I have to 'fib' a little? :S
 
PsiSoldier

PsiSoldier

Well-Known Member
hatbloke said:
you're supposed to have a different copy for each system.........
Click to expand...

I was under the impression the OEM version could be activated on multiple PCs? If this isn't the case, what makes the OEM one different to the normal single license? :S
 
Zooggy

Zooggy

Junior Administrator
Staff member
Ahey, :)

PsiSoldier said:
what makes the OEM one different to the normal single license? :S
Click to expand...

Only the fact that it's not sold directly by Microsoft, but rather, resold by the Original Equipment Manufacturer. Hence OEM.

OEM licenses are meant only for sale with new PCs. They also probably have different pricings attached to them. Other than that, they're pretty much the same as the standard single license, in terms of rights and whatnot...

Cheers,
J.
 
Haven

Haven

Administrator
Staff member
As long as you have seperate keys that you can produce then you're fine to activate the same copy mutliple times as long as it allows it. Doesn't really matter what key you use for OEM as long as you have evidence of purchase.

PsiSoldier said:
I was under the impression the OEM version could be activated on multiple PCs? If this isn't the case, what makes the OEM one different to the normal single license? :S
Click to expand...
 
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