Nuth on 4/5/2011 at 01:12

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People are just trying to predict it. I saw another reference that "guessed" it somewhat lower than that card.

Matthew on 4/5/2011 at 17:01

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You sure you wouldn't rather up the spec of your processor instead of spending an extra $115 on a water cooling system, Dia?

PS my 65-year-old mother was better than I was at installing my graphics card, so I doubt you would have any difficulties! :p

Edit: for comparisons, (http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/charts/) Tom's Hardware has charts that can be very useful.

I realise that the setup I'm about to post is an even higher price than you were looking at - $1310 - but I think it might be a lot more future-proofed than the one you were thinking of.

The base is the (https://www.cpusolutions.com/store/pc/viewPrd.asp?idproduct=2305&idcategory=183) Intel 1155 Scout Gamer.

Cases: CNPSCMSCOUT - Cooler Master CM Storm Scout Mid-tower - 10 Bays
Power Supplies: PSA600CMEXTREME - Cooler Master 600w extreme Power Supply RS600-PCARE3-US
Socket 1155 (New!) : MB55ASU-P8P67 REV 3.0 - Asus Motherboard P8P67 REV 3.0 Core i7/i5/i3 LGA1155 P67 DDR3 USB3 PCI Express SATA ATX Retail
Intel LGA 1155 CPU (New!): CPUINTI52500K - Quad Core i5-2500K 3.3Ghz LGA1155 CPU Unlocked
Dual Channel DDR3 Memory Options: DDR38K16CORC92X4 - Corsair XMS3 CMX8GX3M2A1600C9 RAM Module - 8 GB (2 x 4 GB) - DDR3
Video Card Options: VCNASUGTX460-ENGTX460 DIRECTCU/2DI/1GD - Asus GTX460 GeForce GTX460 DirectCU 2DI 1G GDDR5
SATA Hard Disk: HDSATWD10EALX - Western Digital Caviar Blue WD10EALX 1 TB Internal Hard Drive
Optical Drives: LG24SATABULK - LG GH24NS50 24x DVD�RW Super Multi Drive
Flash Drives, Readers: CRINTALLIN1 - iMicro INTCTM04MB All-in-1 Internal Card Reader
OS: 764HOMEPREM - WINDOWS 7 Home Prem 64 Bit 1PK License and Media - OEM - 1 PC
Speaker Options: SUB-LS21LOGITEC - Logitech LS21 Multimedia Speaker System
System Assembly: SYSBUILD - Full System Assemble with 24 Hour Burn In
Service & Warranty: 12monthwarranty - 12 Month Parts & Labor Depot Limited Warranty
Add a Modem: MODUSBTRE-TFM-561U - TRENDnet TFM-561U Data/Fax/Voice Modem
Upgrade from On-board Sound : CREATIVESB0570V - Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 30SB057000000 SE Sound Card Bulk
Motherboard includes on board LAN: WLNADPUSBASUN10 - ASUS USB-N10 IEEE 802.11n (draft) - Wi-Fi Adapter USB - 150 Mbps
Office: SWOFF2010STUPKC - Microsoft Office 2010 Home & Student PKC
Power Protection: PB750CyberPower - CyberPower Home 750 1250J 7-Outlet Surge Suppressor Receptacles: 7 x NEMA 5-15R - 2800J

Obviously you'll probably want to tweak that a bit re: card readers, hard drive space etc (but really, 1866Mhz RAM is not necessarily worth the price difference). The Sandy Bridge Core i5-2500K, released at the start of this year, is very nearly as fast as the top Core i7-2600K, it automatically overclocks by enabling a couple of features and yet is pretty cool (as long as you put your cooler on properly, which I didn't). The stock cooler is probably enough as long as you're not going to uber-overclock the system.

Graphics cards I'm not so up-to-date with, so I went with Nuth's preference. EDIT: looking at the Tom's Hardware tables, [url=http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/charts/2010-gaming-graphics-charts-high-quality/compare,2485.html?prod[4559]=on&prod[4511]=on&prod[4544]=on]the GTX460 is comfortably faster than an 8800GT by a large margin (like DOUBLE), but not as good as the Radeon HD 5850 (by a much smaller margin - say 10 - 15%).

Matthew on 5/5/2011 at 08:37

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You're very welcome, Dia! I upgraded my own PC in February so I had to do a lot of research back then and was very ably assisted by members of the forum - if it helps you at all to learn from that then it's an added bonus. :D



One thing I would say about that strategy is to be careful exactly how long you do keep the PSU - a lot of them, even reputable brands, suffer a falling-off in maximum throughput after a few years so that the max output could be quite a bit lower than the rated wattage.

Matthew on 5/5/2011 at 11:27

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No worries Nuth; I figured you might well know that already but a reminder never hurts. :) (Resist typing 'hertz' instead = Willpower roll passed)



I agree completely; the build I posted was trying to conform to Dia's own as much as possible save in areas I felt could be improved. I too would ditch the card reader and the modem - and probably the wireless thingy too as I'd prefer something from D-Link or similar.


If Dia feels that she could fit RAM later then I would say certainly, but for the sake of $60 that will include fitting I would tend to advise her to go ahead with it now if she feels at all wary of doing her own installation. RAM has been the most consistently useful upgrade I've made with my computers over the years, so the more the better.


Again, I agree. I have a Radeon myself (a 4870, which is doing me just fine at 1920 x 1200 even today) but I was a big fan of nVidia cards prior to that purchase so I have no doubt that a GTX460 will serve her very well for at least 4 or 5 years before it requires replacement.

Ostriig on 13/6/2011 at 21:28

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Alrighty, I think I can work with this, let's dig in. Here's what I've configured for you so far, this is a WIP (I'll explain why later):
http://i211.photobucket.com/albums/bb67/Ostriig/diaQuote13Jun.jpg

So, what's going up there, right? That's $866 and I have no idea whether that includes all taxes you'd have to pay or not, you gotta tell me that.

First, drop that fancy case and save yourself some 20 bucks. I picked that Coolermaster Elite 310 something somewhat, but it's really up to you, I doubt they make much difference in airflow or that you need something hi-tech in that department.

And to get this out of the way quickly, I dropped the peripherals at the end: mouse, keyboard etc. out of that quote, I assume you're all set up there.

Now we move on to more serious shit. The PSU is something you generally don't wanna skimp on, I've picked out the Antec EarthWatts A650, since Antec's a reputable company and if they say 650W, it's 650W. That should give you a reliable power supply with enough leeway for your system.

Skip to CPU, for now I suggest the AMD Phenom II X4 at 3.2Ghz. Reason being this actually got recommended to me recently by someone in the know over at Hardforum (I'm window-shopping for myself at this time too, though I'm leaning Intel). If you wanna keep this computer for the next four years, this will probably get you there. I expect it will start getting "tired" in some two years, but you should be able to stretch it out for another year or two after that, much like I'm stretching my current C2D E6420 to close to four years soon. It looks like a good option, and I'll get into this stuff a bit more later as well, hold on.

RAM - any of the 8GB Corsair dual kits (2 x 4GB, not the single 8GB dimm). I don't know what the difference between them at a glance is, might be latency in which case lower is better, or it just might be voltage tolerance for overclocking (not relevant for us here), but any of the three sets should cover you and they're practically the same price.

Video card, I say go with the ATI Radeon 6850. It's (http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.html) solid gaming graphics of the latest generation, should carry you well for the next two-three years, and it's supposed to be great bang for buck. I don't think that the 6870 is worth the extra $60 at first glance (haven't had a chance to look over specs), but (http://www.guru3d.com/article/radeon-hd-6850-6870-review/23) this guy seems to disagree so you could consider that option too.

Everything else I've left stock, including the 12 month warranty. While we're on that, I do think some of those components should come with longer warranties with the manufacturers themselves, worth asking the shop.

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Ok, so let's get to what I wanted to discuss "later". This is important, because for time-related issues I've skipped over looking at the upgrade options for the most important part of any computer - the motherboard. The motherboard configuration is what dictates the expandability of your system, and if you get a reasonably flexible one with up-to-date tech support you can later perform changes to your system quite easily. Picking out a more limited one can present you with the annoying situation where upgrading any one component - CPU, RAM, graphics card - is impossible without dishing out for a replacement for the motherboard itself. Right off the bat I can tell you I don't like about the default mainboard that it only goes up to 8 gig of RAM and that it only has one PCI-Express slot. If you wanna keep that board for the next four years having the option of adding more RAM in might make a difference, as would the possibility of adding in a second identical video card two years from now for a boost in graphics performance at the point when said card could already be dirt cheap. I'll have a skim over the other options they give some time in the next couple of days, when I can, and see if I can recommend a better mainboard for you.

But there's one more thing related to that. There's a new processor coming from AMD some time in the relatively near future, on a new socket AM3+. And it's been said that it would be compatible with some of the current AM3 boards out there, but not all. And I don't know whether any of those on offer at this site might be among them, but it's worth looking into it because if any of them are, they'd offer excellent future expandability for the CPU if you end up needing it.

And one final thing related to all this rant. This depends on what, if anything, it might cost to select a better motherboard under customisation and on your budget in general, but if it can be done, the hexacore AMD Phenom II X6 Black Edition might well be worth the extra $45, it was actually what was first suggested to me in the Phenom II line.


I paid some ten quid for one to switch between my PC and my PS3, convenient stuff. Bear in mind though that if your monitor is anything reasonably recent it should have two or more inputs at the back. Mine has a DVI and a VGA, but the PC takes up the DVI and I didn't want to go through the hassle of adapters from the PS3's HDMI to VGA. If you go the switch route, though, buy one that handles audio input as well so you can switch that with the video as well.


Phew, done... Let me know what you think and I'll see if I can come back with any suggestions in the motherboard area in the next couple of days.