It's also worth keeping an eye out for the original 192 stream processor versions of the GTX 260, which can sometimes be found had for as low as £160 to clear stock for the 216 stream processor models. At that price though they're competing with pre-overclocked HD 4850s, which the GeForce GTX 260 is unquestionably superior to, although availability is now getting pretty slim.
I would concur with this as I have purchased two GTX260 (192sp model) for a i7 SLI pc for £100 less than it would of cost to get two 216 shader models - whilst I know the i7 setup is expensive £100 less is still £100 less! The price difference more than makes up for the minor performance difference. : )
Why'd you pick the 4850 above all the other cheaper options? Starting at 112£ at Scan for the Palit 4850, for just 1 £ more you get the ASUS one and for 145£ you can get a 4850 with 1GB (Gigabyte).
Did you pick it because of it's pre-overclocked?
15 percent VAT came in this morning... but hadn't been applied to nearly every product as of last night. The result was that we had to go through the whole article and re-calculate price changes, etc. this morning. Just what the doctor ordered on Monday morning. :D
Originally Posted by aon`aTv.gsus666 Nice as always. One question though:
Why'd you pick the 4850 above all the other cheaper options? Starting at 112£ at Scan for the Palit 4850, for just 1 £ more you get the ASUS one and for 145£ you can get a 4850 with 1GB (Gigabyte).
Did you pick it because of it's pre-overclocked?
Neither of the cards you've picked there are actually in stock - the listed Powercolour has very good availability, as well as an excellent and very efficient cooler. We'll keep an eye on these alternatives, especially the Palit card, but right now we still think a pre-oc 512mb 4850 with a decent custom cooler is the way forward for the budget entry.
The Core i7 920 is available later this month, although we expect it to sell out quickly in the first few waves.
I disagree with this part, avalaibilty of the I7 is surprisingly good atm.
Quote:
I don't think I have an option to decide what stepping to buy...
Intel stopped the production of the old B3 stepping long ago, every Q6600 you buy is the current G0 stepping. I think they just mentioned it to stop you from buying a used one that might be the old stepping.
Originally Posted by metarinka am I the only one who prefers smaller monitors? 19-21" is fine for me anything larger gives me a headache
I'm perfectly happy with my 19" LCD. Maybe I'll buy 21" LCD in future - but not until there's something with better response & same image quality as Eizo 1931.
1 thing i have noticed, the psu you recommended, it has got a fairly good review off you but not perfect.
as its in the premium set up isnt there a better one about?
I like the premium setup, but I think the SSDs are an unnecessary complication - how would I decide what files to put on the SSDs and what files to put on the terabyte drive?
Originally Posted by metarinka am I the only one who prefers smaller monitors? 19-21" is fine for me anything larger gives me a headache
my 22inch gives me a little headache when playing games that constantly adjusting DoF or a lot of head blobing, eg. CoD5, Far Cry 2.
i wish more games like L4D where they use dialogue and other stuff to imerse, not through crappy console ported DoF or head blobing.
Quote:
I like the premium setup, but I think the SSDs are an unnecessary complication - how would I decide what files to put on the SSDs and what files to put on the terabyte drive?
simple, SSH is the OS drive, all programs go there, where it belongs. a few multiplayer games that you want fast loading. everything else (documents, other games that you don't play as much) go to the 1TB drive
simple, SSH is the OS drive, all programs go there, where it belongs. a few multiplayer games that you want fast loading. everything else (documents, other games that you don't play as much) go to the 1TB drive
Okay, maybe I overestimated the difficulty of that, but actually getting the SSDs looks like a bigger challenge at the moment - I was hoping to get everything at the local Frys (even if a bit more expensive than listed in the article), though I'm already doubtful about the availability of the motherboard and cooler there. The link in the article says only 10 of the SSDs in stock - I think I found it on Amazon for $239.11, though (I hope this link comes through okay, I'm a little new to commenting on this site): http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001CDTI84?smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER&tag=yahoo-ce-20&linkCode=asn
Is that the correct item?
Also, how hard is it to set up the raid when installing the OS, disable defragmentation, etc.?
Originally Posted by wuyanxu simple, SSH is the OS drive, all programs go there, where it belongs. a few multiplayer games that you want fast loading. everything else (documents, other games that you don't play as much) go to the 1TB drive
Exactimondo. I have a similer setup: A 300Gb Seagate for all my media, and a nippy little 36Gb WD Raptor for my OS and Programs (and the occasional game). Speeds boot time no end. Also protects your files, as if your OS goes six feet under, you can do a straight forward format of the OS Drive and complete reinstall and all your content is left totally untouched.
I've got a fairly similar setup to the high end system at the moment, would it be worth going to a 22" or a cheap (i.e. £200) 24" over my current 1280x1024 res?
Originally Posted by Ending Credits I've got a fairly similar setup to the high end system at the moment, would it be worth going to a 22" or a cheap (i.e. £200) 24" over my current 1280x1024 res?
Hell yes!
Go for the biggest screen available that doesn't look piss to you in the shops.
I think you might have just started another one of those 'is bigger always better?' discussions.
What I've learned so far is the following:
If you're just gaming, follow Xtra. (TN+ panel)
If you're doing stuff like working with images/videos a lot, rather go for a smaller, more expensive but better screen. (IPS, PVA, ...)
Originally Posted by mauvecloud Also, how hard is it to set up the raid when installing the OS, disable defragmentation, etc.?
very easy, to my knowledge you still need a floppy disk (and drive) to set up raid on sata disks in windows xp, but that's about it.
For a long time I used 2 36gb raptors in raid as my os drive. Then I switched to 1 76gb raptor + 500 gig storage drive and eventually I'll be jumping to the newest raptor or maybe a SSD.
in terms of disabling defrag? in a stock xp install it's already disabled you have to either set up the schedule or manually defrag the drive. Not that defragging will really do/ hurt anything.
Originally Posted by metarinka very easy, to my knowledge you still need a floppy disk (and drive) to set up raid on sata disks in windows xp, but that's about it.
in terms of disabling defrag? in a stock xp install it's already disabled you have to either set up the schedule or manually defrag the drive. Not that defragging will really do/ hurt anything.
What makes you think I'd install XP on the premium system? I'd be installing Vista x64 (I was under the impression that Vista defrags in the background by default), and depending on which motherboard I get, I may not even have a floppy connector.
Originally Posted by mauvecloud What makes you think I'd install XP on the premium system? I'd be installing Vista x64 (I was under the impression that Vista defrags in the background by default), and depending on which motherboard I get, I may not even have a floppy connector.
With vista you don't need to do anything at all to get raid running, go in bios, enable raid, then enter raid config utility, set up raid as you wish, reboot with boot from cd as first boot option and install vista as usual.
I've just finished ordering the "affordable" PC piece for piece. I was lucky enough to find some Palit 4850 Sonic cards so I got that over the powercube, but otherwise went for your recommended setup.
Picking parts used to be a huge job, with this monthly feature it only took me a few days to finalise my shopping.
The addition of the displays at the end is magic too, although I cannot find an FP241W anywhere here, so had to go for the Dell 2408WFP instead.
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I would concur with this as I have purchased two GTX260 (192sp model) for a i7 SLI pc for £100 less than it would of cost to get two 216 shader models - whilst I know the i7 setup is expensive £100 less is still £100 less! The price difference more than makes up for the minor performance difference. : )
Why'd you pick the 4850 above all the other cheaper options? Starting at 112£ at Scan for the Palit 4850, for just 1 £ more you get the ASUS one and for 145£ you can get a 4850 with 1GB (Gigabyte).
Did you pick it because of it's pre-overclocked?
as days go buy, i cannot resist the lure of P45 boards with PCIe2.0 and more PWM --> 4Ghz.
when will be a good time to buy? is it now with 15% VAT??
Neither of the cards you've picked there are actually in stock - the listed Powercolour has very good availability, as well as an excellent and very efficient cooler. We'll keep an eye on these alternatives, especially the Palit card, but right now we still think a pre-oc 512mb 4850 with a decent custom cooler is the way forward for the budget entry.
I disagree with this part, avalaibilty of the I7 is surprisingly good atm.
Intel stopped the production of the old B3 stepping long ago, every Q6600 you buy is the current G0 stepping. I think they just mentioned it to stop you from buying a used one that might be the old stepping.
I'm perfectly happy with my 19" LCD. Maybe I'll buy 21" LCD in future - but not until there's something with better response & same image quality as Eizo 1931.
This month you got me convinced to go all the way and buy just about your premium set up.
Especially happy with the addition of what monitor to buy as its the one thing i struggle to decide on.
as its in the premium set up isnt there a better one about?
i wish more games like L4D where they use dialogue and other stuff to imerse, not through crappy console ported DoF or head blobing.
Okay, maybe I overestimated the difficulty of that, but actually getting the SSDs looks like a bigger challenge at the moment - I was hoping to get everything at the local Frys (even if a bit more expensive than listed in the article), though I'm already doubtful about the availability of the motherboard and cooler there. The link in the article says only 10 of the SSDs in stock - I think I found it on Amazon for $239.11, though (I hope this link comes through okay, I'm a little new to commenting on this site): http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001CDTI84?smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER&tag=yahoo-ce-20&linkCode=asn
Is that the correct item?
Also, how hard is it to set up the raid when installing the OS, disable defragmentation, etc.?
Exactimondo. I have a similer setup: A 300Gb Seagate for all my media, and a nippy little 36Gb WD Raptor for my OS and Programs (and the occasional game). Speeds boot time no end. Also protects your files, as if your OS goes six feet under, you can do a straight forward format of the OS Drive and complete reinstall and all your content is left totally untouched.
Go for the biggest screen available that doesn't look piss to you in the shops.
What I've learned so far is the following:
If you're just gaming, follow Xtra. (TN+ panel)
If you're doing stuff like working with images/videos a lot, rather go for a smaller, more expensive but better screen. (IPS, PVA, ...)
very easy, to my knowledge you still need a floppy disk (and drive) to set up raid on sata disks in windows xp, but that's about it.
For a long time I used 2 36gb raptors in raid as my os drive. Then I switched to 1 76gb raptor + 500 gig storage drive and eventually I'll be jumping to the newest raptor or maybe a SSD.
in terms of disabling defrag? in a stock xp install it's already disabled you have to either set up the schedule or manually defrag the drive. Not that defragging will really do/ hurt anything.
What makes you think I'd install XP on the premium system? I'd be installing Vista x64 (I was under the impression that Vista defrags in the background by default), and depending on which motherboard I get, I may not even have a floppy connector.
With vista you don't need to do anything at all to get raid running, go in bios, enable raid, then enter raid config utility, set up raid as you wish, reboot with boot from cd as first boot option and install vista as usual.
Picking parts used to be a huge job, with this monthly feature it only took me a few days to finalise my shopping.
The addition of the displays at the end is magic too, although I cannot find an FP241W anywhere here, so had to go for the Dell 2408WFP instead.
Can't thank you guys enough.