Hi Guys, I'm new to the forums and completely new to PC building. I've been doing some research online but still need some direct advice on a good setup. I'm building a gaming PC with a maximum budget of £850, and I would like it to be fairly quiet also. So far I'm thinking roughly the following: Q6600 Core 2 Quad 95W 2.4GHz (have also had Q8200 recommened to me as it's easier to cool as it's 45nm?) 4GB DDR2 RAM 8800 or 9800 nvidia GPU (have had HD4850 recommended to me as is slightly faster than nvidias?) - GPU budget ~£130 Asus P5Q pro mobo Enermax modu82 425w PSU Antec solo or P182 case: 800rpm scythe slipstreams, Scythe Kama bay accesory, intake at 7v, exhaust on a zalman fanmate Scythe Ninja rev b with no fan. 92mm scythe fan in the normal intake place (at 5v). An Accelero S1 (passive) on the GPU The above seup has been suggested by someone based on my starting point - a gaming pc that is fairly quiet for around £850ish Please feel free to voice any opinions, as I say I'm completely new to this so all thoughts will be extremely useful. I'm not interested in overclocking btw. I'm especially interested in peoples thoughts on all the cooling gadgets/fans listed above and their effectiveness in reducing noise whilst keeping the pc stable. Thanks for your help, feel free to ask anthing I've undoubedly missed. Al
I would say everything looks good but there is no way your power supply will do. You are going for good moderately expensive mobo with the option of cross fire, if you do go HD4850 but unless you have at least a 650w good supply like a corsair crossfire isn't an option. Even without crossfire you really need a 550w as a minimum. The case looks good and should be quite enough, I am not up enough on fans etc but I would think the standard p182 case fans would be fine if you have no overclocking wants. Overall I would go for a 4850 but I ended up with a 9800gt as got an overclocked quad 6600 system that was reduced lots on offer from overclockers (UK). It came with a antec 900 case which is also very well cooled and fairly quiet, though I am sure there are quiter out there. Unfortunately can't comment on performance as its an x-mass/end of PhD present so is locked away. You have not mentioned OS I presume you know you wil need a 64bit OS to be able to use your 4gb memory.
Thanks for your reply. Ah, no I didn't realise the OS had to be 64 bit, gald you mentioned it! I want to stick with windows xp, so will a 64bit version of xp be ok for this setup?
Its an ongoing arguement about should you go XP or vista, as long as its 64bit you will be able to use the RAM you have, a 32bit OS will only recognise 2gb of it. I am on the Vista side of the arguement if you are doing a whole new set up, if you have XP already fair enough but if you are starting from scratch then Vista is the new system, for a little while longer anyway, and so to avoid potential future compatability issues with games coming out with a 64bit vista directx 10 set up in mind, why not make the move now. I am aware others would disagree and there are valid arguements against but I am still on the vista side, either way is OK really.
