Official "Random Blab" Thread

[Sergeant Dull]

Apr 8, 2012 12:33:54 GMT 10 Oberstleutnant Insipid said:

The filter's hilarious. Deal with it.

Go BLARGH yourself.

Edit: Damn it.

[somebody probably]

Neo, give us an idea of the kind of budget overall that you're looking for, the components that you need and tell us what kind of software you want to run on it and we might be able to help you out more.

[Eco]

I want to buy a high-end gaming laptop powered by Alienware with Geek Squad Support

[The Pletch]

Apr 9, 2012 5:13:04 GMT 10 Eco said:

I want to buy a high-end gaming laptop powered by Alienware with Geek Squad Support

ಠ__ಠ

[Sergeant Dull]

Apr 9, 2012 5:13:04 GMT 10 Eco said:

I want to buy a high-end gaming laptop powered by Alienware with Geek Squad Support

Okay.

[Eco]

www.twitch.tv/ecoreck

Streaming Dark Story of SA2B

[Sergeant Dull]

good show would watch again

[Neo // Racing Stripe A/V]

Came to the realisation that I'm going to have to start from scratch (HDD and DVD drives are IDE, so even using them as storage is out the question). I'll probably get a new case, since I'm sure this one has pretty pisspoor ventilation.

What I've got so far:
Case - £43.98
PSU (600W - £54.98
Mobo - £79.99
Intel i5 2500K - £163.00
GFX - GTX550Ti - £92.99
--still looking on Hard Disks - not going for SSDs--
RAM - £39.98
--still looking on optical drives - will probably settle for just the one for the time being--
For the OS I'll most likely go for Windows 7 Professional 64-bit.

By my math, that currently stands at a few pennies shy of £475 (not counting the OS).. which I suppose isn't too bad, considering I didn't originally think I'd have to replace everything. There's a couple computing shops nearby so I might do some browsing there to see what sort of prices I could get for the HDD/Optical drives.. apparently, I'm looking at about £75 for the two combined, which, including the OS, could bring the total closer to £670. That's still a lot of money in my book.

[Sergeant Dull]

That's probably because you've chosen an enthusiast CPU, Motherboard and PSU... And perhaps an overpriced GPU.

Intel "K" models are for overclocking. Corsair PSUs are very reliable and 600W is probably more than necessary. HDDs are expensive at the mo due to last years Taiwan floods, an Optical Drive is £20 at most.



Why haven't you told us your budget yet?

[Sergeant Dull]

Yo Lightnix: overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-269-AS - I told you that sh*t got mad cheap

[Neo // Racing Stripe A/V]

Only reason I haven't come up with a budget figure is, I don't know what sort of money I should be spending.
Since overclocking isn't really what I'm looking for, I'm thinking of going with the plain ol' i5-2320.
I've also done some browsing around the computing shops nearby (Maplin mainly; the Currys/PC World here is practically devoid of the stuff), and found a Radeon HD 6570 for £69.99 - are those cards any good? I also saw a Har Drive on special offer there; for an extra £10, I'll get another 250GB.

At the moment, this is what I've got so far:
1. Case - Zalman Z9 Plus - £43.98
2. Power Supply - Corsair CX 600 - £54.98
3. Motherboard - Asus P8Z68-V LX - £79.99
4. Processor - Intel Core i5-2320 - £129.98
5. a) Graphics Card option A - Gigabtye GeForce GTX 550Ti - 92.99
5. b) Graphics Card option B - Radeon HD 6570 - £69.99
6. a) Hard Drive option A - Western Digital Caviar Blue 500GB - £59.99
6. b) Hard Drive option B - (I can't remember the brand name) 750GB - £69.99
7. RAM - Crucial Ballistix Sport DDr3-1600 2x4GB - £39.98
8. Optical Drive - LG GH22NS70 22x DVD+/-RW SATA - £13.98
9. OS: Windows 7 Professional 64-bit - £117.01

By my math, that comes to a price of £609.88, £619.88, £632.88 or £642.88. I know it won't be as powerful, but it's an improvement over the original figure.

[Sergeant Dull]

Not bad. Are you trying to cut costs more? I could give minor suggestions here and there to help. Also are you intent on buying from Novatech (So I know where to look for you) and also that hard drive cost is pretty stellar, wherever you're getting it from.

The 6570 isn't a gaming card and the 550Ti is appalling in comparison to the similarly priced 6850

www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/541?vs=539

I'll get back to you once you answer the above.





EDIT: Screw it I got bored and did a bit of work here and there.

Now I went and chose a few different things for the case and PSU but if you can't get to them don't worry, the internals are more important.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-2400 3.10GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £151.99
1 x Asus HD 6850 DirectCU V2 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £84.95
1 x Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-Bit - OEM (GFC-02050) £71.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA 6Gb/s 16MB Cache - OEM (ST500DM002) £61.99
1 x Asus P8H61-M Intel H61 Chipset (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard **B3 REVISION** £46.80
1 x Corsair Builder Series CX 500W V2 '80 Plus' Power Supply (CMPSU-500CXUKV2) £44.99
1 x BitFenix Merc Beta Gaming Case - Black £31.99
1 x Kingston HyperX Genesis Grey 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1600C9D3X2K2/8GX) £29.99
1 x OcUK 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £13.98
Total : £561.59 (includes shipping : £19.10).




Note the change of CPU, GPU and Motherboard (Also RAM check that RAM out) and the PSU. Those were the main changes really, and would probably give you the biggest change in performance and price.

2400 is one step below the revered 2500, the motherboard has holes to put things in, you're not overclocking so you don't need a brilliant chipset for OC controls. The GPU is what is known as a bargain, and 8GB of RAM for added flavour, I just picked that one because it was cheap and Kingston is a big reliable brand.

500W of Corsair power should handle this more than well, what with how tech these days is getting more and more efficient. if 500 can power my 4 year old outdated chugger then it can power that finely trimmed bit of kit just fine.

It should also perform brilliantly. Sadly better than my PC at a similar cost to what I got mine a few years back 8(


No need to buy that from OcUK, it's just a website I use because of the easy layout/basket and the BBcode tool I have for it. Feel free to use a retailer of your choice. Prices may vary.



Man this post got reaaaal money-talk for SV.

[Sergeant Dull]

Conclusion:

You should probably get that 750GB whilst it still exists. Hopefully its a Seagate/Maxtor/Samsung/WesternDigital or something.

You don't have to spend much on a good functional case these days.

Anything by Corsair is bound to work brilliantly, but you don't need 600W of power for a spec like this.

Okay just ask me questions I'll answer.

Also Lightnix may improve on a few things I said but yeah.

[Neo // Racing Stripe A/V]

Hey, where a saving can be made. I just found Windows 7 on Amazon for about £15 less than what Novatech were offering me, which brings the total cost down to, what, a little under £595? I suppose now that I've brought the total price a lot further down, I suppose a budget of, idunno.. £570 perhaps? How low can it go?
I've really only been sticking with Novatech since they appear to have the most stuff so far (I did try searching ebuyer and it looked like they didn't have as much stock.. that or I was doing it wrong)

[Neo // Racing Stripe A/V]

and WOOOAH more posts

I'll definitely have a look at those