Hi guys my old PC recenty died on me (it was 3-4 years old) so I'v began looking to put together a new PC. Now I have a bit of an idea on what but I'm not exactly an expert on PC's so I'm hoping for help and recomedations.

 

My buget is around 1,100 for the case and everything in it (excluding Hard Drives and power supplys) I will keep my old screen and prerifials as well.

But I mosly need help on deciding on what to get for best bang for buck.

My list so far -

GA-MA770T-UD3P - 126

AMD AM3 Phenom II x4 945 -279

Inno3D GTX260+ -242

4GB DDR3 (of some kind) -92 (seems to be the general price)

Pioneer 216BK -37

Antec 300 -101 or the Ante 900-193

Total With the antec 300-894

Total With the antec 900-986

 

Now non of this is set in stone so plase feel free to give me better options and I'm looking for the best system I can get for the lowest price.

So please help me out guys once I get this all sorted I can go back to play PR havent played in weeks

 

By the way I live in Vic and I have been geting most my prices off staticice

Edited June 26, 200915 yr by SHOCKnAWE371

Well researched mate. Prices depend on trying to get everything from the one store to save on freight/running around.

 

What about a 780/790 board?

I was looking through the info they look good but I noticed their wasent anything on ddr3 so tat either means it dosent support it or it's not recomended dd2 would be cheper but isn't ddr3 better?

depends on what CPU you have, at the moment very few CPU's can efficiently operate DDR3 ram, the Intel i7 being one of them

 

(im looking at setting up a computer with DDR3 and an i7 thats why I know. It will cost more than 1100 though)

cheaper, sure. but your build is a budget one, is it not.

 

i think what you picked is cheap and will play most games great.

Hmm I foun a 4G KIT PI G.SKILL at 1066 kit which is ddr2 but I also found 4GB Kit(2x2G) DDR3 1333 TEAM-O5-TD3-1333-4GBK thier the same price around $95 but which one do you guys think would be better

 

Also do you think this system would run Arma 2 good (at least medimu - high)

Edited June 25, 200915 yr by SHOCKnAWE371

Also do you think this system would run Arma 2 good (at least medimu - high)

 

That is a hard question to answer right now as it seems ArmA 2 is a frigid beast that only likes particular PC's that don't seem to have anything in common. Some machines that have far better specs than what you have outlined are running it terribly while a PC's similar to your own are running it fine. So right now there is no way to say YES or NO sorry mate. BTW best of luck with the build mate. :hi:

Hmm I foun a 4G KIT PI G.SKILL at 1066 kit which is ddr2 but I also found 4GB Kit(2x2G) DDR3 1333 TEAM-O5-TD3-1333-4GBK thier the same price around $95 but which one do you guys think would be better

look at the timings, you'll prolly find the DDR2 has better timings that the DDR3. from what i've read, most cases tighter timings will give you better performance than mhz will.

 

[edit] - further to that, the mhz is more for oc'ing from what i gather as well. if your not going to oc your system then you'd be much better finding ram that matches your cpu speed wise with tight timings.

Edited June 25, 200915 yr by Heat-seeker

OK so the 4G KIT PI G.SKILL has timing of 5-5-5-15 and runs at 1066

The DDR3 1333 TEAM-O5-TD3-1333-4GBK timing is 9-9-9-24 and runs at 1333

and the CPU I have chosen runs at 3.0ghz

So what would better mach it?

 

Oh and I just though is a sound card worth the extra money?

Edited June 25, 200915 yr by SHOCKnAWE371

It's going to give you small percentages of performance increase.

 

Is the board both DDR2/DDR3 compatible, or are you changing boards with the type of RAM available?

 

Personally, I feel a soundcard is better money spent, but some people can't hear the difference between onboard, soundcard and good soundcard. Can you? Are you particular to better stereos, better headphones?

It's going to give you small percentages of performance increase.

true, if you look at it from an fps pov, it'll prolly be less than 10 frames depending on what game your playing, settings used etc etc..

 

Is the board both DDR2/DDR3 compatible, or are you changing boards with the type of RAM available?

nother good point, if you want to have a better upgrade path, go DDR3 as you'll have AM3 socket (iirc) so you could swap out the cpu and ram down the track for faster if needed.

Personally, I feel a soundcard is better money spent, but some people can't hear the difference between onboard, soundcard and good soundcard. Can you? Are you particular to better stereos, better headphones?

i like the idea of sound cards myself, but as SOP says, unless you can tell the difference between onboard and discreat its prolly not worth it. same goes if you get a sound card make sure you have a decent set of cans/speakers so you can enjoy the better sound.

 

have been a Creative man all my computing life (well since the heady days of Sound Blaster -> Live!), but really like the look of the ASUS Xonar sound card. If the reviews are correct, it also handles EAX better than Audigy/Xfi as well.

plus the xonar essence stx, which is a newer card, has an inbuilt headphone amplifier, and from all accounts, it's pretty darn good.

 

so, if you really want a decent set of headphones, you shouldn't have a problem driving them.

 

 

but that equals money, and no one likes to waste it.

Benchmark testing has shown that the difference between ddr2 and ddr3 is next to nothing.....

 

Kenny the board you have in your post only supports ddr2 ram anyway....also it uses the older SB700 chipset

 

 

 

 

Have a look at this board...it has the SB750 chipset

 

Gigabyte GA-MA790FX-DS5 AMD 790FX ATX

Edited June 26, 200915 yr by seo iphone

Oh a slight spelling error it's ment to be GA-MA770T-UD3P that can take ddr3 although it prefers 1666 to 1333 ill edit the first post as well.

I do have a good logitech clearchat pro headset which I mainly use although I'm not very sure if the od PC had a sound card or not so I don't know if I'd even know the differenc.

Also this is whats on board 7.1HDAudio Optical Out I don't realy know what that means but thats what it said.

Edited June 26, 200915 yr by SHOCKnAWE371

7.1 is only useful if you have a speaker setup. Optical out is talking about fibre optic cables, pretty sure tho thats only for hooking up other devices like an AV amp etc.

Most cards have an Optical Out, it's just a digital output, as opposed to analog. McDeth was right.

 

Example, my onboard has an optical out, I connect using a special cable to my DAC which feeds my amp and speakers.

 

Don't be fooled by HD audio and whatnot. It's just marketing terms.

Well thanks guys for all your help so far and hopefully Ill be able to start buying parts soon and get back into PR.

So this should be the final product

 

GA-MA770T-UD3P

AMD AM3 Phenom II x4 945

Inno3D GTX260+

DDR3 1333 TEAM-O5-TD3-1333-4GBK

Pioneer 216BK

Antec 900

Although ill still have a look around for differet parts like maby a sound card later on but that shound be close to the final setup although I have to still inquire about cases because their seems to be alot of optional extras.

If I have anymore problems Ill post back here and If you guys come up with any more idea feel free to post them I'm hoping all go's to plan. Ill keep checking up hear to see anything new. So thanks guys.

Can't afford more for a video card? That's your only weak point.

Yer I know but if I go any higher the price seems to double o trippel which is bad on the wallet unless they come down in the next week then ill have to stick with it, also any suggested video cards?

Can't afford more for a video card? That's your only weak point.

 

A 260 isnt a weak link for a budget build imo.

Having said that a 4890 can be had for $60 more.

 

:hi:

+1, if push came to shove, i'd go for a cheaper case to get a better card.

Yer I know I was lookig at those as well but people said they had heating problems I could maby step it up to a 275 inno3d

^ thats what I was thinking but the thing is I realy need a case that has dust filters and that can fit all the hardware in it and at least 2-4 fans for cooling.

Edited June 26, 200915 yr by SHOCKnAWE371

A 260 isnt a weak link for a budget build imo.

Having said that a 4890 can be had for $60 more.

 

:hi:

no, but compared to a quad core 3ghz cpu, it's the bottleneck.

 

for a budget build, i would of held back on the cpu but you are right, it's perfectly fine for most games.

 

and like vis stated, arma2 is an unknown quantity, will a 260 run it at high.

yeah, all well and good kenny.

 

but i have a dodgy old case, 1 x 120mm on the back. overclocked cpu at 4ghz, no heating problems.

 

you could use the theory that you make the case an investment and upgrade the video card down the track. the case will always be there.

Thanks for the help so far I have to go for a while someone else needs to use this laptop thats a problem now only having one PC connected to the internet ill be back on later maby 2-4 hours or so to check up on the posts.