Well what do you have right now?

Here's a quick list,
E7200
DS3L
Any 2x1GB kit, most kits are $40 and are great
8800 GT
A quality 500W, like a VX450W or VX550W


No sure how much that it, I'm guessing around $450

Theres so new low end/budget CPUs coming out soon that will probably overclock great with a budget mobo. I'm visiting relatives so I'm just keeping this post short.

Corsair VX450 and VX550 are produced by two different OEMs :(

edit: I was wrong.

VX450 = seasonic

seasonic ;)

mmmm

in my defense i was just ordering hard drives before making that comment :(

as you told me something new there, I was looking into this today

http://www.jonnyguru.com/modules.php?name=NDR...mp;reid=64

The three sink design reminds me a bit of the FSP Epsilon design. If you have a look at open housing shots of the 520W and 620W, you'll find that those Seasonics are a more traditional two sink (one for the primary, one for the secondary) design. This layout actually uses four (it looks like three, but the two sinks on the secondary side are back to back.) I'd stick my neck out there and say that this Corsair is actually S12 II based, but I can't confirm that it's an exact replica without taking every component out of it.

that's usually a very good psu reviewer... where did you get the info from?

The information was posted on a forum by someone working for Corsair which is why I believe it to be accurate. I'll have a look for the source, see if I can find it.

Fuck, I was wrong, I thought I read that the 450 and the 750 weren't seasonic, but it was the 550 and the 750.

In case you're wondering the breakdown of OEMs for Corsair's power supplies are as follows:

SeaSonic
TX650W
HX620W
HX520W
VX450W

Channel Well Technology
HX1000W
TX750W
VX550W

http://www.sharkyforums.com/showpost.php?p=25...ostcount=8

Still can't find the original Corsair staff post though

ah ok, thanks for checking :)
yeah it was known to me about the tx750, but not for the vx550
Jonny Guru says the same about these, they perform well too tho
But I agree Seasonic is preferred

personally own a hx520 (think the HX series is the best, also the most quiet)
next one will be an Enermax 82+

I have a HX620 and I absolutely love it. Even the packaging had excellent attention to detail.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102770
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116072
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128337
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231098
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139003

that's about $425 including shipping and MIRs

probably should get other opinions though.

Can't be bothered shopping around for you, but recommend

Corsair PSU (not 450W or 750W though, bad oem)
Asus (or gigabte) mobo, p45 might push you out of your budget but p35 should be fine
C2D E8400 or C2Q Q660, guess you gotta decide which suits you better
Ram, well actual ram manufacturer doesn't mean jack, you have to look at this list of IC's; http://ramlist.i4memory.com/ddr2/ - Avoid Elpedia like the plague. Ideally Micron. ProMOS aren't too bad.
GPU well.. you said yourself, hd4850


no idea about prices though :E

Yeah that's going to be way over his budget.

I'd wait for the E1600, get no better than a P35 DS3L and something like an 8800 GT or something in that price range. Thats the only way to stay under $400, without getting AMD.

The E1600 has a 12x multi so its going to be easy to get high clocks with a crappy mobo. Hopefully it will be a good OCer. Some good cooling might be needed. Though something cheap like a Xigmatek HDT-S1283 should be able to cool it more than well enough.

I'd just stick with a Geforce 8800 or 9600 for now. They're good enough for everything that's coming out in the next year.

$400 total

rofl good luck, i just spent about £500gbp 2 months ago on:


AMD Phenom Q9850
Asus M3A32-MVP WiFi
Saphire HD4870
Corsair 4gb dominator 1066mhz
WD 500gb @ 7200rpm
antec 900 case

as stock it gets 333fps cod4 and cpu/gpu runs @ 40-45 degrees

how come you bought a phenom instead of an intel dual or quad cpu?

because i won a 9850 CPU and 3850 gfx card from TLR, so i bought a AMD motherboard, BUT TLR didnt ever send me the prizes so 2 weeks after realising that i was never actually going to get anything - instead of wasting my time and money returning things i just got a phenom 9850 which is actually a quad core at 2.6 [its the black edition, not the old x3 ones] and a better gfx card so i could get my pc up and running

its not a bad cpu to be fair, obviously if i had known TLR would be like this then i would of got an intel board and a E8600 for gaming as it probably would of given me an extra 30fps, however given the choice between a Q6600 or phenom 9850 im happy with my AMD as its running great, and quads multitask better (although i tell that to myself to less my rage on TLR)

im still hoping they send my prizes so i can get some money off, but that was 8 weeks ago now.. its clearly not coming :(

sue them?

got any fan filters on that 900 or just plan on hitting it with canned air regularly?

im liking mine so far, but i REALLY need to sort out some filters :(

also, i need to find a way to unwire those blue LED's but that means taking the drive bays out and I don't want to fuck up my impossible wiring scheme I have going on in there

hows that hd48750 holding up? is it good value for money?

just asing because i am thinking of getting a 4850 soon.

yes it is, but...

if you get a reference card, prepare to go through the risky job of flashing its bios because as stock there is a problem with the powerplay feature which causes constant crashes, also you need to up the fan speed from 23% to 50% to bring down the temperatures (dont worry, everyone does it, some people even go to 80... the card should have been released at 45ish anyway, though it makes no difference it drops temperature from 70 to 40) for me it was a shit card until sapphire released this bios update 3 weeks ago... now it really is good value for money.

never had constant crashes on mine

reference card?

the bog standard card with normal components and a different name on it, non-reference cards are those which are developed by other manufacturers specifically with other components and often overclocked

thx for the help, decided to expand my budget a little bit and go with

q6600 $189.99
sapphire 3870 - $99.99
dsl3 $84.99
antex 650w ea650 $64.99 from $100
2gb ddr2 800 $32.99
and a new atx case cause mines lame $84.99

total $580.56 w/ shipping

3870? get a 4850 !

Q6600 is only a good choice if you overclock (2.4Ghz, 2x4MB), otherwise go E8500 (3.0Ghz, 6MB). And check if you software is (going to) support quadcore.

PSU is way too much, better spend it elsewhere. Next to the mentioned Corsairs, you could go cheaper (and still fine) with Antec EarthWatts 500W. culculate!.

cheap/good case is Antec Three Hundred, Sharkoon Rebel Value, Coolermaster Centurion 590 or Gigabyte GZ-X1

E8400 is the 3ghz one :o

oh, right, its 3.16Ghz

Corsair just announced a new PSU of 400W, should be in stores soon.
http://www.corsairmicro.com/news/press_release.aspx?id=709184

Weird... In the same watt range as the VX450, wonder what the differences are.

dont mean to hijack this, but is

http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebProductId=867888

a good case? i cant find any reviews for it anywhere

havent seen it IRL, but specs are okey and Enermax has a pretty good name in fans, so I think it will be decent. Only, from the picture, it looks like alot of plastic. Material has much influence on noise

cant say much