£1,100GBP gaming build; need GFX advice £235 budget

[scaminatrix]

Hi everyone;
I'm putting together a gaming rig for my mum; we've pretty much planned the whole rig but would like some advice on the graphics card.
She wants a decent gaming PC, budget of £1,000 (GBP), we're in the UK and we're going down the i7 route.
We're looking at this:

http://img.techpowerup.org/100814/amumspc.jpg
(linking because I'm on 56k; checking the thread would be a bugger)
There is ~£135 left in the budget for a graphics card, and I'm going to try and get her to stretch and extra ~£100 to get a 5850. She's likely to put in the extra £100.

Could we have some advice on whether we should stick with this plan; if so which 5850; or if there is an appropriate nVidia card to consider, value-for-money-wise?
With the extra £100, then £235 will be the absolute upper limit.

We have no preference on whether we choose ATi or NVIDIA.
She doesn't want to upgrade anytime soon.
It's just a gaming rig with 1 monitor and a 42" TV, no CUDA or Eyefinity needed.
We don't really want to settle for a 5770 as she'll be most likely gaming on her 42" tv at 1920x1080.

So... £235 tops, heavy gaming, red or green?
One other thing: we don't mind getting a slightly lower performing card, in favour of a longer warranty, so please consider warranty too.

Thanks everyone.

[WhiteLotus]

bloody hell what does your mum like to game?

I would get a fairly decent card, but not awesome. As with 6000 series coming out soon you could get another in the sales and crossfire later on, or upgrade although you did say you didn't want to do that.

[aCid888*]

Get a cheap 920 from the US and do some overclocking.

'Downgrade' to a 650w Corsair and save some money.


Spend money saved on 5850.


Done!

[scaminatrix]

Originally Posted by WhiteLotus

bloody hell what does your mum like to game?

I would get a fairly decent card, but not awesome. As with 6000 series coming out soon you could get another in the sales and crossfire later on, or upgrade although you did say you didn't want to do that.

lol, she saw my a/v editing rig and caught the bug. She bought a prebuilt a little while ago and was never happy with it, and she's a bit of a techie at heart...

The ASUS 5850 and the ASUS DirectCU 5850 are the only 5850's on Scan with a 3 year warranty.

Is it worth going for one of these for the extra years warranty?

Originally Posted by aCid888*

Get a cheap 920 from the US and do some overclocking.
'Downgrade' to a 650w Corsair and save some money.
Spend money saved on 5850.
Done!

Cheers man, we'll take that advice and get a US 920.
We'd like to keep the PSU though, as she may end up going corssfire.

[aCid888*]

650w of quality like the Corsair will be fine for Crossfired 5770's. I would think 5850's would do just fine also.


You could still get a 750w Corsair if you step it down to the non-modular line-up. Save a few ££ but still have the power you wanted in the first place??

Who cares if you have to hide the cables instead of just disconnecting them.

[scaminatrix]

Originally Posted by aCid888*

Who cares if you have to hide the cables instead of just disconnecting them.

You've had packages from and have witnessed first hand my OCD
It's also her preference, it's gotta be modular.
But, we'll take your advice again and go for the HX650

It looks like we could pick up an i7 920 D0 from the US at about $200, that's about £130, big saving. This would save my mum from putting in the extra £100 and we'd still be able to get the HX650 and the ASUS DirectCU 5850?

Looking like this now, we've palmed off the dvd drive as I've got one for her:
http://img.techpowerup.org/100814/amumspc2.jpg

Leaves a nice wedge for a US i7.
All good?

[aCid888*]

Try and find a guy with a 5850 + 920 (Paulie?) and maybe save enough to have a nice HX750??

[kurosagi01]

what you should do secretly is build it,then go to your mum "here you go" give her your current build and keep the one that was suppose to be for your mum lmao.
if you don't mind buying things from other places:
http://www.aria.co.uk/SuperSpecials/...roductId=40733

[scaminatrix]

Originally Posted by kurosagi01

what you should do secretly is build it,then go to your mum "here you go" give her your current build and keep the one that was suppose to be for your mum lmao.

lol she'd batter me! Cheers man na we don't mind buying from multiple places

Originally Posted by aCid888*

Try and find a guy with a 5850 + 920 (Paulie?) and maybe save enough to have a nice HX750??

At the rate he's selling stuff, I got no chance I'm not 100% sure when this build's materialising, but I'll be looking out for the offers

[(FIH) The Don]

why not gtx460?

and then another one in the near future?

just remember it has to be the 1gb versions as 768mb is too small for high res

[scaminatrix]

Originally Posted by (FIH) The Don

why not gtx460?

and then another one in the near future?

just remember it has to be the 1gb versions as 768mb is too small for high res

Thanks, going for a gtx460 would allow us to get a 2GB Gainward or a 2GB Palit.
I wouldn't buy a card from any of these manufacturers unless someone could reassure me on their reliability/RMA service quality.
Any sense going for one of these 2GB cards or should we keep it at 1GB with a tried and tested manufacturer?


EDIT: or one of the EVGA GTX 465's?

[(FIH) The Don]

take the 465 def.

maybe you can unlock it to a fully working 470 if it has alle the memorychips on the pcb

[scaminatrix]

Originally Posted by (FIH) The Don

take the 465 def.

maybe you can unlock it to a fully working 470 if it has alle the memorychips on the pcb

Sounds like an idea, we'll heavily consider that

[Dent1]

From the reviews that I have read the GTX 465 is slower than the GTX 460!


Also £112 on a power supply unit. A bit overpriced and overkill. You can pick up 650W Antec's for £70.

£211 for an i7 930, Intels overpricing has no limits.

[scaminatrix]

Originally Posted by Dent1

From the reviews that I have read the GTX 465 is slower than the GTX 460!

Also £112 on a power supply unit. A bit overpriced and overkill. You can pick up 650W Antec's for £70.

£211 for an i7 930, Intels overpricing has no limits.

Thanks, we saw the the Antec range, but we agreed that the 7 year warranty was worth paying the extra ~£20 for, compared to the 2 year warranty Antec offers (as we're going for the £98 HX650)

If the 465 can definately be unlocked to a 470, would it still be best to pick a 460?

[Dent1]

Originally Posted by scaminatrix

Thanks, we saw the Antec range, but we agreed that the 7 year warranty was worth paying the extra ~£20 for, compared to the 2 year warranty Antec offers (as we're going for the £98 HX650)

If the 465 can definitely be unlocked to a 470, would it still be best to pick a 460?

Even for a 7 year warranty the price can not be justified.

The high end CoolerMaster GX 650W PSU can be had for £60 and the CoolerMaster GX 750 can be had for £70 and you get a 5 year warranty.

Its very unlikely you'd want to keep a PSU for a full 7 years anyways.

These components are nothing special, its not like you're running a quad fire or tri-SLI configuration, you could easy buy a 550W £50 corsair or antec and you'd be fine and route the extra money into a better video card or CPU.

Originally Posted by scaminatrix

If the 465 can definitely be unlocked to a 470, would it still be best to pick a 460?

I would get a cheaper quality PSU and route the rest of the money on a ATI 5850.

From what I read its only the sample GTX 465s that were sent out to reviewers that unlock to 470s.

[scaminatrix]

Originally Posted by Dent1

E
I would get a cheaper quality PSU and route the rest of the money on a ATI 5850.

NEVER!!! Cheaper quality is a no no in this build, only the best...
I'd rather go overkill on the PSU and still get a 5850! Hell, the PSU's only the most important part of the rig!
We're stuck on Corsair mainly becuase:
Tried and tested (product and RMA/warranty service)
Common configuration (More people *seem* to be using Corsair PSU's than Antec with our choice of hardware)
7 Year Warranty, in our eyes, IS worth the extra, as I come from a VERY poor background, and we are VERY likely to keep a PSU for 7 years! We don't want to upgrade the PSU if we get 2x5850's in crossfire .
We're not moving from the Corsair range, and we're not going below 650w, and we still have room in the budget for a 5850.
Advice taken, though, we'll stay away from the 465's

[pantherx12]

I say just grab a 460 should play most things you throw at it and you can always sli in a year for an upgrade.

Would get one myself but I'm waiting til next year to upgrade, my 5770 is pretty much running like a 4890 at the moment : ]

[Dent1]

Originally Posted by scaminatrix

NEVER!!! Cheaper quality is a no no in this build, only the best..

I think you took what I said out of context.

I did not mean a PSU of lower quality. I meant a quality PSU that is cheaper.

You can get high end Corsair PSUs or other brands for £50-70 and can SLI GTX460s with ease.

Originally Posted by scaminatrix

I'd rather go overkill on the PSU and still get a 5850! Hell, the PSU's only the most important part of the rig!
We're stuck on Corsair mainly becuase:
Tried and tested (product and RMA/warranty service)
Common configuration (More people *seem* to be using Corsair PSU's than Antec with our choice of hardware)
7 Year Warranty, in our eyes, IS worth the extra, as I come from a VERY poor background, and we are VERY likely to keep a PSU for 7 years! We don't want to upgrade the PSU if we get 2x5850's in crossfire .
We're not moving from the Corsair range, and we're not going below 650w, and we still have room in the budget for a 5850.:

Fair enough.

Originally Posted by scaminatrix

Advice taken, though, we'll stay away from the 465's

Good good.

[pantherx12]

From what I've heard that is not the case with 465s at all, as long as you get one that has the right PCB in the picture you've got a great chance of unlocking.

And remember in the UK under long-distance trading regulations you can always RMA an item simply because the item did not turn out to be what you desired.

So if it turns out not to unlock, return it.
BAM.

[Dent1]

Its a lot of hassle though for little gain. A full GTX 470 is about the same speed as a 5850 anyways, it might be slightly faster but we are talking about less than 6% according to W1zzards review.

If the GPU doesn’t unlock there might be down time whilst the RMA goes through.

The GTX 465 1GB is about 15% slower than the 5850 according to W1zzard's review and both cards are priced about the same. Seems more logical to get the 5850 to begin with even if its £10-15 more and overclock it! a 5850 overclocked will beat out a GTX470 by a larger margin.

PS. Scaminatrix if you really keep hardware for 7 years shouldnt you be looking at AMD's hexacores if you are about the longevity route.

[scaminatrix]

Originally Posted by Dent1

PS. Scaminatrix if you really keep hardware for 7 years shouldnt you be looking at AMD's hexacores if you are about the longevity route.

The rig *may* end up as a HD video editing rig, I went AMD in mine and I think it was the wrong choice; as far as I understood, Intel was the way to go because of something to do with true virtualisation/multi-threading that's needed in a HD video editing rig? I'm not sure, I'll have a little read up in a bit.

1090T + Gigabyte GA-890FXA-UD5 = about the same as:
i7 930 + GA-X58A-UD3R

With the AMD setup we would save some money on the RAM...

choices choices choices !

Originally Posted by pantherx12

From what I've heard that is not the case with 465s at all, as long as you get one that has the right PCB in the picture you've got a great chance of unlocking.

I'd be comfy flashing my own card, but I wouldn't trust myself with my mum's! Isn't there a Canadian site that sells 465's pre-unlocked to 470's?

[Dent1]

Originally Posted by scaminatrix

The rig *may* end up as a HD video editing rig, I went AMD in mine and I think it was the wrong choice; as far as I understood, Intel was the way to go because of something to do with true virtualisation/multi-threading that's needed in a HD video editing rig? I'm not sure, I'll have a little read up in a bit.

1090T + Gigabyte GA-890FXA-UD5 = about the same as:
i7 930 + GA-X58A-UD3R

With the AMD setup we would save some money on the RAM...

choices choices choices !

In multi threaded applications the Phenom II X6 is faster than the i7 including encoding, excluding the extreme edition which has 12 threads.

[scaminatrix]

Originally Posted by Dent1

In multi threaded applications the Phenom II X6 is faster than the i7 including encoding, excluding the extreme edition which has 12 threads.

Thanks, I'm going to have a look at an AMD setup quickly then...

[IINexusII]

with a rig like that you would still want a blue gigabyte board? get asus or the crosshair iv if youre looking at amd