Gaming New PC build - About £1000

[Seicomart]

Corsair sure do make great psus, I have them in 3/6 decks here and live in an area notorious for fluctuating electricity supply, but these psus just keep on trucking...

Regarding HDS, I used to go for Seagates due to the warranty, but they've had a fair share of problems lately so switched to Western Digital, wouldn't really reccomend you use Hitachi death-star drives, and recently Samsungs drives have been criticised like hell online due to high failure rates.

The Haf has its good and bad points - when you see the thing, you really gotta consider where its going, if the room has carpets/dusty floors or pets hanging around etc, which is why I went for the Cosmos, but I would say the HAF has a better design regarding HD casing...

Just make sure you spend the most on a MB and PSU + case that will last ; )

Oh and if in London, pop round to YoyoTech, great staff there and you can pay web prices but pick up in store which is really nice.

Good luck with the build, and enjoy it!

 

[leinad]

Regarding HDS, I used to go for Seagates due to the warranty, but they've had a fair share of problems lately so switched to Western Digital, wouldn't really reccomend you use Hitachi death-star drives, and recently Samsungs drives have been criticised like hell online due to high failure rates.

Almost every HD-Manufacturer has crap versions on the marked right now. They all try to "Go Green" with their HDs, which sucks, because things like parking the HD shortens its lifetime.
You just have to grab the right HDs ... ie WD sells "Caviar Green" and "Caviar Black" models; The Green often die after short times, black last long, but on the bare, they are the same things. Just different power-settings.

 

[Seicomart]

Yeah, WD have changed the way their latest green models work though...Just got a 2tb one, wasn't that impressed with the Black models though, got 2x1terra and after 1 month one of them sure doesn't sound healthy so after backing it up and writing it with zeros its getting replaced.

 

[Originality]

I have several Samsung Spinpoint F1s, and I've yet to see one fail. But other than that, the above information is true.

 

[Seicomart]

Me too, I have 4 of them in the cosmos alone...But have read some real horror stories, so will use them for non-critical data in a media centre nas after backup...

 

[Originality]

Cosmos 1000 or Cosmos S? Either way, it's the best case I've ever used for moving around (around the house, or putting into a car to send half way across the country for my brother's University).

 

[Seicomart]

Oh, Cosmos 1000, didn't like the array of top fans on the S, and having cats, the rear fin design on the 1000 made a lot more sense for us. Coolermaster are a bit cheeky though - to fit the optional extra HD fan you have to buy the adaptor thingy from their European office. If I was buying a new case today, I'd either get a top end Zalman, or something nice from Akihabara, but that would totally kill the luggage allowance ; [

One of the main reasons I chose the Cosmos, beyond the air-flow and cooling, was how tank-like it is. At the time I thought we would be moving back to Japan and needed something that would survive air travel. Going through British and Japanese customs with a carry on bag full of HDS and components a year after 9/11 wasn't fun at all and I guess trying that now would result in an anal probing!

 

[Originality]

My brother just got it (Cosmos 1000) because he thought it looked kool. I had to work a super computer around that within his budget (the better the computer, the faster it rendered his University homework). It's good in that it dampens sound very well, but it's not very efficient for shifting air. We did get the adapter you mentioned in the case when we got it though.

I went with my Antec 1200 for my case. It's just as big, but it's got so many fans that it makes the entire room cool down for the first few minutes it turns on (if it's at full blast - fan controls are also awesome). Takes about a half hour to warm up the room again afterwards whilst playing Left 4 Dead. Also, it just has to stay under my desk, and not travel across the country. Anywho, this is off topic ;p

 

[gameguy95]

Don't get the Athlon X4, get the Phenom II X4, ideally one of the Black Edition models or similar which have more cache then the old Athlon X4 processors. And if you have that much to spend, you can buy some better equipment then what you have been looking at. Don't skimp out on certain hardware because it is cheap for a reason, because it is dated. Get the Gigabyte GA-890GPA motherboard, it is a future proof board with USB 3.0 and SATA 6.0Gb connectors on it. The G.Skill memory seems good enough. Dunno why you need 2 card readers though, just get a case with some I/O ports already on it and then get one card reader that has whatever else you need.

Get a Radeon HD5770 graphics card too, they are great for the price.

USB 3.0 !?!? am i missing something here because i thought that it was suppoded to be 2.0. if there was a USB 3.0 i would have heard about it by now

 

[Joe88]

Don't get the Athlon X4, get the Phenom II X4, ideally one of the Black Edition models or similar which have more cache then the old Athlon X4 processors. And if you have that much to spend, you can buy some better equipment then what you have been looking at. Don't skimp out on certain hardware because it is cheap for a reason, because it is dated. Get the Gigabyte GA-890GPA motherboard, it is a future proof board with USB 3.0 and SATA 6.0Gb connectors on it. The G.Skill memory seems good enough. Dunno why you need 2 card readers though, just get a case with some I/O ports already on it and then get one card reader that has whatever else you need.

Get a Radeon HD5770 graphics card too, they are great for the price.

USB 3.0 !?!? am i missing something here because i thought that it was suppoded to be 2.0. if there was a USB 3.0 i would have heard about it by now

3.0 has been out on boards for a while now, since jan

 

[Originality]

Old thread is old.

Most motherboards are coming out with at least 2 USB3 ports, although it started with PCI-e USB3 cards. It came out at roughly the same time as SATA 6GBps (incorrectly commonly referred to as SATA III).

USB3 uses thicker cables because it provides 900mahs instead of 500, and features roughly 10x the speed of USB2. Naturally, such speeds have yet to be fully achieved by the first wave of USB3 devices.