Hey all, im currently saving for a custom build (always used a laptop, not having to throttle games would be a godsend), you can find the part list I picked out here with links.

Here it is for you guys who don't like clickies:

CPU: Intel Core i5-3470 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor (£148.79 @ Aria PC)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-H77N-WIFI Mini ITX LGA1155 Motherboard (£85.97 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: Patriot Viper 3 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£59.97 @ Overclockers.co.uk)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£50.20 @ Ebuyer)
Video Card: Sapphire Radeon HD 7950 3GB Video Card (£208.30 @ Amazon UK)
Case: BitFenix Prodigy (Black) Mini ITX Tower Case (£65.99 @ Aria PC)
Power Supply: Corsair CX 500W 80 PLUS Bronze Certified ATX12V Power Supply (£49.83 @ Dabs)
Other: Perixx PERIBOARD-208 (£8.99)
Other: Samsung Screen (£80.00)
Total: £758.04

This is my very fist pc that im putting together and would appreciate any insight/thoughts.

Case choice: Living in a small room, would prefer a small pc, thus, the best looking mini ITX I could find.
Memory: Going with a single stick of 8gb so I can buy a second once I have enough money later on. Would this be a problem? From what I read, single vs dual channel isn't too big of a difference.
Video card: Its either the 7950 or the 660ti. The 660ti seems slightly more powerful from the benchmark specs iv seen but the 7950 comes with a bunch of goodies, both are currently (roughly) the same price.

Respectfully asking people to leave fanboyism at the door, users that don't are banned from this.

Cheers!

11 years ago*

Comment has been collapsed.

I would get a macaque

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

nice choice!

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

You're going to spend 208 quid on a graphics card and then look at a bad £80 TN monitor?

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

TN? Haven't picked a screen out yet.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

If I'm correct, TN is the technology used in older TFT monitors. You should go with some LED monitor by someone like LG or BenQ. Also get 1080p so if you decide to watch movies etc. there are no black borders and the blurry quality doesn't make you strain your eyes too much.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Surely something like this should do fine with little or no quality loss?

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Yeah, that seems alright. You don't need ultra low latency unless you're some professional competitive gamer.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Cheers.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

IMO you need 24 inch;)

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Which on do you happen to use?

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

The Samsung SyncMaster S24B350H, cuse I'm cheapskate:)

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Thats well over 100 pounds :|

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

I got it for €130, which is about 100 pounds i guess?

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

You are incorrect intoxeus, TN stands for twisted nematic and is still used in the majority of monitors sold today... It has nothing to do with whether its and CCFL or LED monitor, that just refers the backlighting.

TN panels are still popular because they are affordable, have a higher refresh rate than any other type of panel, and plenty of people buy them cause they have no idea what they are doing.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

You can't get IPS or PVA for 80 quid, so it's a TN - and that's thankfully on its way out.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Im going with samsung because a family member works with the company, thus discounts. How would something like this perform? How do I find out if something is 'TN'?

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

You google the monitor, and then you see "170°/160° Viewing Angle (Horizontal/Vertical)"

For IPS/PVA, you'll see 178 listed for both.

Then you go here and marvel at the poor technology from a decade ago.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

I see, thanks for the insight.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

TN monitors aren't that bad, but make sure the monitor you choose can be tilted towards your eyes because the colours on a TN screen change depending on your viewing angle. I have a Samsung TN screen that can't be tilted, and this problem sometimes bothers me. I'm sorry I didn't get a more expensive one.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

I got an Asus VS229 screen. I paid 100€ for it, so little more than 80£. It's IPS, but it has good response times and a very good picture quality. Only a little bit of backlight bleeding in one corner, invisible during game play.

Here is an ultra-technical review. Consider that getting a "Good" rating from this website in this price range is a rare achievement.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Awesome, ty.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

You're welcome. :)

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Don't TNs have the best response time and refresh rate?
Edit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNc2fKuVnGU

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

ATI

Noooooooooooooooooooo.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Deleted

This comment was deleted 6 years ago.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

A lot of games are console ports and weren't designed with AMD in mind, since consoles used nvidia. Now, however, seeing that both next-gen consoles will use AMD technology, I'm pretty sure that will change, so going with an AMD card is a good choice.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

My logic for leaning towards AMD, not sure if its accurate though, which is why im here.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

At this point the two are relatively similar. AMD (previously ATI) used to have overheating issues, used more power for same performance and had software issues, but nowadays they're both good. As soon as next-gen kicks in, developers will adjust games for AMD users and Nvidia will be the one having driver issues.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Currently im torn between the 7950 and the 760. The AMD comes with some awesome games and both are roughly on par with each other. How much difference do you think having ports and using an AMD card is going to make and what card would you pick?

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

The difference probably won't be very noticeable, you can check current benchmarks of virtually identical cards from the two brands and see. If I recall correctly, the Dirt series ran smoother on Nvidia cards (3-5 fps more than on an identical AMD card), whilst Batman Arkham City ran smoother on AMD (about the same difference).

I also plan on upgrading soon, when I bring my old desktop PC back, which is still rocking an ancient Nvidia GT 9500. I'd definitely go with AMD, however I'll get a rebrand (Sapphire or Gigabyte), due to better cooling and faster speeds. I see you've done the same. I've noticed that when looking at similar cards, AMD is usually significantly cheaper and comes with games, so that's a bonus. All Nvidia has is PhysX, which probably won't be utilized as much anymore.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

I use AMD right now, and don't like the drivers. On Windows they are tolerable, but if you are planning on running *nix, then you should consider Nvidia more.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

I like the look of the Prodigy case and thought about it myself but ultimately didn't mainly because I realized that I had plenty of space for a regular sized PC. My only concerns about the Prodigy is lack of upgradeability and the size might mean it'll run hot or loud. Overall I like your build

I found a good tutorial video on how to put the Prodigy together back when I was deciding what to build. Here it is.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Saw that when I was looking up cases, very helpful!

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Deleted

This comment was deleted 2 years ago.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

You might want to consider the 760 for your GPU; it's a bit cheaper than the 7950 and 660 Ti, doesn't have the memory bandwidth problems of the 660 Ti, and is slightly more powerful than either in most situations.
With the money that you save by getting the 760, you can also change to a 3570K or a 4670K.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Wow, its not cheeper, roughly the same price, but the benchmarks are higher than both the 660ti and the 7950. I had not considered it earlier due to it being new, I just assumed it would be expensive.

Ill look up some reviews and such, cheers!

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Here's the benchmarks, the 7950 and the 760 appear to be roughly similar, a couple exceptions in either case here and there. So now my choice is between a 7950 and a 760.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Take a look at these specs. The 7950 will do better with higher res textures and more post-processing due to its higher memory bandwidth, but the 760 seems to be more powerful overall.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Cheers. I suppose it comes down to which one's price drops/goes on sale first for me then.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

I agree, I think spending an extra $50 on CPU for 3570K is worth it.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Change the memory from 1x8 gig to 2x4gig and get dual channel bandwidth, which is faster.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

I was unsure if I should go with dual channel or single and slot another 8gig stick in later. Supposedly there is little performance drop but I doubt ill ever need 16gigs of ram and could just save for an ssd instead.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Where are the monkeys?!

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Here I am!

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

That configuration seems nice to me. Also, thanks for the giveaway!

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Looks good overall, If I were you I'd go with the FX-8350 and a 760 but that's just personal preference.
Also don't forget to add a couple of fans cause things will get hot on a mini-itx case.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

The problem with the 8350 is that you simply don't need that many cores. Games will usually only use 2-4 of those, so performance ends up coming down to individual core power, which Intel delivers.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Problem with having a mini is your lack of upgrade room. For what you have there, it shouldn't be a problem (though I'd double check that the graphics card will fit), but if you want to add video capturing cards / more hard drives / more memory etc. etc. you'll eventually run into some problems. Also, if this is your first rig that you're putting together, then I'm going to assume you have no experience with cable management (which can be a bitch for newbies in a mini case). Cable management is pretty important for air flow, and since you're using a stock heat sink (another assumption) you're gonna need all the help you can get.

Save yourself the headache and get a mid-sized case. Especially for your first build. Once you get the hang of it, then look into something smaller, though you probably won't unless you frequently go to LAN parties with your desktop (or something).

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Might want to go with a "K" version of the i5 for the sake of flexibility. You may not be doing any OC'ing since cooling is rather difficult in one of those mini cases, but you'd have the option if your temps were low enough. The 3570K is 0.2GHz faster stock, plus has the OC capabilities, and is only £30 more.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

I don't really want to OC anything for my first build, but ill keep this in mind.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

I came for the monkeys. I cannot find any monkeys. I demand monkeys.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Monkeys, as requested.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Woot!

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Memory wise I'd look at cclonline.co.uk rather than Overclockers. I've had a bad experience with them where they sent me non working parts and then refused to replace or refund the order.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Get a SSD as a system drive, you'll thank me.
And a chimp

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Ill save for one after this build is complete. Is it a hassle to pop in later?

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Very easy to change it later on.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Your build seems to be missing something man.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Lemons, clearly.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

And bishes, i don't see no bishes!

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Closed 11 years ago by ND1Razor.