aargh computer died - please help me replace it!

[Karklos]

My computer has died (6 year old dell dimension 4700). Solid amber light, fan whirs at high speed, but nothing is going on with the computer, the indicator lights on the back are all dead. From what I have read it seems it is either the PSU or Motherboard.

I was suggested to try removing and re-installing any cards. I did this and after I re-installed the graphics card the computer worked. I then added back the network card and the computer played dead again. Logically removing the network card would make things work again? Wrong! I haven’t been able to get it working since.

Something similar happened a few weeks ago. That time I opened it up to find it was incredibly filthy inside, the heat sink was clogged up with and there was literally handfulls of dust. I cleaned it up really good, I actually used a hoover, which I know is a really no-no due to static damage, but it was so filthy I couldn’t see any other way (besides it was dead at the time). The good thing about this was that I got a chance to back up my documents.

So in conclusion I think the computer has come to a creaking death, probably due to years of non-cleaning neglect! I would welcome any suggestions, but I am not holding out much hope that it is recoverable.
So now to the fun part – buying a new computer! I actually was planning to replace the dell this year, so the “death” has just brought my plans forward. I think I am going to try building my own and would welcome some suggestions.

I already have the peripherals – e.g mouse/keyboard, speakers, monitor

Budget – roughly £1000 – don’t mind if it is a bit more, would be happy to spend less

Requirements:

I want to be able to play current releases (e.g empire and napoleon) on max settings – let me know if this is an unreasonable expectation.

Future proofing - I want this to be decent when first built and would like it to last- therefore I would like to be able to gradually upgrade the PC when necessary, with ram, graphics cards, and possibly replace the cpu – and by doing so I would like to avoid necessitating buying a complete new PC for some time.

I would like the finished product to be reasonably quiet – what is the best way to achieve this? Buying a decent case?

My thoughts:

Cpu- Intel i7 930i – I am not planning to over-clock initially but was thinking I could do in a year or two if I was struggling to handle newer game releases – is that a reasonable approach?

Motherboard-some kind of x58 1366 motherboard is necessary – I would like it to be able to support crossfire, support latest technology (e.g usb 3.0, hex core cpu's etc), and to be reasonably sturdy – i.e not burn out if I try to overclock the system at a later point. Please suggest a good one!

Graphics - Radeon HD 5770 – with the view that I could buy another one in a year or two to set up crossfire. For crossfire is it necessary that the two cards used are identical?

Please suggest a case – ideally not too high circa 40cm

I would welcome suggestions on Ram, hard drive, blue ray/dvd etc

Final question – I wouldn’t mind being able to access the files on my old hard drive – will this be possible?

[Wheelchair]

Jesus christ, roughly £1000? Sir, You can build a VERY nice rig for that.

I'll list some parts you can get. £1000 equals about $1550 Canadian.

CASE: NZXT Tempest EVO - REALLY beautiful case, lot's of air cooling and painted black interior, also many wire management holes.

MOBO: Gigabyte UD3R Crossfire - Beautiful Mobo, I own one myself! GREAT for crossfire due to both PCI lanes being 16X

CPU: Intel i7 930 2.66 Quad - I own the i7 920, what a great CPU... When playing WoW my CPU usage is only at 5% and when playing ETW my CPU usage sits at around 21%~ sometimes less. Right when I got my 920 I overclocked it right to 4.0GHZ without a problem and I think the 930's overclock just as well or better.

GPU: Powercolor 5870 1GB DX11 GPU - I don't really trust Powercolor but they have the cheapest 5870, you could probably go with another brand such as XFX or Asus.

RAM: 6GB 1333mhz OCZ RAM - Again, cheaping out to save some money, the 1600Mhz ram is $50 more, and really I don't think it justifies the cost seeing as you'll get no gaming FPS increase between the speeds.

PSU: Antec Quattro 850W Modular PSU - I have this PSU myself and it's one of my favorite parts of my PC, It works great and has many leads and it's modular, making for great cable managment.

HDD: 1TB 64MB Cache 3.4ms HDD - Not sure if you need 1TB of storage but this is great! It's quite fast too. If you don't need 1TB of space then I suggest a WD Cavier Black 640GB

CPU HSF: Corsair H50 CPU Watercooler - Watercooling has never been easier with the new H50 watercooler (end salesmen voice). In all seriousness this cooler is equal to all the highend air coolers, and it's pretty darn cheap!

Total Price, $1550 Canadian, put those parts together and the total should be around £1000

Now, don't go out and buy this. This is just a quick build I did in 5 minutes, It can be refined by other members on here and refined by yourself to meet your needs. Theres alot you can change but this PC would run ETW at around 80+ FPS on campaign map and always above 40 fps in battles with sizable armies (6000+) with maxed settings. I'm highly suggesting you stay away from crossfire... I've been there, you'll just run into lots of problems with Multi-GPU setups... Why bother when you can just get 1 powerful card and avoid those problems?

If you want to save some money, You can get a lower wattage PSU, but really you said you wanted futureproof and honestly the PSU is the only thing in a PC that you can futureproof. Also if you wanted to save more money I'd suggest going the Phenom II 965 route, That's a GREAT line of Cpu's that overclock well and actually perform equal to i7's in terms of games. CPU's are over-focused on for gaming, the GPU is the most important part, you just need to get over the bottleneck that CPU's have. If you go the AMD route you'll save around £100

I wouldn’t mind being able to access the files on my old hard drive – will this be possible?

Easily! just put it in when your building the machine and you should be able to access them!

Also, if you go to my signature theres a link to my youtube channel which I made videos on how to build a computer step by step

[Karklos]

Easily! just put it in when your building the machine and you should be able to access them!

ok so my old drive has xp installed, and about 20gb of space left (i am guessing).

I was planning to buy a new drive - 1tb as you suggested, I would also like to install windows 7.

how would this all work?

would it be possible to designate my new hard drive as the primary HD?

[Karklos]

Thanks for your suggestions wheelchair. The case you suggested however looks a bit too high. It needs to be a short as possible to keep the missus happy! For the same reasons it would ideally be as discreet as possible e.g no cutaway fe flashing lights etc.

[Roman_Man#3]

The Western Digital Greens are not meant for OS drives, its low RPM, and while they may be fast, they just won't cut it as a boot drive. You may want to check out the Lancool PC-K56 or 58 as a case.

[Karklos]

What do you suggest as a boot drive then? I am not sure I can afford an ssd.

[mrmouth]

Western Digital doesn't actually list the speed of the Caviar green, unless I am missing it. Some reviews have listed it as 5400 RPM, and that they got that from WD. So I believe the back story is that people classed it as such, but it does some unique things that actually put it close to average 7200 RPM performance.

So long story short, best to go with one of the faster 7200 RPM drives as an OS drive, maybe 150-250GB (plenty of space for games), and something like a 1TB for storage, if you have a lot of music, pics, etc. Although just for comparison's sake, I have a 250GB storage drive and I find it to be plenty. It is near full, but it forces me to go through and purge things I dont need.

You can go with one large drive, but going with two means you always have a backup, and a storage drive can be shutdown through windows during extended gaming sessions to save power and wear. Personal preference I guess. But when prices were still good, you could grab a 250GB OS drive and a 1TB for $100. So it just made sense then.

[Freddie]

I think you'll find the Core i7 930 is clocked at 2.8ghz not 2.66 as found on the 920.

Most mid sized tower cases are going to be 45cm to 50cm high so if you can't cope with that you will have to stick to mini cases which AREN'T suitable for multiple video card setup configurations. I would suggest cases like the ANTEC MINI P180 or the Lian Li PC-A05NB (the Lian Li is aluminium so it's nice and light, Lian Li make excellent cases).

I also wouldn't recommend the hard drive Wheelchair has pointed out, it's the slowest hard drive in the western digital range and is designed for low power usage hence the 'Green' branding. Your spending a £1K so you might as well get the best which is the Samsung Spinpoint F3 1Tb, Samsung have been dominating the 7200 RPM sector for years now with their Spinpoint drives and this is the latest one and beats out all of it's competitors.

As for a video card a HD5770 1gb is a good buy at the moment, quiet, fast and doesn't draw that much in the way of power, if you have a monitor that has a maximum resolution of 1920x1080 this card will keep you going for a good couple of years to come. It's DX11 performance isn't to hot though in which case you might want to consider the HD5850 1Tb which is the second fastest single GPU card on the market.

If you want a quiet PC the trick is getting the right fans, the case fans on my Lian Li PC50R are very good but I'm not sure if they are the same ones you get with the Li Lian above, the description says ball bearing so they should be good. The cooler on the video card aren't audioable at idle or at load using PWM, the CPU fan depends on what you CPU cooler you get.

[Karklos]

i guess i am going to have to accept 45cm in hight

[Karklos]

Any thoughts on the Lian Li PC-9B?

edit- sod that i have read some terrible reviews of this case now.

[Freddie]

If you want to go Midi then you can't wrong with the Antec Three Hundred but if you want something a little less boring the Lancool Dragon-Lord PC-K62 might be up your street.

[Karklos]

yes i have had a look at the lancools and the antec 300, both seem good options.

i am considering the lian li pc50 as well - how do you find it freddie?

low noise levels is a real priority as this pc is likely to end up in my bedroom.

[Freddie]

yes i have had a look at the lancools and the antec 300, both seem good options.

i am considering the lian li pc50 as well - how do you find it freddie?

low noise levels is a real priority as this pc is likely to end up in my bedroom.

What first struck me with the PC50R was just how light it was compared to older steel cases I had I could lift this think up (empty) with just my middle finger. The build quality is excellent, the styling might be considered sutle by some or boring if you like lots of windows and led fans etc, the stock fans are really good I was a bit worried at first as the case didn't have a fan controller but the stock fans work like a charm and I can't hear them above my CPU fan (which I might replace with a Noctua 120mm in the near future) but I don't have all the fans plugged in.

The cable routing is excellent, and if you have a modular PSU you should find it a doddle, dust is a big problem for computers and the PC50 is loaded with dust filters at the bottom to protect the PSU and the front 5.23" brackets are all individual dust filters. My only complaints with the case is the side panel doesn't come on/off as easily as my previous case it may require a couple of attempts to get flush to side, also the case is a lot of money for what it is, the Lancool (made by Lain Li) have all the same features as my one but are made from steel and plastic not aluminium.

[Karklos]

yes it is expensive! i am pricing up the system at the moment and i will look how much i have left for the case at the end.

[Karklos]

Here the system I am considering at the moment:

Intel Core i7 930 2.80GHz (Bloomfield) (Socket LGA1366) - OEM + Assassin's Creed II Game

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showpr...=6&subcat=1272

-£229

(is they any difference between this version labeled as OEM and the ‘regular’ version which is £10 more?)

Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD3R Intel X58 (Socket 1366) DDR3 Motherboard

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showpr...odid=MB-235-GI

- £152

Either 5770 ~ £130
0r 5850 -£225

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showpr...=56&subcat=411

(There are a lot of different versions of each card – are they exactly the same if not what is the difference, and why would someone pay more for the same card?)

6GB (3x2GB) Corsair XMS3 DDR3 PC3-12800 (1600), 240 Pin, Non-ECC Unbuffered, CAS 9-9-9-24

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/6GB-(...d-CAS-9-9-9-24

£128

(there seem to be a lot of memory manufacturers, who is considered reliable/unreliable or should I just choose based on low price?)

Samsung SpinPoint F3 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (HD103SJ) [HD103SJ]

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showpr...odid=HD-082-SA

-£65

Intel X25-M Mainstream 80GB 2.5" SATA-II Solid State Hard Drive

- £189

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showpr...odid=HD-004-IN

Antec TruePower New Modular 650W Power Supply

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showpr...odid=CA-117-AN

-£83

would this PSU be good enough for the system? Why might it be worth paying slightly more for e.g a 750w?

The total (including the 5850 rather than the 5770) = £1065
Still have to add the case, I am choosing between the lian li pc50 and the antec 300 based on price, and deciding how much I want to stretch above £1000.
If I have to drop some more off the cost, I could either drop the SSD or drop from the 5850 to the 5770, what would you suggest?

Have i missed anything out here? do i ned any specialist cooling equipment other than the case fans if i am not immediately planning to overclock?

[Karklos]

anyone?