Dblock Posted April 24, 2012 Share Posted April 24, 2012 Hi Guys, needing some help. I've been out of the pc fold for along time. The last pc I built was a socket 754 amd athlon 64 3200+! So im needing a new PC for my office. It needs to be fast and play HD video smoothly. Decent on power too as it will be on for long periods of time. I was looking at the new AMD APU's and they dont seem as fast as intel's for processing. I was looking at either an Intel i3 2100 or 2105 (sandy bridge). Do they seem good benchmarks say they are good. But can their intergrated graphics play HD video off youtube or a disk smoothly? I have an ati 5450 and that seems to manage. I was going to match that up with a H or Z series mobo with some 1600mhz ram. The last system I built was ddr400 with cl2 now its cl10. If they cant play video smoothly I can get a cheap gfx like the 5450, but if I dont have to then it saves me money as I wont be gaming at work. Thanks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
glrnet Posted April 24, 2012 Share Posted April 24, 2012 I'm sure SMD will assist when he finishes his nightshift, Bullet Magnet will be along shortly, no doubt Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spursmaddave Posted April 24, 2012 Share Posted April 24, 2012 I would personally start with an i5 2500, not that much dearer than an i3 but a good bit better, an i& would be awesome but probably a bit OTT for your uses. Then basically you know the score, as good a motherboard as you can afford, as much ram, and as good a graphics car.... I would suggest going to a website that make us the system for you, doesn't cost you much more and gives you piece of mind Oh and Graham I am working (honest I am) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zugara Posted April 24, 2012 Share Posted April 24, 2012 i7 as I have on my lappy, fast as fook.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
glrnet Posted April 24, 2012 Share Posted April 24, 2012 And as if by magic, Boom!! Yeah yeah Dave I would personally start with an i5 2500, not that much dearer than an i3 but a good bit better, an i& would be awesome but probably a bit OTT for your uses. Then basically you know the score, as good a motherboard as you can afford, as much ram, and as good a graphics car.... I would suggest going to a website that make us the system for you, doesn't cost you much more and gives you piece of mind Oh and Graham I am working (honest I am) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spursmaddave Posted April 24, 2012 Share Posted April 24, 2012 You need to obviously build your new PC round what chip you want / can afford / need and work from there. i7 = fast as fook (as said so well by Zug) i5 = good price and still rapid i3 = cheaper and you will wish you had got an i5.... One thing I can recommend is a solid state HD, they are not too expensive now if you get a 64GB one to run windows and your most frequent apps on and a large standard HD for everything else. There are lenty of horror stories about the earlier SSD's being crap and they were but now they are much much better. My PC with Windows 7 Ultimate boots up from cold in just over 20 seconds Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HaydnH Posted April 24, 2012 Share Posted April 24, 2012 Keep your old PC and install Linux, it'll seem like something from the future speed wise. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Leeroy Posted April 24, 2012 Share Posted April 24, 2012 Am I right in thinking that there are sub-options of each processor? Is it possible for a high spec i5 to be better than a crap i7? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spursmaddave Posted April 24, 2012 Share Posted April 24, 2012 Am I right in thinking that there are sub-options of each processor? Is it possible for a high spec i5 to be better than a crap i7? Not too far off no, all depends on the rest of the setup too, an i7 on a cheapo motherboard with cheapo memory would probably struggle to beat a top spec i5 on a good motherboard with good memory Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beavis Posted April 24, 2012 Share Posted April 24, 2012 Good memory is cheap enough anyway, though i only paid £35 for this a couple of months back so got 16gig of the stuff. Ideal for an i5/i7 set up. http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showprodu ... =MY-094-KS Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spursmaddave Posted April 24, 2012 Share Posted April 24, 2012 Good memory is cheap enough anyway, though i only paid £35 for this a couple of months back so got 16gig of the stuff. Ideal for an i5/i7 set up. http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showprodu ... =MY-094-KS Bargain Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
simon da silva Posted April 24, 2012 Share Posted April 24, 2012 mate you should wait one week before ordering. 3th Gen Intel processors will hit the market from 29 of april, and trust me.. they will ROCK, and the price will be the same as the current cpus So the I5-2500 and the I7-2600 will be replaced in one week.. The new cpus are called Ivy bridge compared to the "old" Sandy bridge Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bakes100 Posted April 24, 2012 Share Posted April 24, 2012 Have a look on cpu benchmark and set it to the value vs performance option. some of them you find a huge price increase for minimal performance gain. I'm currently looking to build a 3d CAD and rendering machine and some of the high end i7's are terrific value compared to xeons. Also choose your m'board carefully as some are designed mainly for overclockers so most of the features your paying extra for may be wasted. Try a website such as pcspecialist and spec a machine then build up the same machine in a basket on scan or ebuyer and the difference will not be much. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dblock Posted April 24, 2012 Author Share Posted April 24, 2012 You need to obviously build your new PC round what chip you want / can afford / need and work from there. i7 = fast as fook (as said so well by Zug) i5 = good price and still rapid i3 = cheaper and you will wish you had got an i5.... One thing I can recommend is a solid state HD, they are not too expensive now if you get a 64GB one to run windows and your most frequent apps on and a large standard HD for everything else. There are lenty of horror stories about the earlier SSD's being crap and they were but now they are much much better. My PC with Windows 7 Ultimate boots up from cold in just over 20 seconds an i5 is to much for the office pc its nearly double. For a home pc I would get one but with the pennies Im saving the idea was to get a SSD and a bigger hdd. Do all SSD's have trim? Whats a good read and write speed? the ocz vertex Read 185MB/s Write 90MB/s but OCZ 60GB Agility 3 "claims" - Read 525MB/s Write 475MB/s. I'd prefer to build it myself as it pretty easy. I just hate using TIM if you still get it these days. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dblock Posted April 24, 2012 Author Share Posted April 24, 2012 Have a look on cpu benchmark and set it to the value vs performance option. some of them you find a huge price increase for minimal performance gain. I'm currently looking to build a 3d CAD and rendering machine and some of the high end i7's are terrific value compared to xeons. Also choose your m'board carefully as some are designed mainly for overclockers so most of the features your paying extra for may be wasted. Try a website such as pcspecialist and spec a machine then build up the same machine in a basket on scan or ebuyer and the difference will not be much. The mobo im looking at has sata 3 and the likes on it. Its a h61. Overclocking doesnt seem to be very good as the multiplyer is locked. What FSB are these things running these days? Will the onboard graphics be able to play hd video smoothly though? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spursmaddave Posted April 25, 2012 Share Posted April 25, 2012 You need to obviously build your new PC round what chip you want / can afford / need and work from there. i7 = fast as fook (as said so well by Zug) i5 = good price and still rapid i3 = cheaper and you will wish you had got an i5.... One thing I can recommend is a solid state HD, they are not too expensive now if you get a 64GB one to run windows and your most frequent apps on and a large standard HD for everything else. There are lenty of horror stories about the earlier SSD's being crap and they were but now they are much much better. My PC with Windows 7 Ultimate boots up from cold in just over 20 seconds an i5 is to much for the office pc its nearly double. For a home pc I would get one but with the pennies Im saving the idea was to get a SSD and a bigger hdd. Do all SSD's have trim? Whats a good read and write speed? the ocz vertex Read 185MB/s Write 90MB/s but OCZ 60GB Agility 3 "claims" - Read 525MB/s Write 475MB/s. I'd prefer to build it myself as it pretty easy. I just hate using TIM if you still get it these days. i3 will do the job then I guess if it is just business orientated. I would personally avoid OCZ SSD's, they had horrendous problems and poor customer support, just google it and you will see.... ok almost all SSD suppliers had problems with the original ones but I would avoid OCZ like the plague.... I got a crucial one and it has been great, just make sure it is SATA III and not SATA II as that makes a big difference, and that your motherboard supports SATA III obviously and you are good to go with super fast data transfer.... I couldn't go back now I am so used to loading up applications in an instant and no loading times in games etc. It even loads iTunes in about 10 seconds which considering it has over 300GB of music in it is no mean feat Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dblock Posted April 25, 2012 Author Share Posted April 25, 2012 You need to obviously build your new PC round what chip you want / can afford / need and work from there. i7 = fast as fook (as said so well by Zug) i5 = good price and still rapid i3 = cheaper and you will wish you had got an i5.... One thing I can recommend is a solid state HD, they are not too expensive now if you get a 64GB one to run windows and your most frequent apps on and a large standard HD for everything else. There are lenty of horror stories about the earlier SSD's being crap and they were but now they are much much better. My PC with Windows 7 Ultimate boots up from cold in just over 20 seconds an i5 is to much for the office pc its nearly double. For a home pc I would get one but with the pennies Im saving the idea was to get a SSD and a bigger hdd. Do all SSD's have trim? Whats a good read and write speed? the ocz vertex Read 185MB/s Write 90MB/s but OCZ 60GB Agility 3 "claims" - Read 525MB/s Write 475MB/s. I'd prefer to build it myself as it pretty easy. I just hate using TIM if you still get it these days. i3 will do the job then I guess if it is just business orientated. I would personally avoid OCZ SSD's, they had horrendous problems and poor customer support, just google it and you will see.... ok almost all SSD suppliers had problems with the original ones but I would avoid OCZ like the plague.... I got a crucial one and it has been great, just make sure it is SATA III and not SATA II as that makes a big difference, and that your motherboard supports SATA III obviously and you are good to go with super fast data transfer.... I couldn't go back now I am so used to loading up applications in an instant and no loading times in games etc. It even loads iTunes in about 10 seconds which considering it has over 300GB of music in it is no mean feat Yeah just read about them. The negative reviews where at the bottom. I ordered a crucial m4. The ocz speeds are mad but alot of people say they crash alot. I think its something to do with the sandforce controller. I love speccing up pc's though. Came in at £250 which I'm super happy about. I already have a case. Will the onboard graphics handle hd video? Thanks again Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beavis Posted April 25, 2012 Share Posted April 25, 2012 You cant go wrong with a Crucial M4. Make sure you keep up with their regular firmware updates though, great strides have been made since the 002 firmware. http://www.crucial.com/support/firmware.aspx Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bakes100 Posted April 25, 2012 Share Posted April 25, 2012 My i3 2.4 ghz laptop handles HD fine with the onboard intel GPU Also note if your planning on using the Intel HD CPU graphics core the i3 2105 and i3 2125 both use the better HD 3000 graphics core whereas the others use HD 2000. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sasha@lazytrips Posted April 25, 2012 Share Posted April 25, 2012 As said above all depends on how much performance you want. Over the last year, the undeniable winner in performance/cost ratio terms is the i5 2500k. Also with the recent announcements regarding Ivy Bridge, Sandy Bridge boards and processors are likely to drop in price sharply, so if I were you I'd get myself a decent Asus board, stick the 2500k onto it, buy a few RAM sticks which don't cost anything these days and Bob's your uncle (all of the above are around £350 for extremely good performance + reliability) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BulletMagnet Posted April 25, 2012 Share Posted April 25, 2012 I have the i5 2500 and am well pleased with it, best bang for buck imo. I was eyeing up the base level i7 but couldn't justify spending up to an additional £100 for little gain. This was fitted onto a Asus Sabertooth P67 mobo and am running 16GB Corsair Vengeance RAM. Still running an older GTX 470 gfx card from EVGA, but it is the HydroCopper version which comes with a waterblock already fitted. My CPU under load stays a cool 35C and the GFX doesn't see any temps past 40C when pushed Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sasha@lazytrips Posted April 25, 2012 Share Posted April 25, 2012 I have the i5 2500 and am well pleased with it, best bang for buck imo. I was eyeing up the base level i7 but couldn't justify spending up to an additional £100 for little gain. This was fitted onto a Asus Sabertooth P67 mobo and am running 16GB Corsair Vengeance RAM. Still running an older GTX 470 gfx card from EVGA, but it is the HydroCopper version which comes with a waterblock already fitted. My CPU under load stays a cool 35C and the GFX doesn't see any temps past 40C when pushed I've got the i7 2600k running on a very cool 4k Ghz, almost identical mobo + GTX 570 waiting for a sibling to drop in price before doubling up on them Unless things change dramatically, I can't see myself ever buying a ready-made computer again. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spursmaddave Posted April 25, 2012 Share Posted April 25, 2012 I have the i5 2500 and am well pleased with it, best bang for buck imo. I was eyeing up the base level i7 but couldn't justify spending up to an additional £100 for little gain. This was fitted onto a Asus Sabertooth P67 mobo and am running 16GB Corsair Vengeance RAM. Still running an older GTX 470 gfx card from EVGA, but it is the HydroCopper version which comes with a waterblock already fitted. My CPU under load stays a cool 35C and the GFX doesn't see any temps past 40C when pushed Yeah I was in the same boat, you always pay a premium for top end, and a lot of the time is isn't justified, that's why I got an i5 2500 too Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sasha@lazytrips Posted April 25, 2012 Share Posted April 25, 2012 Yeah I was in the same boat, you always pay a premium for top end, and a lot of the time is isn't justified, that's why I got an i5 2500 too I was sitting on the fence between the two, but the '8' cores swung it for me in terms of certain graphics & video benefits + the overclocking potential. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spursmaddave Posted April 25, 2012 Share Posted April 25, 2012 Yeah I was in the same boat, you always pay a premium for top end, and a lot of the time is isn't justified, that's why I got an i5 2500 too I was sitting on the fence between the two, but the '8' cores swung it for me in terms of certain graphics & video benefits + the overclocking potential. Yeah I wouldn't say for a second that you were wrong, I very nearly did too but at the end of the day I don't use my PC for anything too taxing anymore so it just would have been a bit of a waste really... It is nice knowing you have the best there is but sometimes you have to be realistic. Last month I decided I was fed up with a heavy noise hot laptop on my lap on the sofa so bought a tablet. Without a doubt the best tablet out there is an iPad3, I only wanted wifi but with a decent amount of memory and what I wanted was £500.... so I got an Android tablet for half that and I am more than happy. It does everything I want it to at the end of the day but it isn't an iPad, much in the same way my Zed isn't a Ferrari Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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