Building a new PC, not sure if I've got the best deal though

Right, well as the title suggests I'm about to commence building a new PC, that with minimal upgrades over the next 4/5 years should run FM with ease. I can overclock myself, but these components are already pre-overclocked they just need to be put together apparently saving me just short of £200 (was never going to pay that much for assembly when its a 15 minute job).

So onto the spec:

Intel i5 750 2.66Ghz (overclocked to 4Ghz) | £159.99

Patriot Sector 5 Viper II 2x 2GB 1600Mhz (overclocked to 2000Mhz, comes with RAM heat sinks too) | £76.99

Corsair H50-1 water cooling | £63.99

7200 RPM, 500 GB HDD | £39.99

Sapphire ATI Radeon HD5850 1024MB Gfx Card | £215.99

With a case, motherboard, PSU, dvd drive and the other basics, it comes to £872 (+ there will be another £20 - £30 on case fans). All of its compatible, as its a pre-tested, fully functioning build in terms of motherboard, processor, RAM etc just as I said without the daft assembly charge.

Not quite sure I've got the best deal though, if I can make enough savings then I plan on getting a solid state HDD, so if anyone knows of any places that they think may do parts like this cheaper, I would gladly look it up.

Just so people know, this isn't purely for FM, an HD5850 is a bit overkill for 3d match engine lol. If they add in players starting to break down in tears at the end of a bad season, I will be able to see it though

Cool, whenever i look at www.aria.co.uk they normally have some good deals and their prices are quite good anyway you could try there maybe? Although you'd have to overclock them yourself...

The i5 core there is the same and cheaper, and as I said I can overclock myself just fine, and get great performance with all the cooling extras I'll have (case supports 6x 120mm fans, so I can get a good in-out system there) the SSD's on there look not too badly priced compared to where I've currently been looking. My money is all saved up so, its being ordered next week so I'm scouring forums I use for people knowledgable about it all lol.

i always would have like to know how to build your own pc etc.. sounds great like

Not that I think it will matter for the next 4 years or so, remember some I5's are Dualcore and some are Quadcore.

Overclocked to 4ghz maybe even a bit further (fair few people are talking about having got that i5 model to 4.8ghz with good load temperatures) it should easily be ample for FM, it is largely aimed at being a good base which can just have a bit more RAM slotted in around 2 years from now when more programs are operating on a 64 bit level that I'm likely to use.

i5's and i7's aren't my speciality I've done a lot of reading but obviously still largely going on what other people say. If I can make some savings as I said, an SSD and i7 will probably be the way I go, my HDD is only £40 with the view of getting an SSD in 12 months or so if I can't afford one now.

i always would have like to know how to build your own pc etc.. sounds great like

Yeah me too, it would be pretty immense! Playing on a 'super computer' and knowing that you assembled it etc!!!

Why on earth do you need to overclock and have water cooling to play football manager?

Do you even realise how marginal the difference is? If you were trying to run a game like Crysis then yes, but football manager...?

Do yourself a favour and buy a more modest system (which will be perfectly adequate) and put the money you save towards your next system like a sensible person would do.

It's not that hard, it was part of the syllabus at school on my GNVQ in IT, so that was when I first got to tinker around with no ill-consequences regardless of what happened lol. The only slightly concerning thing is making use of a watercooler for the first time, fortunately the corsair h50 is water tight and all set-up beforehand, so its a much lessened risk lol.

you need a better processor if you want it to last for more than 4 years

you need a better processor if you want it to last for more than 4 years

That is not sensible. You could save half the money and use it to upgrade to a better system in 2-3 years and it would cost you less.

Any system that is 4 years old is going to be obsolete no matter how much money you throw at it.

I've just bought a DELL INSPIRON Quad Core with 6 GIG of RAM and it seems well up to the task of handling Football Manager now. Comes handy with a 23 inch monitor too.

Why on earth do you need to overclock and have water cooling to play football manager?

Do you even realise how marginal the difference is? If you were trying to run a game like Crysis then yes, but football manager...?

Do yourself a favour and buy a more modest system (which will be perfectly adequate) and put the money you save towards your next system like a sensible person would do.

Did you read my first post at all? First of all I want a solid system for 4 - 5 years, that will average out at a cost of currently £180 or so a year, which is a fairly good investment considering what kind of pc £180 would buy right now. Also, as I alluded to at the end of my post, I'm getting a HD5850 Gfx card, which is over £200 do you really think that is purely for FM's 3d match engine?

There are a lot of people on here who know about PC's, and it does relate to FM in that FM will be played on this system. There will be a great many other games played on this, mainly in the vein of RPG's hence the overclocking but FM is RAM & processor intensive, and therefore why I'm seeking to pick the brains of those who may have recently built/bought new PC's.

Even a 'modest' PC which wouldn't be at its capacity upgrade wise in 12 - 24 months time would cost £600-£700 most likely. Yes I could get a system for £300 - £400 that would run FM10 perfectly fine and well on the average set-up. If I skimped on a graphics card and went with the built in motherboard option, possibly less than £300.

But then, would it run FM11 very well? My dads PC fairly comfortably blitzed FM09, however, it struggles with FM10 on a small database and often has the illusion its crashed when processing. Same with my grandfather, and both have struggled to get into FM10 this year because the computers they bought only 2 years ago now struggle.

Yes you can always purchase a cheaper option that works now, but a cheap system now certainly wouldn't be viable in 5 years time.

Did you read my first post at all? First of all I want a solid system for 4 - 5 years, that will average out at a cost of currently £180 or so a year, which is a fairly good investment considering what kind of pc £180 would buy right now. Also, as I alluded to at the end of my post, I'm getting a HD5850 Gfx card, which is over £200 do you really think that is purely for FM's 3d match engine?

There are a lot of people on here who know about PC's, and it does relate to FM in that FM will be played on this system. There will be a great many other games played on this, mainly in the vein of RPG's hence the overclocking but FM is RAM & processor intensive, and therefore why I'm seeking to pick the brains of those who may have recently built/bought new PC's.

Even a 'modest' PC which wouldn't be at its capacity upgrade wise in 12 - 24 months time would cost £600-£700 most likely. Yes I could get a system for £300 - £400 that would run FM10 perfectly fine and well on the average set-up. If I skimped on a graphics card and went with the built in motherboard option, possibly less than £300.

But then, would it run FM11 very well? My dads PC fairly comfortably blitzed FM09, however, it struggles with FM10 on a small database and often has the illusion its crashed when processing. Same with my grandfather, and both have struggled to get into FM10 this year because the computers they bought only 2 years ago now struggle.

Yes you can always purchase a cheaper option that works now, but a cheap system now certainly wouldn't be viable in 5 years time.

Yes, I read it and understand what you are saying.

I was merely suggesting that the sensible option is to spend less and upgrade more regularly. It is a far better option. Buying a PC to last for 4-5 years is not a great idea when you consider how quickly the technology moves.

Well as it stands, the PC will be at 25% RAM capacity, as much as software advances, FM probably won't go 64bit for 2 - 3 years at least, maybe more because as it stands they'd cut off a huge portion of the customer base. That is echoed around most software at the moment, the idea is that this will allow for another 4GB of RAM in 18 months/2 years time which should do for a while longer, DDR3 RAM will then be cheaper than buying it now, a solid state HDD is a planned upgrade in the future and maybe a new processor after 3/4 years.

Yes it will be rendered 'obsolete' fairly quickly, but a lot of software is unlikely to go exclusively 64 bit for a good while yet because far too many retailers are still charging over the odds for 32 bit systems so people aren't moving on as quickly as people like us FM players need them to lol.

Many things will change before 4 years are over. Your RAM, hard drive, graphics card and CPU will all be obsolete well before your expectations.

Do as you will, I have nothing more to say on the matter other than to hope you enjoy your system.

That is not sensible. You could save half the money and use it to upgrade to a better system in 2-3 years and it would cost you less.

Any system that is 4 years old is going to be obsolete no matter how much money you throw at it.

?? how can you take as an only aspect the years of the system? is it the same an i5 that is 4 years old and an i7 that is 4 years old?

Yes it is.

Take a look at 4 year old CPUs. Even the exorbitantly priced CPU from 4 years ago is as obsolete as the 4 year old cheaper models by today's standard. It will be exactly the same in 4 years time.

About 6 years ago I got a dual core, 1.8ghz processor its not great but its still usable now for most things. The only reason that PC is now unfunctional is because it died due to wear and tear in the end, but it still ran FM pretty well with the limit for 32bit RAM inside, and a semi-decent gfx card worked fine with the 3d match engine. It cost £700 back then, and wasn't top of the line, but they do last if you know what you're doing.

About 6 years ago I got a dual core, 1.8ghz processor its not great but its still usable now for most things. The only reason that PC is now unfunctional is because it died due to wear and tear in the end, but it still ran FM pretty well with the limit for 32bit RAM inside, and a semi-decent gfx card worked fine with the 3d match engine. It cost £700 back then, and wasn't top of the line, but they do last if you know what you're doing.

Yes but that's still obsolete.

The point is if you wanted a CPU with the the most extreme fastest speed that you could get 6 years ago, you're not going to go out and buy a 6 year old CPU for £1000+ because today you will get a more powerful CPU for a fraction of that price in a cheap laptop.

Yea its obsolete, but anything inside 6 months is technically obsolete the point is it will have a good life span of 4 - 7 years and even then will probably be stripped down and used to upgrade other computers meaning some parts as long as they last will see 10 years use because I will upgrade, but family who just want a pc for web browsing etc won't need to really.

I have the money to make sure for the next 3 versions at least I'd say that I have a very good system capable of running a large database, which for me makes the game more enjoyable. It also provides a good platform for games like Dragonage, for the near future as well. The way it pans out at the moment is £900 spent now, and £100 for upgrades over the next 5/6 years will give me a good solid PC still.

Two of the most commonly overlooked bottlenecks in a system are the motherboard and HDD. The motherboard here isn't even listed, and the HDD is both slow and large. The ram doesn't look all that impressive either.

I would definately be concerned about that HDD though. Spending £400 on CPU + GPU and £40 on the HDD is quite a poor choice.

I don't see why you can't save some cash on the GPU, as with that CPU and RAM and HDD it is going to be sorely limited, and it is by far the easiest to upgrade and very often the quickest to drop in price.

Well 7200RPM is a decent speed, and as said the plan is to get a smallish SSD drive around 80GB or so for the OS and commonly used programs. The Motherboard is pretty decent, it isn't listed because its not necessary. The current HDD is a temporary fix, and will be shifted to storage eventually. The motherboard is fully i7 compatible, 3 RAM slots, and very good to the point where I'm fairly certain I won't find another just as good for around £180.

The only step up from 7200RPM is 10000 I think, which price to increase in performance isn't worth it. The graphics card will be heavily used, not by FM but by other games so I need a pretty good one. Whilst 4GB isn't a huge amount, its at 1600Mhz clockspeed by default, and is overclocked to 2000Mhz.

They reach those quoted @GHz ratings, but OC'ing is not just plug and play. LC'ing needs needs to have an overall knowlege of things before you consider that. Build the Rig first but by all means cherry pick parts that will Overclock well and has stabillity. Have it in reserve for after the burn in. If that is what you intend!

Yea, as I said I'm generally just looking around for better places to potentially buy from at the moment. Processors are cheaper on Aria.co.uk than where I was going to buy from, so depending on delivery, my i5 or i7 core (undecided on which as of yet) may be coming from there, and then I'll overclock it myself.

santy is right tbh..

its true.. in times past processors would develop and quickly become obsolete ... but tbh processors can easily last 3-4 years no problem... and that i5 is easily going to be perfectly viable for the next few years...

in truth santy.. thats a solid build... get your MoBo right and you'll have a great base for upgrading in the future....

be careful with the water cooling though.. they can degrade superquick with heavy use.. id also consider swapping your graphics card out for a compatible crossfire/sli config... well worth it and you can get a huge boost for your buck with a very cheap second card (which is always upgradable later on)

this system would rip through fm btw

hmm just seen this actually... looks perfect for my mrs new pc..

http://www.aria.co.uk/Systems/Gaming+Range/Asgard/Gladiator+Asgard+Intel+I5+Quad+Core+OC+4.00GHz+Gaming+PC+?productId=39882

The corsair is very solid and relatively cheap (£60ish) which would mean should it degrade and no longer be useful it can be easily replaced, and because of their boasts about how safe it is its a product fault if it leaks and can still be claimed on for insurance providing you don't tamper with it which you would have to be silly to do in truth lol.

I have been looking into that, but a few friends have said 2 gfx cards running together can be a pain to get up and running and in some cases is more hassle than its worth. I will look into it though.

Be warned though that there are very few games that support SLI and even less that can actually get it to work right. IMHO, the GPU area at the moment is one where more is not Necessarily good. Bottleknecking can be rife on SLI. Personally I would reccomend a X2 on one card.

The 5850 will do pretty much everything I need it to my old PC has an nVidia gfx card, and at the moment getting another nVidia isn't the best idea just because the same performance as an ATI costs a lot more at this moment in time, I had held off a bit waiting for nVidia to release their newest gfx cards but general consensus is they're pretty disappointing at the moment compared to what you can get from ATI and for their cost.

For FM though the RAM and CPU are the most important, if anyone knows where 4GB of DDR3 can be picked up for less than £80-£90 at 2000Mhz standard speed, I would be extremely appreciative of that, don't mind paying a bit more for a higher default speed.

doubt you'll be able to find what your looking for for less than 80-90 ^_^ but what about this?

http://www.play.com/PC/PCs/4-/13028811/PNY-KCDIM4GBN-16000-3-XL-PC3-16000-4GB-2000MHz-DDR3-240pin-DIMM-Dual-Channel-Computer-Memory-Kit/Product.html

i haven't looked on aria as i would assume you've already done that

Clicky

One of the best!