# The £400 Beige Monster



## theonetruewill (Mar 23, 2007)

*The £400 <Beige> Silver Monster*

*Project Completed*​
To anyone who's interested I am going to attempt my first build as I finally have just enough funds to support it.

Although from the title of this thread you can see that the funds are not that much 
However I am determined to prevail and I will try and document it and update this as much as possible and hopefully get some answers to some ineveitable problems that WILL arise 

How can you make it for £400? I hear you say. How could you make it any good?

Well the answer is simple....I can't. No but seriously I'm considering this a constant work in progress and I will slowly upgrade it past its original form. (That case is going to have to go!) Remeber that I am also currently and have gamed on my laptop (see sys specs) so I'm used to not necessarily cutting edge performance.

The specs (atm) are:

some incredibly rubbish Jetway mobo
An AMD 1600XP
256mb DDR
Riva TNT
160watt PSU
CD rom drive(not R/RW)
20Gb 4100rpm HDD

It is going to be (hopefully)
AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ Socket AM2 (And yes I am going to oc the hell out of it) EDIT: now X2 4600
Arctic Cooling (AC-FRZ-64P) Freezer64 Pro (because this case has crappy fans and the cpu would probably blow up without it)
Corsair (CM2X1024-5400C4) 1024MB, 4-4-4-12 (upgrade to 2Gb this when next cash injection arrives)
Gigabyte GA M57SLI-S4
Western Digital WD2000JS Caviar SE 200GB 7200RPM SATAII/300 8MB Cache£35.10
Linksys Wireless 54mbps PCI Adapter Card
Coolermaster eXtreme Power 500W PSU
ATI X850XT PE (upgrade to DX10 when they are cheaper and I have more cash - will probably give this to a mate who is running on SIS unichrome gfx ) EDIT: Inno3D 7600GT *EDIT: upgraded to X1900GT*

Have a good laugh at my expense at the case and current internals. I got it off my Gran - how humiliating 

*EDIT: Final Pricing after ordered
Price up so far
Cpu: £71.77
Mobo: £67
Gfx: £65
Case+PSU: £38 (made a deal for the two together)
HDD: £45
DVD: £23
RAM: £47

Total: £356.77

What a pwnage of a price! And proof that a gaming PC does not have to cost the Earth*

*3DMark06: 4309*(with 7600GT)
*3DMark06: 5793*(with X1900GT Rev.1)
*3DMark06: ~6700*(with X1950XTX)


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## theonetruewill (Mar 23, 2007)

Woah, Ok I'm going to get an AMDX2 4600 - Found a bargain!


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## Completely Bonkers (Mar 24, 2007)

Check prices against http://geizhals.at/deutschland/


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## rhythmeister (Mar 24, 2007)

I'd say go with an X1650xt instead of the x850xt-I've had the x850xt pe but you can't play Rainbow 6 Vegas with it! I'd also go for DDR not DDR 2, I reckon the tighter timings are what to go for. Check my sig for a bargain gaming rig


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## mullered07 (Mar 24, 2007)

id say go with a x1950gt, only £90 and will be better than thyat x850 and x1650, how much did you pay for that x2 4600+ btw ?


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## tkpenalty (Mar 24, 2007)

Beige box? Are you insulting me? Wait.. my case is white, not beige >_>. 

WTF? You have the same case interior chassis as mine. Except different front panel, you got an older revision though, ugly lol.  look at my rig pics (find them yourself) everything is the same except the front panel! Apart from that I got a newer one that is much better designed though.

That hole next to the CPU is the cable management hole, cables that arent used go there, drag  them down to the drive bays. If possible, order a newer front panel as they can be unclipped. That one looks ugly seriously.


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## theonetruewill (Mar 25, 2007)

OK, I have bought a new budget case, not the bees knees by any stretch of the imgination but I hated my old one (lol-tkpenalty) The reason I'm getting the X850XT PE is because I can get it for about £50 and I can't find any similarly ranked card (in sheer performance) at this price range. For the 4600 X2 I can get it for £77. Which I'll get instead of a core 2 because I simply can't afford one. 

Please don't tell me to get really expensive stuff as I have said that I am on a REALLY tight budget. But any real bargains would be great. rythemeister, I wanna make my owbn but thanks for the offer lol.

Will post pics soon.

Built my mates rig yesterday so this will be my second build. PS the build went perfectly


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## theonetruewill (Mar 25, 2007)

OK here's the new case, don't criticize, I like it. And its got a 600watt psu I put in. I negotiated a better deal for it by exchanging the generic 400watt one it came with. I have migrated usable parts from the old one (floppy, small 20Gb HDD backup etc)

My mate got the same deal, here's what I put in his (he wanted a reasonable gaming machine)
E6300 (I will oc' it when I next go round there)
2Gb Corsair XMS2
Asus P5W DH Deluxe
300Gb Seagate 7200rpm
NEC DVD /Ram/RW+-
Asus 7600GT
600 watt psu
19" Asus Widescreen (beautiful screen btw)
XP Pro
I want to put in some more fans at some point.

When I get the time I'll also cut out some side panels on mine and my mates machines.


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## theonetruewill (Mar 25, 2007)

mullered07 said:


> id say go with a x1950gt, only £90 and will be better than thyat x850 and x1650, how much did you pay for that x2 4600+ btw ?



1950GT for £90???? where????


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## kwchang007 (Mar 25, 2007)

nice man, you're building a comp  at least you have something to start with.  i bet if i had to build like that....it'd be a p3  but im lucky, if i ever really need a gaming machine, i can buy a pci-e card and plug it into our p4 dell, and maybe a power supply.


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## theonetruewill (Mar 25, 2007)

kwchang007 said:


> nice man, you're building a comp  at least you have something to start with.  i bet if i had to build like that....it'd be a p3  but im lucky, if i ever really need a gaming machine, i can buy a pci-e card and plug it into our p4 dell, and maybe a power supply.



Oh hey dude, yeah I'm making sure I get the case so I force myself to keep it coming along. I'm spending all I own basically  Oh well, It'll be so cool!


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## theonetruewill (Mar 29, 2007)

The motherboard and cpu arrived today! w00t!
Have tonnes of cwk for this week:shadedshu  so cannot put it in until the weekend....Then again maybe cwk deadlines can wait


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## rhythmeister (Mar 29, 2007)

I'm not trying to sell my rig to you dude, I don't know ya that well! What I'm saying is look at the specs and see if you'd go for anything I'm using, I'm quite chuffed and it was all cheap as I'm a dole bum at the mo  

That X1950GT would certainly poop all over the X1650XT so do that, but if you're on a budget I'll sell you my brand new RMA HIS X1650 Pro Turbo with silent 2 slot cooler for £60 posted as I've gone XT!


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## theonetruewill (Mar 29, 2007)

rhythmeister said:


> I'm not trying to sell my rig to you dude, I don't know ya that well! What I'm saying is look at the specs and see if you'd go for anything I'm using, I'm quite chuffed and it was all cheap as I'm a dole bum at the mo
> 
> That X1950GT would certainly poop all over the X1650XT so do that, but if you're on a budget I'll sell you my brand new RMA HIS X1650 Pro Turbo with silent 2 slot cooler for £60 posted as I've gone XT!



I'm not that keen on the X1650 pro, its just a bit too weak for my tastes, but yeah, wouldn't a 1950gt be great..


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## theonetruewill (Mar 29, 2007)

OK I put in the motherboard, cpu and and the old HDD I'll use as a backup for essential data.

Ordering more parts as the when the £££ arrives


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## kwchang007 (Mar 29, 2007)

theonetruewill said:


> OK I put in the motherboard, cpu and and the old HDD I'll use as a backup for essential data.
> 
> Oredering more parts as the when the £££ arrives



nice, id like to see how well this compares compared to your laptop


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## theonetruewill (Mar 29, 2007)

kwchang007 said:


> nice, id like to see how well this compares compared to your laptop



Oh me too! I can't wait tobenchmark this baby! However I doubt I'll break my record on CPU Mark 2.1, it seems to be intel biased (probs cause of L2 cache) but the 3Dmark scores will be great.

EDIT: Oh crap I'm being tempted to a get an X1800GTO.... extra £20 but has SM3 and is more powerful.... My poor cash reserves - lol


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## kwchang007 (Mar 29, 2007)

theonetruewill said:


> Oh me too! I can't wait tobenchmark this baby! However I doubt I'll break my record on CPU Mark 2.1, it seems to be intel biased (probs cause of L2 cache) but the 3Dmark scores will be great.
> 
> EDIT: Oh crap I'm being tempted to a get an X1800GTO.... extra £20 but has SM3 and is more powerful.... My poor cash reserves - lol



sounds way sweet.  im tempted to buy a gfx for our dell desktop...except i don't think it has a pci-e power connector (need to check that) and anyways....the power supply is 330 watts, if i did buy a nice gfx card i'll end up blowing the psu, maybe that'll give me a reason to build a desktop for our fam


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## theonetruewill (Mar 30, 2007)

kwchang007 said:


> sounds way sweet.  im tempted to buy a gfx for our dell desktop...except i don't think it has a pci-e power connector (need to check that) and anyways....the power supply is 330 watts, if i did buy a nice gfx card i'll end up blowing the psu, maybe that'll give me a reason to build a desktop for our fam



Nicely done, "you have no choice but to upgrade" hehe


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## kwchang007 (Mar 30, 2007)

theonetruewill said:


> Nicely done, "you have no choice but to upgrade" hehe



lol.  i still feel sorry for my fam that uses that thing....integrated graphics, it can't even run css at lowest settings at playable speeds.  I tried once, it was bad, my friend said i was literally leaping across the screen.  wait, i said i wanted to uprade the desktop?!?!?! that is defianlty not me in my normal mindset....i meant to say im tempted to get the asus xg station, but that's expensive.  oh well, like you said the x1400 gets me by for now


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## theonetruewill (Apr 1, 2007)

The place I was getting the X850XT PE from kept going out of stock so for £50 I got a Inno3D 7600GST and yes I am going to oc the hell out of it 

But in the long run its better, firstly I have an sli mobo, not a Xfire one. Secondly I mean to upgrade later so spending less now is a better option, but if I need to stay cheap I'll get another 7600GST.

I think I made the right decision. although I am definately not an Nvidia fan

http://www.inno3d.com/products/graphic_card/ichill/i7600gst_vf700.htm


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## theonetruewill (Apr 1, 2007)

Scrap that idea, didn't see my model only had 128mb memory, getting a Inno3D 7600GT 256...phew


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## rhythmeister (Apr 1, 2007)

The x1650xt's a better card, check the trusted reviews err, review if you don't believe my biased view but I got one!


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## theonetruewill (Apr 1, 2007)

rhythmeister said:


> The x1650xt's a better card, check the trusted reviews err, review if you don't believe my biased view but I got one!



I know, but I can't get a X1650Xt for £60 plus p+p and I can get a 7600GT for that. Otherwise I would, I prefer ATi


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## kwchang007 (Apr 1, 2007)

theonetruewill said:


> I know, but I can't get a X1650Xt for £60 plus p+p and I can get a 7600GT for that. Otherwise I would, I prefer ATi



yeah, im pretty sure the x1650 preforms better, but in the end it really does come down to money.  i can't wait to see my friends comp when we build it.  only problem is he's getting a 7100  until the end of school, then he'll have the money for a 8800 gts


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## theonetruewill (Apr 2, 2007)

kwchang007 said:


> yeah, im pretty sure the x1650 preforms better, but in the end it really does come down to money.  i can't wait to see my friends comp when we build it.  only problem is he's getting a 7100  until the end of school, then he'll have the money for a 8800 gts



with the cost of a 7100 couldn't he get a better performing older ati 9800pro or something similar


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## kwchang007 (Apr 2, 2007)

theonetruewill said:


> with the cost of a 7100 couldn't he get a better performing older ati 9800pro or something similar



WOOPS forgot to remember about last gen, lol.  he already ordered everything but the 8800 and he's a die hard nvidia fan :shadedshu   for the price, there wasn't any other better nvidia cards..well excpet for one that was agp.


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## rhythmeister (Apr 2, 2007)

9800xt Ftw!


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## tkpenalty (Apr 3, 2007)

that case is HUUUGE.


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## theonetruewill (Apr 3, 2007)

tkpenalty said:


> that case is HUUUGE.



And that was the medium variant,


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## Ketxxx (Apr 3, 2007)

hell of an upgrade for £400.


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## kwchang007 (Apr 3, 2007)

theonetruewill said:


> And that was the medium variant,



the case is the beige one right?


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## theonetruewill (Apr 4, 2007)

kwchang007 said:


> the case is the beige one right?



Old Case - Beige
New Case - Silver


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## theonetruewill (Apr 4, 2007)

Ketxxx said:


> hell of an upgrade for £400.



Actually I think its going to come in at about £350, if that so I'm very pleased!


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## kwchang007 (Apr 4, 2007)

theonetruewill said:


> Acutally I think its going to come in at about £350, if that so I'm very pleased!



wow, nice man.  ohh, i see the new case now...i guess i wasn't looking that hard


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## theonetruewill (Apr 4, 2007)

Price up so far
Cpu: £71.77
Mobo: £67
Gfx: £65
Case+PSU: £38 (made a deal for the two together)


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## theonetruewill (Apr 6, 2007)

http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/123119/rb/26722879572

  Thi is what you can get retail for the same money! This is why I wanted to build, jeez I can't stop laughing


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## kwchang007 (Apr 6, 2007)

theonetruewill said:


> http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/123119/rb/26722879572
> 
> Thi is what you can get retail for the same money! This is why I wanted to build, jeez I can't stop laughing



lol, my friend's comp is probably like 2k (after he gets his 8800 gts) he's building for 1500


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## theonetruewill (Apr 6, 2007)

kwchang007 said:


> lol, my friend's comp is probably like 2k (after he gets his 8800 gts) he's building for 1500



Lol, my mate Dizzy spent £2700 on his  but it is very cool


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## kwchang007 (Apr 6, 2007)

theonetruewill said:


> Lol, my mate Dizzy spent £2700 on his  but it is very cool



wow! that's like....3400ish american right?  almost a thousand more dollar comp....that could get my friend...sli 8800 gtx's!


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## theonetruewill (Apr 7, 2007)

kwchang007 said:


> wow! that's like....3400ish american right?  almost a thousand more dollar comp....that could get my friend...sli 8800 gtx's!



$ is almost double the £, more like $5000

http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?t=25204


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## kwchang007 (Apr 7, 2007)

theonetruewill said:


> $ is almost double the £, more like $5000
> 
> http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?t=25204



*jaw drops* 5k that's alot of money.  alot of money.....i wish i had that to build *thinks about 8850 x2 in sli or r600 in crossfire.


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## theonetruewill (Apr 8, 2007)

kwchang007 said:


> *jaw drops* 5k that's alot of money.  alot of money.....i wish i had that to build *thinks about 8850 x2 in sli or r600 in crossfire.



You can see his CPUMark in my scoreboard (see sig) also, do me a favour chang, try the CPUMark as well. For some odd reason I got a higher score than zodttd form Laptop Overclockers -  weird so I want to see what you get and then see how high you get so we can trouble shoot his problem,


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## kwchang007 (Apr 8, 2007)

theonetruewill said:


> You can see his CPUMark in my scoreboard (see sig) also, do me a favour chang, try the CPUMark as well. For some odd reason I got a higher score than zodttd form Laptop Overclockers -  weird so I want to see what you get and then see how high you get so we can trouble shoot his problem,



sure, just give me some time, i think we're going out to eat soon.


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## kwchang007 (Apr 8, 2007)

i gt 5800 cpu mark....does cpu mark hate vista? or is cpu mark depend alot on memory.  one of those two, beats me which.


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## theonetruewill (Apr 10, 2007)

kwchang007 said:


> i gt 5800 cpu mark....does cpu mark hate vista? or is cpu mark depend alot on memory.  one of those two, beats me which.



make sure you disable NHC it really lowers your score


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## kwchang007 (Apr 10, 2007)

theonetruewill said:


> make sure you disable NHC it really lowers your score



no nhc, lol.  should i disable rmclock and try again?


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## theonetruewill (Apr 10, 2007)

kwchang007 said:


> no nhc, lol.  should i disable rmclock and try again?



Disable any antivirus and firewalls, ,my original score if you look on the 1st page was around 5112 or something like that, after I disabled Norton and NHC I got my 7000+ scores


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## kwchang007 (Apr 11, 2007)

theonetruewill said:


> Disable any antivirus and firewalls, ,my original score if you look on the 1st page was around 5112 or something like that, after I disabled Norton and NHC I got my 7000+ scores



i'll try again, i did disable mcafee (yuck, but we get it for free, leagly) but didn't try rm clock, i'll disable that next.  ok i disabled everything...my score was 5008.9 or something like that every time, like consistantly the exact same number, is that supposed to happen?  i wasn't thinking that should happen b/c with super pi and 3d mark, etc it all changes.  have you gotten conistant results like that?


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## theonetruewill (Apr 11, 2007)

kwchang007 said:


> i'll try again, i did disable mcafee (yuck, but we get it for free, leagly) but didn't try rm clock, i'll disable that next.  ok i disabled everything...my score was 5008.9 or something like that every time, like consistantly the exact same number, is that supposed to happen?  i wasn't thinking that should happen b/c with super pi and 3d mark, etc it all changes.  have you gotten conistant results like that?



hmm, no I havent
I've always had a slight variation
very slight mind you

Though I've had an idea why you guys might not be doing so well. Its single threaded right and I have a higher clock speed, this could be hindering the results and making them misleading


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## theonetruewill (Apr 13, 2007)

Here's the 7600GT from Inno3d

I'm pleased with the cooler as ebuyer said that it would come with the bog standard one. So the new cooler (Zalman I think) could give me some more overclocking potential. I am going to get some additional Zalman heatsinks for the memory chips though.


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## theonetruewill (Apr 13, 2007)

Ordered Arctic C. 64 pro and Arctic C silver 5.

Jimminy crickets my money is all going, and one of my cash injections for the ram and hdd are dead.... Hmmm going to have to sell some things on eBay. I wonder if I have any of those old trading cards I wonder if they're still collectable by some obsessed kid.


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## theonetruewill (Apr 17, 2007)

Just put on my AC 64 pro and AS5.

Bloody hell getting the old standard HSF off was difficult. I am never ever putting one of those old ones on again. Once the lever had been put to the losses position the bloody clips needed a screwdriver and some serious wedging to get out. I tested if this was the case with the new HSF and no problems at all. 

Loving it by the way! 

OK only HDD and RAM to go, decided to go XP pro until I can get more RAM.


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## tkpenalty (Apr 17, 2007)

Inno 3D are known to make pretty good stock coolers. Is it the GDDR3 model? It looks like it.


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## theonetruewill (Apr 17, 2007)

tkpenalty said:


> Inno 3D are known to make pretty good stock coolers. Is it the GDDR3 model? It looks like it.



Yes it is.
Also for interest's sake I have ripped off the fan off the AMD HSF (needed another fan and I'm skint ) The old HSF was buggered anyway. Bloody thing was bent inside I ofund out on closer insepection. And its bent oddly too, not the angle its supposed to be at, and I don't believe that was my doing. Might explain the difficulties in its removal though. (clip mechanism was bent. Invisible externally, only when fan was removed (ps not the normal bend I know that ones is there)

Pic shows HS after fan removal (a bugger getting that off too)
Sorry havent' shown the bent bit, but its the metal clip that attaches to the mobo that you can see. On the left of the middle of it, along with the normal bend it was twisted and a bit warped .


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## theonetruewill (Apr 17, 2007)

*Final Total Price*

Made the final order today, will arrive on Thursday (GMT)

*Price up so far
Cpu: £71.77
Mobo: £67
Gfx: £65
Case+PSU: £38 (made a deal for the two together)
HDD: £45
DVD: £23
RAM: £47*

*Total: £356.77*

*What a pwnage of a price! And proof that a gaming PC does not have to cost the Earth*


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## kwchang007 (Apr 17, 2007)

theonetruewill said:


> Just put on my AC 64 pro and AS5.
> 
> Bloody hell getting the old standard HSF off was difficult. I am never ever putting one of those old ones on again. Once the lever had been put to the losses position the bloody clips needed a screwdriver and some serious wedging to get out. I tested if this was the case with the new HSF and no problems at all.
> 
> ...



that's a sweet hsf.  huge, just the way the best are


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## theonetruewill (Apr 17, 2007)

Look at my price up dude!  

HDD: Hitachi Deskstar T7K250 250Gb
RAM: Corsair XMS2 2x 512mb 667
DVD: Asus Lightscribe DRW-1814BLT


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## kwchang007 (Apr 17, 2007)

theonetruewill said:


> Look at my price up dude!



SWEET, very nice, very nice.


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## theonetruewill (Apr 19, 2007)

*The Colossus Awakens*

*OK here's my machine!*


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## theonetruewill (Apr 19, 2007)

*OK quick summary of cooling:*

Main intake fan at the front of the case (120mm) Coolermaster
Secondary intake fan at the bottom grill of the side of the case (120mm) CoolerMaster
Main exhaust fan at the back of the case (92mm) Zalman (with resistor)
Secondary exhaust fan at the top grill at the side (92mm) Zalman (with resistor)


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## kwchang007 (Apr 19, 2007)

theonetruewill said:


> *OK here's my machine!*



NICE!!!!!! dude awsome, how's it do compared to the laptop?


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## theonetruewill (Apr 19, 2007)

kwchang007 said:


> NICE!!!!!! dude awsome, how's it do compared to the laptop?



ATM! f*****g craply! I got some bloody pirated version of Windows, thought the seller looked dodgy. Now its dying very 5 seconds. Thats it I'm gonna get all my stuff online now, you just can't trust ordinary folk.


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## kwchang007 (Apr 19, 2007)

theonetruewill said:


> ATM! f*****g craply! I got some bloody pirated version of Windows, thought the seller looked dodgy. Now its dying very 5 seconds. Thats it I'm gonna get all my stuff online now, you just can't trust ordinary folk.



Yuck, my grandparents had a pirated version of windows (i think it was just the key) and ms caught it.  good thing you're getting it legal, otherwise you'd lose whatever you have on your comp, and im betting the thing will run amazing compared to your laptop (well, you beat my x1400 , im just waiting for r600 and asus xg station  if the r600 will fit)


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## theonetruewill (Apr 19, 2007)

kwchang007 said:


> Yuck, my grandparents had a pirated version of windows (i think it was just the key) and ms caught it.  good thing you're getting it legal, otherwise you'd lose whatever you have on your comp, and im betting the thing will run amazing compared to your laptop (well, you beat my x1400 , im just waiting for r600 and asus xg station  if the r600 will fit)



There seems to be know way round it without just cracking and I don't want to have to do that, its too illegal. So I'm a bit buggered as I don't have any £££ for a new XP, spent my last £50 on that one...

WTF! 100 more posts than me!?


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## kwchang007 (Apr 20, 2007)

theonetruewill said:


> There seems to be know way round it without just cracking and I don't want to have to do that, its too illegal. So I'm a bit buggered as I don't have any £££ for a new XP, spent my last £50 on that one...
> 
> WTF! 100 more posts than me!?



that sucks, spent your last bit of money on a crap version of xp.  oh and 100 more...idk how that happened, lol.


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## theonetruewill (Apr 21, 2007)

kwchang007 said:


> that sucks, spent your last bit of money on a crap version of xp.  oh and 100 more...idk how that happened, lol.



Well I spent all day on it today (hence it being 3am now) and I've "sorted" the problem
ATM 6197 3dmark05


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## kwchang007 (Apr 21, 2007)

theonetruewill said:


> Well I spent all day on it today (hence it being 3am now) and I've "sorted" the problem
> ATM 6197 3dmark05



nice, i bet it felt really smooth compared to the laptop? lol.  GRRR 1886 on 3dmark05 here, lol.  i might have to by a 8500 gs or 8600 gs (maybe gts if i get the money)  or of course if i get a bunch of money, i'll just go and buy myself an asus xg station, that way i don't have to use the p4 for gaming.


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## TSX420J (Apr 21, 2007)

Sweet setup. I wish I had joined this forum before I started. I bought a bunch of 
crap and want to return most of it now because I want better stuff. Too late though.


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## theonetruewill (Apr 21, 2007)

kwchang007 said:


> nice, i bet it felt really smooth compared to the laptop? lol.  GRRR 1886 on 3dmark05 here, lol.  i might have to by a 8500 gs or 8600 gs (maybe gts if i get the money)  or of course if i get a bunch of money, i'll just go and buy myself an asus xg station, that way i don't have to use the p4 for gaming.



Good position on the gfx; I tell you, now I've enabled SATA-II the HDD is like lightning! Makes a difference from the 4100rppm model I had before!


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## theonetruewill (Apr 22, 2007)

OK when I next upgrade what do you guys think,

another 7600GT for about £60 for SLI
or another 2x XMS2 512MB RAM?


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## kwchang007 (Apr 22, 2007)

theonetruewill said:


> OK when I next upgrade what do you guys think,
> 
> another 7600GT for about £60 for SLI
> or another 2x XMS2 512MB RAM?



id say either skip the next upgrade, and the time after that you have money, get a better vid card.  or if you really want an upgrade asap, get the sli, then ram, since you're not using vista, 2 gb is nice, but you don't need it.


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## theonetruewill (Apr 22, 2007)

kwchang007 said:


> id say either skip the next upgrade, and the time after that you have money, get a better vid card.  or if you really want an upgrade asap, get the sli, then ram, since you're not using vista, 2 gb is nice, but you don't need it.



The things is, the next time I get some cash it won't be enough for a new better gfx but it will be about thr right amount to get me another 7600GT so I thought, shove em in SLI, screw DX10 cos I don't have that sort of money to waste on bloated artistic oversecured shi.... I mean on a new operating system like Vista. Thus, extra 256 VGA memory, = much better performance in games, if not an all round boost from RAM. but benches and framerates are where it counts!

Plus, telling peple I've got SLI is cool!


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## kwchang007 (Apr 23, 2007)

theonetruewill said:


> The things is, the next time I get some cash it won't be enough for a new better gfx but it will be about thr right amount to get me another 7600GT so I thought, shove em in SLI, screw DX10 cos I don't have that sort of money to waste on bloated artistic oversecured shi.... I mean on a new operating system like Vista. Thus, extra 256 VGA memory, = much better performance in games, if not an all round boost from RAM. but benches and framerates are where it counts!
> 
> Plus, telling peple I've got SLI is cool!



hahaha sli is cool!  hahahaha oversecured.....turn off UAC  yeah, if you're going to upgrade, get the extra vid card


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## Ripper3 (May 11, 2007)

Pretty good build, and just goes to show that you really don't need a grand or more to build a decent PC.
Mine started out like that too, a build in progress. So far, all that hasn't changed at all from the original specs from 2 years ago is one of my two sticks of RAM (everything else has either had upgrades or RMAs, so technicaly, been replaced, heh). Everything else has been sold off either on Ebay or one of those computer stores down Tottenham Court Road.
BTW, those are pretty good specs over all, and I bet you're glad AMD lowered their prices AGAIN.


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## theonetruewill (May 12, 2007)

Ripper3 said:


> Pretty good build, and just goes to show that you really don't need a grand or more to build a decent PC.
> Mine started out like that too, a build in progress. So far, all that hasn't changed at all from the original specs from 2 years ago is one of my two sticks of RAM (everything else has either had upgrades or RMAs, so technicaly, been replaced, heh). Everything else has been sold off either on Ebay or one of those computer stores down Tottenham Court Road.
> BTW, those are pretty good specs over all, and I bet you're glad AMD lowered their prices AGAIN.



Well Core 2 being top dog does have its good points for amd. As you stated, they're practically giving away chips that would be worth three times or more a year ago. I mean a 4600 X2 for under £70!


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## Ripper3 (May 12, 2007)

I'm still on S939, so I had to wait for OcUK to drop prices for its "This Week Only" offers. The 4200 dropped from £120 down to just £80 or £88 or something. I literally ran to the bank to deposit the rest of the cash I needed. My PC was almost dying without the upgrade.

Wow... actually running to the bank to deposit money for a new CPU... that makes me feel so sad you have no idea...


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## Xaser04 (May 16, 2007)

Nice little setup there man, for a good price too. 

I don't this sort of thing a little while ago. I sold off my proper gaming pc and just set about building a budget pc which I could game on. I ended up with: (all prices est)

Asrock Dual Vsata - £35
7600GT & 1gb DDR ram (PC3200) - £75
C2D E4300 - £80 ( I didn't realise the E21XX series had been released in the UK yet)
Jeantech Phong Case (with 350w PSU) - £45
80GB HD - £30
DVDRW & CDRW - £35
XP Home (OEM copy from OCUK as I like yourself have been hit in the past by so called legit versions actually turning out to be fakes) - £60

Total outlay - £ 360

Not too bad really. It plays the BF series perfectly fine for me at 1280x1024 and thats all I need/want it to do.


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## theonetruewill (May 19, 2007)

Xaser04 said:


> Nice little setup there man, for a good price too.
> 
> I don't this sort of thing a little while ago. I sold off my proper gaming pc and just set about building a budget pc which I could game on. I ended up with: (all prices est)
> 
> ...



What sort of score do you get one 3dMark06?


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## theonetruewill (May 21, 2007)

Just thought I'd update a bit. OK next things I'm going to get are the following:
New PSU - probably a 430watt seasonic - reason it has more amps on the 12v and 5v rail
Another 2x 512MB RAM - reason do I need to explain? 
An RMA's 7600GT - this one went wrong.

Current Sciencemark 2 score: 1475


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## tkpenalty (May 22, 2007)

theonetruewill said:


> The things is, the next time I get some cash it won't be enough for a new better gfx but it will be about thr right amount to get me another 7600GT so I thought, shove em in SLI, screw DX10 cos I don't have that sort of money to waste on bloated artistic oversecured shi.... I mean on a new operating system like Vista. Thus, extra 256 VGA memory, = much better performance in games, if not an all round boost from RAM. but benches and framerates are where it counts!
> 
> Plus, telling peple I've got SLI is cool!



Your EPENIS wont grow sling two crappy cards.


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## theonetruewill (May 22, 2007)

tkpenalty said:


> Your EPENIS wont grow sling two crappy cards.



I decided against it when DDR2 prices crashed.
Plus this ain't a crappy card imo. What do you get in 3dmark06 - I get 4309, thats not that crappy. Its gonna be worse than yours, but its not crappy.


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## theonetruewill (Jun 16, 2007)

Yay! I've just orderd my HIS IceQ X1900GT!!!!!!


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## bigboi86 (Jun 16, 2007)

Did you ditch the XMS2 you were originally going to buy? 



			
				onetruewill said:
			
		

> Corsair (CM2X1024-5400C4) 1024MB, 4-4-4-12 (upgrade to 2Gb this when next cash injection arrives)



Looking at your system specs it says you have 2x512 now. I just got the CM2X1024-5400C4 and haven't gotten around to testing it yet, was wondering if you got a chance to OC it.


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## theonetruewill (Jun 16, 2007)

bigboi86 said:


> Did you ditch the XMS2 you were originally going to buy?
> 
> 
> 
> Looking at your system specs it says you have 2x512 now. I just got the CM2X1024-5400C4 and haven't gotten around to testing it yet, was wondering if you got a chance to OC it.



I oc'd it and did not upgrade to 2GB yet.
It has a stupid SPD of 5.5.5.15, but it is supposed to run @ 4.4.4.12 so change it when you put it in
It can run at 4.4.4.10 at 690MHz
or 3.3.3.8!!!! @ 620MHz. I have an Athlon64 system so I go for the lower timings. Although most of the time I have it at 3.3.3.10. But I assure you it's stable at the lower timing.

Hope that helped


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## bigboi86 (Jun 16, 2007)

theonetruewill said:


> I oc'd it and did not upgrade to 2GB yet.
> It has a stupid SPD of 5.5.5.15, but it is supposed to run @ 4.4.4.12 so change it when you put it in
> It can run at 4.4.4.10 at 690MHz
> or 3.3.3.8!!!! @ 620MHz. I have an Athlon64 system so I go for the lower timings. Although most of the time I have it at 3.3.3.10. But I assure you it's stable at the lower timing.
> ...



That's not too bad, considering it's really cheap. I was hoping for like 4-4-4-12 @ 800mhz 

3-3-3-8 @ 620 is nice though.


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## theonetruewill (Jun 16, 2007)

bigboi86 said:


> That's not too bad, considering it's really cheap. I was hoping for like 4-4-4-12 @ 800mhz
> 
> 3-3-3-8 @ 620 is nice though.



Yeah sorry I haven't oc'd it much cause I'm on Athlon. Timings more important.


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## theonetruewill (Jun 28, 2007)

Just ordered the CoolerMaster IGreen 500Watt to replace my shit PSU.
X1900GT arriving tomorrow.


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## Wile E (Jun 28, 2007)

theonetruewill said:


> Yeah sorry I haven't oc'd it much cause I'm on Athlon. Timings more important.


Just noticed this, I get better performance out of mine at CAS4 800, than I do CAS3 667. Just some food for thought, not every combo is equal.


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## PrudentPrincess (Jun 28, 2007)

Nice. I built a 450$ machine last year with AMD Athlon 64 3800+, 1gb ddr GSKILL, dual 500gb SATA drives, and a 6600GT. Educators discount ho! 
I like your build, but cable management makes all the difference aesthetically. Buy some round IDE cables, zipties, ect..


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## theonetruewill (Jun 28, 2007)

Wile E said:


> Just noticed this, I get better performance out of mine at CAS4 800, than I do CAS3 667. Just some food for thought, not every combo is equal.



Oh it was just a quick explaination. I discussed it with infrared a while ago and in the end the performance swayed in the direction of lower timings.


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## bigboi86 (Jun 28, 2007)

theonetruewill said:


> Just ordered the CoolerMaster IGreen 500Watt to replace my shit PSU.
> X1900GT arriving tomorrow.



Congrats! I just got all my parts in too(look in system specs). I gotta go get the case today and some Sata/IDE cables and the build will be done! I got another stick of that Corsair too, so I will be seeing what I can do with 2gb of XMS2. 



Life is good right now.


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## theonetruewill (Jun 28, 2007)

bigboi86 said:


> Congrats! I just got all my parts in too(look in system specs). I gotta go get the case today and some Sata/IDE cables and the build will be done! I got another stick of that Corsair too, so I will be seeing what I can do with 2gb of XMS2.
> 
> 
> 
> Life is good right now.



Legendary dude, now let's see some benchies


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## bigboi86 (Jun 28, 2007)

theonetruewill said:


> Legendary dude, now let's see some benchies



As soon as I get an OS


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## PrudentPrincess (Jun 28, 2007)

bigboi86 said:


> As soon as I get an OS


....LINUX! Sorry dude, it had to be done.


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## bigboi86 (Jun 28, 2007)

PrudentPrincess said:


> ....LINUX! Sorry dude, it had to be done.



Well, I am running Slax on a thumbdrive, but how can I bench on that?  

I love linux and all, but windows is where it's at for us bench junkies.


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## theonetruewill (Jun 29, 2007)

I've just got to say it Prudent - your avatar is cool.


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## PrudentPrincess (Jun 29, 2007)

theonetruewill said:


> I've just got to say it Prudent - your avatar is cool.



Thanks, it's part of my Marxistforlife CS:S spray. Holy crap. It's huge.


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## theonetruewill (Jun 29, 2007)

AGGHH! My X1900GT still hasn't arrived

Have had to replace my 7600GT temproraily with an X800XT that I fixed from a mate, as I've sold my 7600GT. Let's hope this thing comes soon, I miss SM3.
On the plus side, let's bench this thing!

EDIT: Aquamark 3 so far: 89,490


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## Ripper3 (Jun 30, 2007)

Yeah, Royal Mail strikes today, so itll be here tommorow, or worse yet, Monday. I had some things coming for today (or so I thought) too...

Also, you, tkpenalty and I all have iGreen PSUs. D'you notice the noise going up under load, or is it muffled by everything else? Because it can get pretty noisy.
It's supposedly silent, but I can't say that's the case for me...

Anyhu, hope your X1900GT arrives tommorow, and have fun messing with the temp. card


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## theonetruewill (Jun 30, 2007)

Ripper3 said:


> Yeah, Royal Mail strikes today, so itll be here tommorow, or worse yet, Monday. I had some things coming for today (or so I thought) too...
> 
> Also, you, tkpenalty and I all have iGreen PSUs. D'you notice the noise going up under load, or is it muffled by everything else? Because it can get pretty noisy.
> It's supposedly silent, but I can't say that's the case for me...
> ...



Actually I found the opposite with my PSU. It's almost utterly silent at any load!
The funny thing is, my father works for Royal mail and has done so for over 25 years. Even he says it's crap. This card was Special delivery and was "supposed" to arrive yesterday, so I hoped it would arrive today.


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## kwchang007 (Jun 30, 2007)

theonetruewill said:


> Actually I found the opposite with my PSU. It's almost utterly silent at any load!
> The funny thing is, my father works for Royal mail and has done so for over 25 years. Even he says it's crap. This card was Special delivery and was "supposed" to arrive yesterday, so I hoped it would arrive today.



i feel stupid, but what is royal mail?


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## tkpenalty (Jun 30, 2007)

iGreen is noisy as shit, I prevented the noise by using a rubber and sandwiching it between the info side of the casing and the case itself... preventend the reasonance.... now its silent!


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## Wile E (Jun 30, 2007)

tkpenalty said:


> iGreen is noisy as shit, I prevented the noise by using a rubber and sandwiching it between the info side of the casing and the case itself... preventend the reasonance.... now its silent!


If that's how you fixed it, it's not the psu that's noisy, it's the case.



kwchang007 said:


> i feel stupid, but what is royal mail?


UK's postal service.


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## theonetruewill (Jul 1, 2007)

tkpenalty said:


> iGreen is noisy as shit, I prevented the noise by using a rubber and sandwiching it between the info side of the casing and the case itself... preventend the reasonance.... now its silent!



Mine really isn't. Not noisy at all - I would *really* say almost silent.


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## Ripper3 (Jul 1, 2007)

Well frankly, got some new headphones that completely cover my ears, I can now only hear the shrill voice of my mother when she's complaining or talking on the phone. With my PC under my desk it helps too.
Think I'll try to get some rubber to prevent vibrations I guess. Thanks for the tip tk.


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## theonetruewill (Jul 1, 2007)

tkpenalty said:


> iGreen is noisy as shit, I prevented the noise by using a rubber and sandwiching it between the info side of the casing and the case itself... preventend the reasonance.... now its silent!



Sounds like the PSU wasn't being held well enough.


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## tater (Jul 2, 2007)

i got the  GIGABYTE GA-M55SLI-S4 motherboard yours is a notch or 2 above mine. I think the only difference is you have 1 ide controller i have 2 , you have 6 sata controllers i have 4


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## theonetruewill (Jul 3, 2007)

I've found the board is very poor at keeping heightened voltages on the HT link and chipset consistent. Have you found this?


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## tater (Jul 3, 2007)

i dont overclock so im not exactly sure what you just said


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## theonetruewill (Jul 3, 2007)

tater said:


> i dont overclock so im not exactly sure what you just said


 No problemo dude.

My X1900GT arrived!
* 3DMark06 - 5557* - anyone notice how many X1950Pro's this beats in 3d06
Clock speeds @ 708/810. This card's memory really does not like to overclock at all - gives me real difficulties. Although the HSF keep it icy cool.
http://service.futuremark.com/orb/resultanalyzer.jsp?projectType=14&XLID=0&UID=9943637


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## theonetruewill (Jul 12, 2007)

Got some money together and bought another GB of ram. Supreme Commander was what convinced me that I really did need it. I just found that it was using all that was left of my memory after XP had nicked some, causing pagefile slowdowns- thus the purchase was completely necessary, a requirement if you will


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## tater (Jul 12, 2007)

I keep trying to tell my mom that all my upgrades are required...She never seems to listen to my theory..O well


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## mullered07 (Jul 12, 2007)

well done mate took a whiler to get there but you should be happy, now just to find the £ to get a good case but i guess it wouldnt be the beige monster lol, and if you can at some point get 2*1gb ram nice 3dmark score though  pc's pwn


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## theonetruewill (Jul 13, 2007)

mullered07 said:


> well done mate took a whiler to get there but you should be happy, now just to find the £ to get a good case but i guess it wouldnt be the beige monster lol, and if you can at some point get 2*1gb ram nice 3dmark score though  pc's pwn



Yeah, my current case is a slight upgrade to the Beige monster but I want a new one. Maybe an Antec 900, but I do like the P180's (yeah ...if I had the £££) I probably should change the title at some point, but I like it!


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## Wile E (Jul 13, 2007)

tater said:


> mod please delete this post...


You can delete yourself by clicking edit. Delete will show up as an option.


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## tater (Jul 13, 2007)

Wile E said:


> You can delete yourself by clicking edit. Delete will show up as an option.



Thanks i accidently posted some information i had previousy posted in this thread

Anyways,

Antec 900's really arent that nice looking to me. except like everybody owns one lol


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## theonetruewill (Jul 13, 2007)

Fricking heck! Supreme Commander is still bottlenecked by something - an I know it is the the CPU as reducing the resolution doesn't make a difference. However it has become less of a lagfest with the 1000+ unit patch and 8 players I am very pleased at the moement, although i had to reset the CMOS after installing the RAM as the computer failed to boot past the BIOS screen (which didn't fully load). After this and a bit more voltage to the DIMM's they sang happily away @ 715MHz.


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## theonetruewill (Aug 19, 2007)

I'm getting some stuff off mullered07 in a couple of days so I'll have an excuse to open up this thing again and take some photos. It looks very different to the OP's pictures now.


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## theonetruewill (Aug 21, 2007)

*5793*  - screw you X1950Pro's
- 2.84Ghz Athlon 4600+ X2
- 715/810 HIS IceQ3 X1900GT
- XMS2 DDR667 @ 808MHz 4.4.4.12-15
Finally got my memory working faster (lowered the multi). It refuses to do it any other way- it will just not be set @ DDR 800 speeds manually.
Better OC on my CPU too as a result too


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## GraveFiller (Aug 29, 2007)

man u r a freak!
a 120Wpsu?
Your joking one!! 

Lol, my pc i just retired looks like that piece of junk...Jk...kiddin here.
So what u doing man?
You never told me your going to build new rig...
Sup brah!




theonetruewill said:


> *Project Completed*​
> To anyone who's interested I am going to attempt my first build as I finally have just enough funds to support it.
> 
> Although from the title of this thread you can see that the funds are not that much
> ...


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## GraveFiller (Aug 29, 2007)

Dude, get the armor! Case!
It's sick man...
check out the pics



theonetruewill said:


> Yeah, my current case is a slight upgrade to the Beige monster but I want a new one. Maybe an Antec 900, but I do like the P180's (yeah ...if I had the £££) I probably should change the title at some point, but I like it!


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## theonetruewill (Aug 29, 2007)

I am looking to get a new case- but the new build is now over 4 months old, lol. I built it a few months after really testing out the market and thoroughly researching my build to create a monster PC at a bargain-basement price. I hope I achieved that; it certainly is brutally fast.


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## theonetruewill (Oct 31, 2007)

Just an update: Got an X1950XTX


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## kwchang007 (Oct 31, 2007)

theonetruewill said:


> Just an update: Got an X1950XTX



Congrats


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## panchoman (Nov 2, 2007)

theonetruewill said:


> Just an update: Got an X1950XTX



yo nice will, congrats, you folding with it?


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## theonetruewill (Nov 2, 2007)

panchoman said:


> yo nice will, congrats, you folding with it?



It's what is getting my my 775ppd


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## theonetruewill (Apr 16, 2008)

Most recent Update - Asus P5K Premium + E2140 @3.4GHz
SuperPi1M= 17.891s
ScienceMark2= 1937.22


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## theonetruewill (Jun 5, 2008)

Just ordered my shiny new 8800GT, X1950XTX being sold over the weekend.


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## theonetruewill (Oct 14, 2008)

Got an E8400 at 4GHz now.


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