A Silent and very powerful PC for less than 1,000 GBP

[amorgos]

Hey,

I'm hoping you all can give me your opinion and advice on the PC which I've just specced up. My budget is a 1,000 GBP and my specification is to get the most silent, and most powerful PC I can get my hands on for less than the budget. I'm not a huge games player but I do a lot of software development, mostly Android. The android emulators are quite hungry especially the latest 3.0 ones and I want the Eclipse IDE to run blisteringly fast! Huge amounts of disk space is not that important to me as I have a 2 TB HP Proliant Microserver to take care of all my media.

Here's what I have so far:

CASE: Antec 300 (eBuyer) 46.77
MOTHERBOARD: Asrock Z68 EXTREME4 (eBuyer) 142.59
CPU: Intel Core i7-2600K 3.40GHz (Aria) 224.99
PSU: 530W Be Quiet! Pure Power (Aria) 44.99
COOLER: Be Quiet! Dark Rock Advanced CPU Cooler (Aria) 35.99
VIDEO: Gigabyte HD 5750 1GB Silent (eBuyer) 95.33
OPTICAL: Pioneer BDR-205BK (eBuyer) 99.99
MEMORY: 8GB Mushkin Redline Ridgeback (2x4GB) DDR3 2133MHz (Aria) 106.79
DISK: Crucial m4 128GB 2.5" SATA-III Solid State (Aria) 175.21
DISK BRACKET: Mushkin Enhanced 2.5" Solid State Hard Drive Bracket (Aria) 5.46
Wireless: Tenda Wireless-N300 PCI Adapter (Aria) 12.99

Current total: 991.10 British pounds

I'd really appreciate your comments and criticisms. Cheers!

[FartingBob]

Thoughts:

Your RAM is expensive. Any DDR3 speed you wont notice the difference at the same capacity unless you are a liquid hydrogen overclocking type. You can save £40 by buying 1333mhz and the performance difference is probably less than 1%.

The motherboard is really expensive. Why do you need a really high end Z68 board? Again, if you are just setting and forgetting the hardware without any overclocking then you can save alot of money here with a P67. Also, ive never fully trusted brand new boards with new chipsets. Give them a month or 2 at least and wait for any bugs to be sorted out in the bios or hardware. Usually they are fine out the door, but you never know.

Other than that its fairly balanced for what you need it for.

[amorgos]

Exactly the type of stuff I need to hear It's been 6 or 7 years since I built my last PC so I'm way out of touch. The market has changed dramatically since then and there is a lot to know.

I went for the Z68 board basically because it was bleeding edge. Yes, you're right I don't need it and its a risk in terms or support and I don't have any plans at all to over-clock. What RAM would you suggest at the moment?

Is the SSD disk worth it?, and I am also considering a RAID0 setup for 2xSSD. Will it make a worthy difference?

I am also ditching the Blueray writer as I will never use it. I'm opting for a cheap and reliable blueray-reader and DVD writer. Not sure which one yet.

[Deucal]

I agree with that you can save on the memory, faster memory isn't all that much today. The SSD is the biggest deal nowadays.

CASE: Antec 300 (eBuyer) 46.77 // OK

MOTHERBOARD: Asrock Z68 EXTREME4 (eBuyer) 142.59 // OK for using the integrated video and being able to OC the CUP, the Z boards are the only one's that can do that. P turn's off the integrated graphics when you OC the CPU. Plus the integrated graphics work in conjunction wit the discreet GPU.

CPU: Intel Core i7-2600K 3.40GHz (Aria) 224.99 // OK - love the OC on the new K CPUs

PSU: 530W Be Quiet! Pure Power (Aria) 44.99 // Don't know this. I'd use the SPCRs recommended PSU list . Can't go wrong there.

COOLER: Be Quiet! Dark Rock Advanced CPU Cooler (Aria) 35.99 // same as the PSU, use the SPCRs recommended CPU cooler list .

VIDEO: Gigabyte HD 5750 1GB Silent (eBuyer) 95.33 // OK

OPTICAL: Pioneer BDR-205BK (eBuyer) 99.99 // go for a BR reader w/dvd write.

MEMORY: 8GB Mushkin Redline Ridgeback (2x4GB) DDR3 2133MHz (Aria) 106.79 // Go for 1333MHz the difference isn't that much and you save money

DISK: Crucial m4 128GB 2.5" SATA-III Solid State (Aria) 175.21 // OK

DISK BRACKET: Mushkin Enhanced 2.5" Solid State Hard Drive Bracket (Aria) 5.46 // doesn't a bracket come in the box with the Crucial SSD? Did with my Intel one.

Wireless: Tenda Wireless-N300 PCI Adapter (Aria) 12.99 // OK

[Orient]

You may as well drop down to the Intel i5 2500K unless you have a real need for the 2600k, saves about £80 for a small power increase.

[matchu]

What RAM would you suggest at the moment?

I would personally go for 2x2GB DDR3 1333MHz or 1600MHz @ cas-9 timings. 8GB of ram is typically overkill for any application... most people don't report a significant improvement with it. Just get well-timed sticks and you're good to go. Plus, you save a lot of money by cutting back on the ram!

Is the SSD disk worth it?, and I am also considering a RAID0 setup for 2xSSD. Will it make a worthy difference?

Yes

I went for the Z68 board basically because it was bleeding edge. Yes, you're right I don't need it and its a risk in terms or support and I don't have any plans at all to over-clock.

Z68 offers overclocking advantages, the ability to use the onboard GPU to encode video (while a discrete card is installed) and Intel Smart Storage (which allows you to use an SSD as your HDD Cache). You mentioned you're not overclocking and that you're buying 2 SSD's in RAID. Unless you plan on making good use of that video encoding technology, Z68 is a bit overkill. Based on what you said, I would recommend an H67 motherboard.

Also, you want to buy a K-series CPU but don't plan on overclocking. Why not save a bit of cash and get a core i5 2500 or an i7 2600 instead?

Alternatively, since you want the "most powerful PC" your budget will allow for....
1. get a P67 board
2. get a K-series cpu
3. overclock the CPU
4. use the money saved from the RAM and MB to get a better GPU or towards more SSD storage/speed

I think you'll benefit most from faster CPU, faster GPU or faster storage. Not from RAM or a Z68 board (unless you want to use the video encoding features)

[ces]

1. get a P67 board
2. get a K-series cpu

I can understand a P67 is you intend to use a video card. I can understand a K series if you don't. I don't see wanting to get both.

[kuzzia]

Might as well go with P67 or H67, since you don't need the features from both in one package or SRT I assume. That'll also save you some bucks.

Have you considered changing the stock Antec fans? They're not the quitest in the world, you know.

[matchu]

1. get a P67 board
2. get a K-series cpu

I can understand a P67 is you intend to use a video card. I can understand a K series if you don't. I don't see wanting to get both.

P67 allows for easier overclocking = better value on your money

Besides, nothing wrong with using a K-series CPU + a GPU (which looks like what the OP wanted in any case)

[xinaes]

Off topic, but...

The android emulators are quite hungry

Understatement of the year... is it possible to actually run things in the Android emulator on a modern machine? My experience of it on my current laptop before I actually got my phone was sluggish in the extreme.

I'm also wondering about which Sandy Bridge chipset to go for, will probably start a thread at some point...

[amorgos]

Hey All,

Thanks very much for the very informative comments. I have ordered the parts and I'll be building it over the weekend hopefully! Here's what I went with in the end:

CASE: Coolermaster Sileo 500 Silent Midi Tower Case Aria £55.80 Went for a reasonably priced silent case recommended by SPCR
MOTHERBOARD: ASUS P8P67 Intel P67 (REV B3) Aria £118.20 Took your advice and went for a less bleeding edge motherboard.
CPU: Intel Core i7-2600K 3.40GHz Aria £220.20 This IMO is incredibly good value for such a capable CPU. I didn't see any reason in downgrading it.
PSU: 430W Be Quiet! Pure Power BQT L7 Aria £34.99 I've read great reviews of this one on other sites and it was on special at aria.
COOLER: Be Quiet! Dark Rock Advanced CPU Cooler Aria £40.55 Same as above.
VIDEO: Gigabyte HD 5750 1GB Silent eBuyer £96.61 I'm not sure what to expect from this, but it's silent with decent reviews and I'm not a games freak! So seemed like a good buy
OPTICAL: LiteOn iHOS104-37 4x BD-ROM Drive / 8x DVD-ROM (Black) - OEM Aria £37.19 Ditched the blueray writer and god a cheap reader.
MEMORY: 8GB Mushkin Silverline #996770 (2x4GB) DDR3 1333MHz 9-9-9-24 Aria £59.99 Got cheaper ram than before. But 8GB is absolutely essential for Eclipse environment.
DISK: OCZ Vertex 3 120GB 2.5" SATA-III Aria £213.08 Didn't go for RAID0 as SSD is just too expensive ATM. I went for the best SSD for a decent price.
DISK BRACKET: Kingston 2.5" to 3.5" Hard Drive Bracket eBuyer £2.00
Wireless: Cisco Linksys Wireless-N PCI Aria £34.00
OS: Microsoft Windows 7 Professional 64 Bit - OEM Aria £100.79

Thanks again for your help! Yes Android emulators are a bit shocking Try my android game by the way: http://www.chesspresso.net

Regards,
Amorgos

[amorgos]

I've just finished assembling the above PC without any issues thankfully.

This PC is REALLY quiet! I thought something was not working or something as it just wasn't making hardly any noise at all! It's quieter than my wife's netbook and it runs so quickly. It has a Windows experience rating of 7.3.

The Coolermaster Sileo 500 case is very well built, looks good and feels very solid. I'm extremely pleased with what I chose and I would recommend SPCR to take a closer look at the Be Quiet! products. The Dark Rock Advanced fan was so quiet that I just thought something was wrong with it for a good 10 mins (seriously). And the 430W PSU is equally as impressive.

The Dark rock fan was not pleasant to install though.

It was also well worth the money purchasing a great SSD drive (OCZ Vertex 3 128GB SSD). It has made a substantial difference to disk access. Great for Eclipse.

The only bad purchase for this build was getting a TP-Link 951N Wireless-N PCI card. The signal is very bad with its latest drivers and pales in comparison to all my wireless devices in the house in terms of signal. Very surprising as it has been given very good reviews (by consumers at least).

Thanks for all your help!

Amorgos,
http://www.chesspresso.net

[xinaes]

I've just finished assembling the above PC without any issues thankfully.

Good stuff, hope it continues to run smoothly

it runs so quickly.

Quickly enough for the Android emulator to be workable?

[amorgos]

I tried the Honeycomb emulator today and its totally unusable still. I'm very surprised!

Even the Gingerbread (2.3.3) emulator is quite unresponsive as well but not too bad. Far slower than the real thing

Fail! I can't see how you could use the Honeycomb emulator unless you had a cluster of 10 of these machines.