PC Hardware Buyer's Guide - April 2010

Gaming Workhorse

While our Enthusiast Overclocker system is built around getting maximum performance on a reasonable budget, those looking for excellent all-round performance will want to step up on the hardware scale. Naturally this PC can take heavy gaming at 1,920 x 1,080, and is capable of processing a heap of RAW images or encoding video or audio pretty quickly.

The price difference this month between US and UK has narrowed ramarkably. The US price has dropped around $30-50, while the UK price has risen £10-25. This has been mostly due to the Radeon HD 5850 graphics card and memory prices going up again for us UK folk, while the US has seen several slight drops in price here and there.

Again we've opted for an LGA1156 CPU rather than LGA1366, but the fact that the Core i7-860 has a higher stock frequency and better Turbo Boost capabilities than the Core i7-930 counts in its favour, and it also keeps the overall price down. The Core i7-860 is generally available for a shade less than the i7-930, and the odd special price offer on the CPU can bring it under £210, so be sure to shop around. Most prices are going upward though, so we'd advise not waiting that long.

A decent P55 motherboard, such as the Gigabyte GA-P55A-UD3R is far cheaper than its X58 alternatives, allowing for more money to be pumped in elsewhere in the build. Add in our our favourite Titan Fenrir cooler, and there's easily a 4GHz overclock to be had.


We've used in 4GB of 1,600MHz DDR3 memory here to keep to the sub-£1k budget, but if you really are building a workstation, you should proably be looking at 8GB to dive into. You could opt to get two 2GB sticks to start and leave yourself the option to drop another 4GB in later, but remember that filling your memory sockets could impair your overclocking potential. We've seen some 8GB kits that are far more expensive than just buying two 4GB kits, so bear that in mind too. Also remember to use a 64-bit OS so that you can use all that memory - if you're not a perennial upgrader, an OEM copy should be fine but regular upgraders will need the pricier retail version.


On the graphics front, it still has to be the ATI Radeon HD 5850 1GB, but be very careful how much you pay. Prices are still fluctuating with this card, but less than before - you can pick one up for as little as £220 if you're lucky, but most are priced £230-240, and we certainly wouldn't pay a penny more than that at the moment. If you can't bare to shed this kind of cash on a graphics card, go for the cheaper £190 XFX HD 5830. Beefing up your gaming power by opting for a HD 5870 for around £310 is also a valid option, as the i7-860 CPU won't limit its prowess.

The current Nvidia alternative is arguably the GeForce GTX 470, but at £310 it's more of a rival to the HD 5870, which outpaces the GeForce in most situations and is cooler, quieter and consumes less power. The other problem for Nvidia fans is that the GTX 470 (and GTX 480) are still not in stock, even two weeks after launch. When it comes to a high-end graphics card, it's still a no-brainer decision to just go for the fastest Radeon you can afford.

As we mentioned with the Enthusiast Overclocker, a few readers have been investing in two HD 5770 1GB cards instead of a single HD 5850 or HD 5870. We still recommend the single card route, but if you do fancy CrossFiring it up, remember that you'll need a compatible and more expensive motherboard such as the Gigabyte GA-P55M-UD4, Asus P7P55D Deluxe or MSI P55 GD65.

The excellent Antec TruePower New 650W gets the nod again for power provision. We've included the Fractal Design R2 case here again (or the Cooler Master CM690 II for our State-side friends), but we realise people might still want something a little more upmarket as an investment when they are dropping nearly a grand on kit. Alternatives include the Cooler Master ATCS 840 or Lian Li PC-9B. There's quite a bit of choice in this range and if you have other favourites or suggestions - let us know!


Finally, drop in the Samsung Spinpoint F3 1TB hard drive and a SATA DVD-RW optical drive and you're all done. If you do have a bit more to spend, it's a £250 - £300 128GB Indilinx-based SSD that should see your money. Depending on how you use it, a 64GB SSD might be worth considering as well - you could either house your OS on it and install games to the F3, or use the SSD as quick-loading games drive and have your OS and apps on the Samsung disk.

If you have a particular penchant for watching Blu-ray movies on your PC, then drop one in for £50-60, however no games or software come on Blu-ray so we don't really feel it's worth the cost.