"we’ll save the Blu-ray drive for our Home Theatre PC"

You big tease! Will we be expecting a HTPC guide again anytime soon?

I disagree with this:

the best value board we’ve seen to date is the £120 Asus M4A89GTD Pro/USB 3, meaning that the X6 1090T BE option costs £40 more than the i7-860 and is less versatile.

What about the AS-Rock 890gx extreme3? cost is 129 dollar @ newegg.

Should read 4 thread in last page ... you put these in for fun. :)

Thanks guys! Been waiting for this, although I've now just got even more to think about. At least nVidia have helped me not spend more than £200 on a GPU. That was nice of them.

Regarding the comment in the enthusiast overclocker about dropping in an i3, can somebody tell me definitively whether sticking one in the P55-UD2, rather than the H55 is ok for overclocking?

Cheers again for this guys. Just out of curiosity, has the spending limit been increased? I seem to remember you guys starting off by looking at 400 quid affordable kits....it's now creeped up to 460

Could you recommend a good non Micro - ATX motherboard. Hate those micro atx, just because you can get all the stuff you need in there, like a huge cooler and ram with heatspreaders, besides it just looks plain ugly

With comments such as this:

As we wanted this system to be under a grand, and with the HD 5850 usurped by the new Nvidia GeForce GTX 460 1GB as the best upper-mid-range graphics card, that's what we've opted for.

Can someone from B-tech confirm that this is because of the 5850's price v the 460 as opposed to actual performance?

We’ve stuck with our recommendation of a GeForce GTS 250 card

Not sure that you have.

Folding rig??

very nice guide, love the "New this month" parts.

We played with the idea of using the reference CPU cooler for this system to leave us room for a HD 5750 or possibly HD 5770,

hum? you are using 5770 :)

Originally Posted by fingerbob69
With comments such as this:

As we wanted this system to be under a grand, and with the HD 5850 usurped by the new Nvidia GeForce GTX 460 1GB as the best upper-mid-range graphics card, that's what we've opted for.

Can someone from B-tech confirm that this is because of the 5850's price v the 460 as opposed to actual performance?

This the conclusion from Bit-Tech on the 460 review:-

"The GTX 460 1GB is a return to form for Nvidia. It trades blows with the Radeon HD 5850, which is £40 more expensive, and pummels its now similarly priced stable mate, the GTX 465 and the slightly cheaper Radeon HD 5830. It also performs well when compared to the GTX 460 768MB, as it provides around 10 per cent extra performance for a similar increase in price."

I think since it's very close to the 5850 but £40 cheaper, the 460 gets the nod. Whether we see 5850's come down in price to match amy well change the story.

Originally Posted by meandmymouth
Folding rig??

Read the first bloody page, look ill make it easy for you:

Finally, the Folding Rig has been left off this month's guide as there's a new GPU client out that supports the Fermi-based cards. We'll be looking into the relative merits of various cards in a forthcoming article, but it's early days and we're not in a position to make recommendations at this moment. Stay tuned!

I know you don't like to rocommend multi GPU settups but as nvsurround requires SLI there may be a case for an exception. Some benchmarks are showing GTX460's in SLI performs about as good as if not better than a single HD5870 and also offers NVsurround, physx and 3D (if you care about those things). I would agree with choosing the HD5870 over GTX460 tho as it leave the option for Crossfire at a later date and even more performance but only if the motherboard supports it. In the Enthusiast Overclocker and Gaming Workhorse couldn't you at least recommend (as a side suggestion) a SLI/crossfire board for upgrade purposes? Unless you go straight for the HD5870 which would offer multi monitor gaming on a single PCI-e x16 slot, those looking for multi display gaming down the line will need to upgrade their mobo since the second slot on that board is only x4 if they go with the fantastic GTX460 or get a new (at current prices) £300+ card altogether.

1) Would the author consider paying 40$ extra over the premium player and install the GTX 460 in SLI instead of the 5870?

2) For a game rig that might include the HD5970, would the author consider saving 30$ and installing the GTX 460 in 4-way SLI instead?

A general answer that addresses heat generation, power consumption, noise and performance from the author and readers would be highly appreciated.

Originally Posted by crazyceo
"we’ll save the Blu-ray drive for our Home Theatre PC"

You big tease! Will we be expecting a HTPC guide again anytime soon?

We meant our actual HTPCs at home, rather than a bit-tech recommended system! There's no specific plans for a HTPC building article, apart from an entry on our ever-longer to-do list. [sighs]

Originally Posted by

Error: first page - the Palit Sonic you linked to on Scan is not the massively overclocked Sonic Platinum. The Sonic has a 25MHz overclock, which is less than the 715MHz on the £187 Gigabyte card. :)

What issues with the gigabyte UD3R board ?????

Originally Posted by wuyanxu
very nice guide, love the "New this month" parts.
hum? you are using 5770 :)

Oops, still getting used the new format. Fixed, thanks. Glad you liked the new layout though - should help you regular readers go straight to the new stuff!

Originally Posted by Paradigm Shifter
Error: first page - the Palit Sonic you linked to on Scan is not the massively overclocked Sonic Platinum. The Sonic has a 25MHz overclock, which is less than the 715MHz on the £187 Gigabyte card. :)

Yep, good spot - my tired bleary eyes didn't pick up on the clocks last night. Fixed and amended. :)

Originally Posted by brave758
What issues with the gigabyte UD3R board ?????

We're having a few issues with the rev 2 board, which is the only version you can buy now. We're working with Gigabyte to identify what's up, but in the meantime we know the Asus P6X58D-E is very good, and feel more confident about recommending it at the moment.

In the interests of fairness and impartiality, that's all I can say at this point. Hope you understand.

Looking forward to the review of the Frio but are you sure about CPU fans that require you to open the case to increase/decrease the fan speed?

I have a ZeroTherm NV120 sitting in a box because reaching around the back of the case to increase/decrease the CPU fan speed was a pain in the proverbial. I have reverted to PWM control.

Not a surprise to see the 460'dominate it's an excellent card for the money

Let's hope the 5850 drops back the £200 Mark were it was at on release. Price wars are good for consumer

At 1920x 1080 the 460 was faster than 5850 + cheaper in most of bit techs test games.

You should have used the bar none Seasonic X-750 PSU instead. That sucker is supremely efficient, with 88% efficiency at 10% load levels.

The 5850 is already sub £200.

Aria are offering a small number @ £199 on their Super Specials today.

Originally Posted by Claave
We meant our actual HTPCs at home, rather than a bit-tech recommended system! There's no specific plans for a HTPC building article, apart from an entry on our ever-longer to-do list. [sighs]

Do Blu-Ray drives play nice with Media Center yet, or do you still have to use the God-awful PowerCinema or whatever it's called...?

So instead of 1333 CAS 8 you've gone for 1600 CAS 9 or what? Pure MHz is not the main factor of memory, and I'm shocked you've left the sub timings of your kits out.

So first you spend a week writing an exhaustive article about how many CPU cores you need for gaming, concluding:

One important conclusion to take away though is that you don't need a 6-core CPU. They do nothing for your games, so unless you already find a quad-core slow in other applications or your day-to-day PC use, don't upgrade for this reason.

... and then you fail to save 50 pounds by going for the i5-750 and using that money on a graphics card in a PC you dub a GAMING workhorse.

May i say that i thoroughly disagree? A Gaming PC with a 1000 to spend should feature either a 5870 or a pair of 460's, and it has no business meddling about with hyperthreading.

Also, on the last page i see this:

While we’d all like to have a i7-980X in our PC, the extra four cores over the i7-930 only help in certain applications –

That's either four threads or two cores, not sure which one you would prefer.