Project Reality Forums

boilerrat wrote:Could you organize this a bit better? Hard for me to understand it.

'Liam[EEF wrote:;1232010']my friend is asking me if this is a good rig, could people put their comments to what they thing and if there is a better alternative (his budget is £1000-£1200~.)

Basic Specification:
Chillblast Fusion Midgard - 3.6GHz Core i5, 4GB, Radeon 4890 #19146
Intel Core i5 2.66GHz Processor overclocked to 3.6GHz. (upgraded to: Intel Core i7 860 2.80GHz Processor overclocked to up to 3.6GHz - Extreme Power [+£85.00])
Arctic Cooling Freezer Xtreme CPU Cooler
MSI P55-CD53 Motherboard
ATi Radeon 4890 1024MB Graphics Card
Xigmatec Midgard Black Case
4GB PC3-10666 DDR3 Memory
24x DVD-RW/CD-RW Optical Drive (Black)
500GB SATA 7200rpm Hard Disk. (Upgraded to:1500GB 7200RPM Hard Disk)
Onboard High Definition Audio
500watt Cooler Master PSU
Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit OEM
2 Year Collect and Return Warranty - see bottom of description

Ports on rear of system:

6 x USB 2.0 ports
1 x PS/2 for keyboard
Audio outputs
1 x 10/100/1000Mbps Ethernet for network
2 x DVI outputs
1 x S-Video

Ports on case:

2 x USB 2.0 ports

Total Price ex.VAT: £870.64
Total Price inc.VAT: £1,001.24

brackets with upgraded to are changes from the origional rig found here:
Chillblast :: Chillblast Fusion Midgard - 3.6GHz Core i5, 4GB, Radeon 4890 :: Step 1
thanks for the help.

'[R-DEV wrote:Ninja2dan;1232329']I take it that your friend has no interest or knowledge to build a unit himself? Some of the components look OK, but some I have doubts.
yep he is a complete newbie to the realm of gaming on the pc

The case doesn't look too bad, although I'm not familiar with the company. The design looks alright, so I doubt you'll have any issues with it.

Looks alright, personaly for my new computer im steering towards a coolmaster.

Regarding the processor, you should be very careful when trying to overclock. I do NOT recommend you overclock a computer if you are not experienced. Doing so not only immediately voids the processor's warranty, but can lead to severe damage to the PC.

Already warned him about overclocking. I've been showing him alternatives that he would not have to clock and are still a good value but he hasn't made a choice onto what to change yet.

For the liquid cooling system, that version looks a little "cheap" in my opinion. You're better off going with a better design, something made by a well-trusted company and designed to offer expansion and upgrading later on. I would also recommend a cooling system with panel-front monitoring and control, and cooling plates for both the CPU and GPU. I've seen a few that even had additional plates for cooling the HDD.

I dont know much about liquid cooling myself so trusted companys in that field are unknown to me, if any one could recommend any alternatives that would be appreciated. The case comes with a fan control plate on the front but It doesnt have the display, I'll look around for some better alternatives.

The motherboard is going to limit your options in the future. Although MSI isn't a bad company, that mobo only has a single PCI-E slot so you can never use SLI or Crossfire. It also only has 3 PCI slots, but I don't think you'll be using too many of those. Not a bad board, just remember you're limited to only one vid card.

Im not sure if he wants 1 or 2 graphics card to begin with but Its good to be future proof and assume he will upgrade with another later, ive been looking around a site called CCL (CCL Computers) who are quite good.

I would definitely recommend a better PSU. The 500w might be fine for the base system and no real gaming, but once you start adding more RAM and a faster processor, a decent video card, etc the PSU isn't going to be enough. With your upgraded specs, I would recommend nothing less than 600/750w just to be safe. Thermaltake is very good, and worth the price any day. And with their 750w, you'd never need to upgrade your PSU no matter what kind of other upgrades you do in the future.

Those thermaltake PSUs look good, and with modular cables makes life easier.

For the HDD's, I don't think you'd need a 1.5TB drive for casual use and gaming. I would actually recommend you go with two separate drives around 500GB each. Use one drive strictly for your O/S and program installation, and the other for storage of music, videos, etc. This can actually boost performance with your non-O/S drive is also slated to run the "virtual memory". Another bonus is the storage drive can be swapped between PC's even if you upgrade the main drive or have a failure.

Already recommended, personally I have a 250gb + 1tb, although ive never thought of swapping the virtual memory to the second drive, I'll have a gander for some reading about it.

Example: Something happens, your main drive has a failure and causes total data loss or an unusable drive. Just format it and reinstall or replace. All other files such as downloads, music, videos, etc. are still safe on the extra storage drive. No need to re-download everything again.

The onboard audio should be fine for casual gaming, but you do have the spare PCI slots if you wanted to upgrade in the future. You should be fine as listed.

Ive already warned him about the Sound max cards not liking bf2 (which is one of the main games he wants to play and which I have enticed him to get along with which mod do you recon ) but by droping his hardware acceleration to basic it should fix this if he only wants to stick with the sound max.


So apart from the notes mentioned above, it's not a bad little system for the beginner gamer and inexperienced PC user. I'm too lazy to convert the cost to USD right now so I'm not sure how the price actually ends up, but if you don't have a problem with the price then go for it.