A Gaming PC

[Astute]

Hey, I'm trying to build a gaming PC and want to see if anybody had any thoughts or concerns about the build. It currently costs £1,150 and I wouldn't want to exceed £1200. I want it to run most games out there at the highest end with good processing speed and FPS. This build is under the AMD Desktops under the Crossfire Gaming PCs category. The current build is this:

[COLOR="#2e8b57"]Case
InWIN DRAGON RIDER BLACK GAMING CASE
	
Processor (CPU)
AMD PHENOM II X6 1100T (3.30GHz/9MB CACHE/AM3) - BLACK EDITION
	
Motherboard
ASUS® M5A99X EVO:USB 3.0, SATA 6.0Gb/s, Quad CrossFireX™/SLI™
	
Memory (RAM)
8GB KINGSTON HYPER-X GENESIS DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz (2 x 4GB KIT)
	
Graphics Card
2GB AMD RADEON™ HD6970 - 2 DVI,HDMI,2 mDP - DX® 11, Eyefinity 4 Capable
	
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
1TB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD1002FAEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)
	
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
12x BLU-RAY ROM DRIVE, 16x DVD ±R/±RW (£45)
	
Power Supply
CORSAIR 750W ENTHUSIAST SERIES™ TX750 V2-80 PLUS® BRONZE (£86)
	
Processor Cooling
COOLIT ECO II C240 A.L.C (ADVANCED LIQUID COOLER) (£99)
	
Sound Card
Sound Blaster® X-Fi™ Titanium (£59)
	
Network Facilities
ONBOARD 10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT - AS STANDARD ON ALL PCs
	
USB Options
6 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL (MIN 2 FRONT PORTS) AS STANDARD
	
Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£79)[/COLOR]

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated, thanks

 

[Fear]

This below spec will perform better for gaming, there is only 4GB Ram in it as at present this is more than enough for gaming if you want to future proof you can go for 8GB and that will bring the total price to £1189.00

Case
InWIN DRAGON RIDER BLACK GAMING CASE
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i5-2500 Quad Core (3.30GHz, 6MB Cache) + HD Graphics
Motherboard
ASUS® P8P67 LE: USB 3.0, SATA 6.0GB/s, CrossFireX™
Memory (RAM)
4GB SAMSUNG DDR3 DUAL-DDR3 1333MHz (2 X 2GB)
Graphics Card
1.5GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 580 - 2 DVI, HDMI, DP - 3D Vision Ready
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
750GB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD7502AAEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
12x BLU-RAY ROM DRIVE, 16x DVD ±R/±RW (£45)
Power Supply
CORSAIR 650W ENTHUSIAST SERIES™ TX650 V2-80 PLUS® BRONZE (£72)
Processor Cooling
TITAN FENRIR EVO EXTREME HEATPIPE CPU COOLER (£39)
Sound Card
Sound Blaster® X-Fi™ Titanium (£59)
Network Facilities
ONBOARD 10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT - AS STANDARD ON ALL PCs
USB Options
6 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL (MIN 2 FRONT PORTS) AS STANDARD
Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£79)
Office Software
NO OFFICE SOFTWARE
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£5)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 10 to 12 working days
Quantity
1

Price: £1,159.00 including VAT and delivery.

 

[Wozza63]

at the settings he'll be playing, id recommend 8GB considering it probably wont be long until over 4GB is needed for gaming

 

[Petchi b]

This below spec will perform better for gaming, there is only 4GB Ram in it as at present this is more than enough for gaming if you want to future proof you can go for 8GB and that will bring the total price to £1189.00

Case
InWIN DRAGON RIDER BLACK GAMING CASE
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i5-2500 Quad Core (3.30GHz, 6MB Cache) + HD Graphics
Motherboard
ASUS® P8P67 LE: USB 3.0, SATA 6.0GB/s, CrossFireX™
Memory (RAM)
4GB SAMSUNG DDR3 DUAL-DDR3 1333MHz (2 X 2GB)
Graphics Card
1.5GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 580 - 2 DVI, HDMI, DP - 3D Vision Ready
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
750GB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD7502AAEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
12x BLU-RAY ROM DRIVE, 16x DVD ±R/±RW (£45)
Power Supply
CORSAIR 650W ENTHUSIAST SERIES™ TX650 V2-80 PLUS® BRONZE (£72)
Processor Cooling
TITAN FENRIR EVO EXTREME HEATPIPE CPU COOLER (£39)
Sound Card
Sound Blaster® X-Fi™ Titanium (£59)
Network Facilities
ONBOARD 10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT - AS STANDARD ON ALL PCs
USB Options
6 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL (MIN 2 FRONT PORTS) AS STANDARD
Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£79)
Office Software
NO OFFICE SOFTWARE
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£5)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 10 to 12 working days
Quantity
1

Price: £1,159.00 including VAT and delivery.

If you are not interested in overclocking (it's not really needed for gaming) then you could drop the CPU cooler to a tripple copper and save £20. Also I wouldn't bother with a sound card (unless you are going to spend £150+ on one) as the on board HD sound is more than good enough for gaming.

I'm assuming you dont need a Monitor or any other peripherals?

 

[Astute]

I looked at a lot of the benchmark comparisons and the i5-2500k seems to be much better than the Phenom II x6 1100T so the main change was that

Would you suggest the following were any better:

Case
NZXT PHANTOM WHITE GAMING CASE
	
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i5-2500k Quad Core (3.30GHz, 6MB Cache) + HD Graphics
	
Motherboard
ASUS® P8P67 (NEW REV 3.0): USB 3.0, SATA 6.0GB/s, CrossFireX™
	
Memory (RAM)
8GB KINGSTON HYPER-X GENESIS DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz, X.M.P (2 x 4GB KIT)
	
Graphics Card
2GB AMD RADEON™ HD6970 - 2 DVI,HDMI,2 mDP - DX® 11, Eyefinity 4 Capable
	
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
1TB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD1002FAEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)
	
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
12x BLU-RAY ROM DRIVE, 16x DVD ±R/±RW (£45)
	
Power Supply
CORSAIR 750W ENTHUSIAST SERIES™ TX750 V2-80 PLUS® BRONZE (£86)
	
Processor Cooling
COOLIT ECO II A.L.C (ADVANCED LIQUID COOLER) (£59)
	
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
	
Network Facilities
ONBOARD 10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT - AS STANDARD ON ALL PCs
	
USB Options
6 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL (MIN 2 FRONT PORTS) AS STANDARD
	
Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£79)
	
Office Software
FREE Microsoft® Office Starter 2010 (Limited functionality Word & Excel)
	
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
	
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£5)
	
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
	
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 10 to 12 working days
Quantity	1

I'm not so sure about the GTX 580, on the above suggested build everything seems to have been decreased to make way for the extra £170 it costs for that GTX 580, is it really that much better?

If you really don't think liquid cooling will ever really be necessary for the computer over the Fenrir Heatpipe cooler, that'd be interesting to know as well. And would a gaming sound card produce a noticeable difference for the money it costs? I'm not so much looking for an entry to gaming as much as something that will really be an improvement against what i've spent the last few years gaming on, which is no longer good enough to run games like Bad Company 2 etc. If I'm going to spend £1000+ i'd rather spend a bit more and make sure its a really noticeable improvement in areas other than just graphics and FPS. But, if the sound card wont make that much difference to me having used a standard Realtek HD Audio for a few years on this PC, then maybe I could spend that money on improving another aspect?

Thanks again guys

 

[Fear]

Well most of your gaming performance comes from the GPU so the better that is the better your games run and the GTX580 and HD6970 are very similar performing cards the 580 normally wins but you get what you pay for IMO so you can decide if you are happy or not to spend the extra either card will do well.

Yes you are very correct i did cut a lot of stuff from your original build that is basically not needed or required so i could improve your PC's gaming performance, so lets start with the watercooling if you are going to be overclocking then fair enough get the watercooling but overclocking is not needed for gaming especially with that i5 2500 CPU and you run the risk of water leaks so if you are not OC'ing you also do not need the k series as the only difference aside from the slightly higher price against the standard 2500 is the k series is unlocked for higher OC'ing, similar thing with the Ram 1600MHz you will only notice a difference if you are OC'ing and yes i did drop it to 4GB from 8GB aswell as the majority of games are only using 2-3GB of system ram and that is including the system resources OS, AV, WMP, Ventrilo and WMP, yes i keep an eye on what my system is doing and using, next i dropped the PSU down to a lesser 650W from the 750W you had as the GTX 580 does not use as much power and it still leaves plenty of room for future upgrades extra HDD's more Ram if you ever happen to need it before you upgrade to another PC etc, now that MB you picked in your latest spec above i see you went for the dearer 1 any reason why as from all i can see it is not making any improvement just increasing the price.

As Petchi b said above you can quite happily use the super quiet triple copper cooler as this is enough for cooling your CPU i only chose the Titan Fenrir as this will knock a few more degrees off your CPU temps without the risk of watercooling and water leaks and was well within your budget, now with regards the sound card it all depends on if you can notice the difference between onboard and the other optional soundcards i have used onboard and i am not happy with it, in my last system i had a cheap Audigy SB-XFi and i could notice the improvement on that and this time i have spent the extra and got the Titanium Fatal1ty and i think it is worth every penny but again it all depends on your own personal hearing.

 

[Astute]

If by MB you mean motherboard, that was just the default one on that PC - to recreate the same PC with the i5 processor I had to start again on the Intel section, and that just happened to be the default motherboard selection.

If the 580 and HD6970 are that similar in performance, is the 580 really worth the extra £170 to you personally for such a difference, or is it really noticeable?

I do wish 6GB RAM was an option, it only seems to have 4GB and 8GB up and I'd like to go for 6GB. I can't help noticing your own personal build has a 1000W power supply, why is it so high when you're also using the GTX 580? Also, the help screen lists the GTX 580 as having a minimum PSU requirement of 850W, why is this? I've recreated it a little with the following settings:

Case
InWIN BLACK DRAGON RIDER GAMING CASE
	
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i5-2500 Quad Core (3.30GHz, 6MB Cache) + HD Graphics
	
Motherboard
ASUS® P8P67 LE: USB 3.0, SATA 6.0GB/s, CrossFireX™
	
Memory (RAM)
8GB KINGSTON HYPER-X GENESIS DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz, X.M.P (2 x 4GB KIT)
	
Graphics Card
1.5GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 580 - 2 DVI, HDMI, DP - 3D Vision Ready
Free Item	
Free Item
FREE Batman Arkham City with any Nvidia® GeForce GTX560 or above!
	
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
1TB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD1002FAEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)
	
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
12x BLU-RAY ROM DRIVE, 16x DVD ±R/±RW (£45)
	
Power Supply
CORSAIR 750W ENTHUSIAST SERIES™ TX750 V2-80 PLUS® BRONZE (£86)
	
Processor Cooling
TITAN FENRIR EVO EXTREME HEATPIPE CPU COOLER (£39)
	
Sound Card
Sound Blaster® X-Fi™ Xtreme Audio (£32)

Total £1,191

I can see the potential areas to get money back on this thing such as losing the Blu Ray and dropping to 750GB (Though im already using 500GB for the number of Steam games I have and don't want to run out of space too quickly), but just wondered what areas you'd recommend to downgrade a little in. Is the Xtreme Audio likely to be much better than the Audigy SE?

 

[Wozza63]

he most likely purchased the 1000W PSU to allow him to add a second 580 later when the card becomes a lot weaker, there will the be no problems about PSU and what not, you can go down that route if you like, there is nothing wrong with that if you can afford it

 

[Grinder]

A lot of forums and gamers recomend the value of a 570 over the 580 as there is only a minor improvement vs performance but the cost is much better value for money.Plus the 570 will play the same games at the same resolutions at maybe 5-10 fps less but you will never notice the difference and there are no games that will task these cards at this moment in time.

 

[Fear]

If by MB you mean motherboard, that was just the default one on that PC - to recreate the same PC with the i5 processor I had to start again on the Intel section, and that just happened to be the default motherboard selection.

If the 580 and HD6970 are that similar in performance, is the 580 really worth the extra £170 to you personally for such a difference, or is it really noticeable?

I do wish 6GB RAM was an option, it only seems to have 4GB and 8GB up and I'd like to go for 6GB. I can't help noticing your own personal build has a 1000W power supply, why is it so high when you're also using the GTX 580? Also, the help screen lists the GTX 580 as having a minimum PSU requirement of 850W, why is this? I've recreated it a little with the following settings:

I can see the potential areas to get money back on this thing such as losing the Blu Ray and dropping to 750GB (Though im already using 500GB for the number of Steam games I have and don't want to run out of space too quickly), but just wondered what areas you'd recommend to downgrade a little in. Is the Xtreme Audio likely to be much better than the Audigy SE?

Yes i did mean the motherboard when i put MB.

For me i always stick with nvidia it is personal preference and i always go for the best i can afford at the time but TBH you need to make the choice for yourself, the place where these top end cards stand out is in a year or 2 when they are still performing well enough to max games out just like the GTX280 i had before this and that was still maxing games out at 1920x1200.

Well 6GB was the lowest i could get with the Ram i chose or i would have just gone for 4GB but i had enough in my budget to do as i needed so thats the reason i am on 6GB and as Wozza365 has put above the 1000W PSU that was for if i ever decide to put a second GTX580 in (i have no idea where that 850W minimum came from as a 650W is more than enough).

If you are going to be using 500GB + just for games then obviously dropping to a lesser HDD is no good for you and is there any chance you might want to watch a bluray disc on the PC if so then that is also worth keeping in, now from the last spec you have above you don't sound sure about the soundcard so i would leave it out and see how you get on with the onboard sound if you decide it's not good enough then you can always purchase 1 at a later date and they are very easy to install and as has already been said you can drop to the 1333MHz ram to knock a little more off as you will not notice the difference and as i said before 4GB is more than most games are using infact i can't say that i have found 1 that uses more than 3GB with other programs running aswell but you can keep 8GB if you feel happier with that as you are well in your budget, also as i have said before the PSU you have gone for the 750W again a 650W is enough with room to add extra HDD's at a later date if you need to and you can drop that titan fenrir down to the super quiet tripple copper one if you want to save more it won't make a massive difference.

 

[Fear]

A lot of forums and gamers recomend the value of a 570 over the 580 as there is only a minor improvement vs performance but the cost is much better value for money.Plus the 570 will play the same games at the same resolutions at maybe 5-10 fps less but you will never notice the difference and there are no games that will task these cards at this moment in time.

Yes very true but if you can afford the best then why not and that extra 5-10 FPS could be the difference between still having smooth frame rates at max settings in a year or 2 or beyond where as the lesser card will be lowering settings sooner.

 

[DanteWilhelm]

everyone should read my thread


it will answer question without these thread needing to be created


it is in check this spec section, called do i really need all this spec?


dude, all you have to do is go onto youtube, type in your graphics card and the game


then look at the performance and read in the description the spec of their PC


it will answer your questions instantly!