A good all rounder for under £900

mgsolidus

Enthusiast
So choosing the 120gb ssd as first hdd is better than choosing 20gb ssd cache drive ??

If you have an SSD, you don't need an SSD cache drive.
If you have a HDD, it will benefit you to have an SSD cache drive. You have 3 choices,
SSD + HDD
HDD + SSD cache drive
HDD

that's in order of speed.
 

Toxophilix

Bright Spark
What you want is an SSD as your primary drive. You can put your OS and most frequently used programs on the SSD and get very fast boot and load times. It will appear, in Windows, as your C: drive.

The mSATA cache SSD is a different kind of setup. That involves using a traditional hard disk as the main drive with a very small SSD as a cache. A cache is where a small amount of fast storage is used to speed up access to a larger slower storage device by providing a staging area for the most frequently accessed data. This technique can speed up access to a hard disk but it doesn't give anything like the speed of the first option.

So what you want to specify is an SSD as the primary drive. That's the fastest and most cost-effective choice.
 

bigben

Master Poster

mgsolidus

Enthusiast
Anyway, after all of this, here are 3 builds suited to you.
#1 - THE all rounder, and my personal choice:

Case
InWIN BLACK GR-1 GAMING CASE
Processor (CPU)
AMD FX-8320 Eight Core CPU (3.50GHz/8MB CACHE/AM3+)
Motherboard
ASUS® M5A97 R2.0(DDR3, USB3.0, 6Gb/s, Windows 8 Ready!)
Memory (RAM)
8GB SAMSUNG DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz (2 X 4GB)
Graphics Card
2GB AMD RADEON™ HD7870 - DVI,HDMI,2 mDP - DX® 11, Eyefinity 4 Capable
Free Item
FREE BIOSHOCK INFINITE & TOMB RAIDER with AMD 7850/7870 GPUs!
Memory - 1[SUP]st[/SUP] Hard Disk
120GB KINGSTON V300 SSD, SATA 6 Gb (450MB/R, 450MB/W)
2[SUP]nd[/SUP] Hard Disk
500GB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD5003AZEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)
1[SUP]st[/SUP] DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
Power Supply
CORSAIR 650W ENTHUSIAST SERIES™ TX650 V2-80 PLUS® BRONZE (£69)
Processor Cooling
Corsair H40 Hydro Series High Performance CPU Cooler (£39)
Sound Card
ONBOARD 8 CHANNEL (7.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Facilities
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 8 Standard Edition 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£79)
Office Software
FREE 30 Day Trial of Microsoft® Office® 365
Anti-Virus
BULLGUARD INTERNET SECURITY - FREE 90 DAY TRIAL
Warranty
3 Year Standard Warranty (1 Month Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 8 to 10 working days
Quantity
1

Price: £891.00 including VAT and delivery.

Unique URL to re-configure: http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/quotes/amd-bulldozer-top-spec-pc/tIheYIyrZo/
---

#2 - Better gaming performance than the first, but less overall performance. Less of an all rounder.

Case
InWIN BLACK GR-1 GAMING CASE
Processor (CPU)
AMD FX-6300 Six Core CPU (3.50GHz/8MB CACHE/AM3+)
Motherboard
ASUS® M5A97 R2.0(DDR3, USB3.0, 6Gb/s, Windows 8 Ready!)
Memory (RAM)
8GB SAMSUNG DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz (2 X 4GB)
Graphics Card
2GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 670 - 2 DVI, HDMI, DP - 3D Vision Ready
Memory - 1[SUP]st[/SUP] Hard Disk
1TB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD1002FAEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)
1[SUP]st[/SUP] DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
Power Supply
CORSAIR 650W ENTHUSIAST SERIES™ TX650 V2-80 PLUS® BRONZE (£69)
Processor Cooling
Super Quiet 22dBA Triple Copper Heatpipe AMD CPU Cooler (£19)
Sound Card
ONBOARD 8 CHANNEL (7.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Facilities
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 8 Standard Edition 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£79)
Office Software
FREE 30 Day Trial of Microsoft® Office® 365
Anti-Virus
BULLGUARD INTERNET SECURITY - FREE 90 DAY TRIAL
Warranty
3 Year Standard Warranty (1 Month Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 8 to 10 working days
Quantity
1

Price: £915.00 including VAT and delivery.

Unique URL to re-configure: http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/quotes/amd-bulldozer-top-spec-pc/_eDjDIUZZj/
---

#3 The Intel all rounder

Case
InWIN BLACK GR-1 GAMING CASE
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i5 Quad Core Processor i5-3470 (3.2GHz) 6MB Cache
Motherboard
ASUS® P8Z77-M: MICRO-ATX, USB 3.0, SATA 6GBs, ATI®CrossFireX
Memory (RAM)
8GB SAMSUNG DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz (2 X 4GB)
Graphics Card
2GB AMD RADEON™ HD7870 - DVI,HDMI,2 mDP - DX® 11, Eyefinity 4 Capable
Free Item
FREE BIOSHOCK INFINITE & TOMB RAIDER with AMD 7850/7870 GPUs!
Memory - 1[SUP]st[/SUP] Hard Disk
120GB KINGSTON V300 SSD, SATA 6 Gb (450MB/R, 450MB/W)
2[SUP]nd[/SUP] Hard Disk
500GB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD5003AZEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)
1[SUP]st[/SUP] DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
Power Supply
450W Quiet 80 PLUS Dual Rail PSU + 120mm Case Fan
Processor Cooling
Super Quiet 22dBA Triple Copper Heatpipe Intel CPU Cooler (£19)
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Facilities
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 8 Standard Edition 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 8 to 10 working days
Quantity
1

Price: £876.00 including VAT and delivery.

Unique URL to re-configure: http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/quotes/intel-ivy-bridge-pc/rGw68a6HHJ/
 

Teaz

Godlike
Adding to what the guys said, the ssd caching system is not needed if your primary hard drive is going to be an SSD. If you are going to have a mechanical hard drive as your main primary drive, then the ssd caching will benefit to speed up or make the drive faster, pretty near to the speed performances of an SSD.

This option was there normally for people when the SSD was real expensive and the ssd cache option was the second option for people to get near ssd like performances. Today the ssd are getting a little cheaper per gig compared to over a year ago. so in my view ssd caching isn't really needed. There is further depth to this but I won't explain that just to keep things simple. Hope that cleared some confusion.

The SSD is optional. With a decent hdd/mechanical hard drive like a caviar black, you will still get some good loads and speeds.


Edit: didn't see the other post, but yes, adding to the rest.
 
Last edited:

Brockwinch

Bronze Level Poster
I've chosen this spec as although its 60 something £ more than I can afford its everything I want. I'm fine with the gtx 660 as I'll probably add a second card in the future, this is why I have to have a sli motherboard. I think this is the cheapest sli mono but if anyone knows differently please speak now, thanks.

Case InWIN BLACK GR-1 GAMING CASE
Processor (CPU) Intel® Core™i5 Quad Core Processor i5-3470 (3.2GHz) 6MB Cache
Motherboard ASUS® P8Z77-V LK: PCI-E 3.0 READY, SLI, CROSSFIREX
Memory (RAM) 8GB SAMSUNG DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz (2 X 4GB)
Graphics Card 2GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 660 - 2 x DVI, HDMI, - 3D Vision Ready
2nd Graphics Card NONE
3rd Graphics Card NONE
Memory - 1st Hard Disk 90GB KINGSTON HYPERX 3K SSD, SATA 6 Gb/s (upto 555MB/sR | 510MB/sW)
2nd Hard Disk 1TB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD1002FAEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)
3rd Hard Disk NONE
4th Hard Disk NONE
RAID NONE
SSD CACHE DRIVE NONE
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive 24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
2nd DVD/BLU-RAY Drive NONE
Memory Card Reader NONE
Power Supply CORSAIR 650W ENTHUSIAST SERIES™ TX650 V2-80 PLUS® BRONZE (£69)
Processor Cooling Super Quiet 22dBA Triple Copper Heatpipe Intel CPU Cooler (£19)
Extra Case Fans 1 x 12CM Black Case Fan (configured to extract from rear/roof) (£5)
Fan Controller NONE
Sound Card ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Facilities WIRELESS 802.11N 300Mbps PCI-E CARD (£16)
USB Options 6 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL (MIN 2 FRONT PORTS) AS STANDARD
Modem NONE, I WILL BE USING BROADBAND
Floppy Disk Drive NONE
Firewire NONE
TV Card NONE
Operating System Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit w/SP1 - inc DVD & Licence (£79)
Office Software NO OFFICE SOFTWARE
Anti-Virus NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Monitor NONE
2nd Monitor NONE
3rd Monitor NONE
4th Monitor NONE
DVI-D & HDMI Monitor Cables NONE
Eyefinity / GeForce 3D Vision NONE
Keyboard & Mouse NONE
Mouse NONE
Gaming Mouse Pad NONE
Speakers NONE
Webcam NONE
Headsets NONE
Surge Protection NONE
Cable Tidy NONE
Printer NONE
External Hard Drive NONE
Warranty 3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£5)
Home Installation NONE
Data Recovery NONE
Delivery STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time Standard Build - Approximately 8 to 10 working days
Miscellaneous FREE £100 IN-GAME VOUCHER with GTX 660 & UPWARDS GPUs!
Pricing Information
Price (excluding VAT) £806.67
Price £968.00
Order Quantity 1
Bulk Discount £0.00
Total Order price (Ex VAT) £806.67
Total Order Price £968.00
P/O Number - Edit P/O Number
Payment Method
Wattage
Maximum Required Power 398W
 

bigben

Master Poster
no probs :) Well done for staying so close to your budget, when I bought mine I went about £400 over..
 

Brockwinch

Bronze Level Poster
Well when I started looking back in January it was 500£ for everything and now it's nearly 1000£ and I still need monitor, keyboard, mouse, cables ect which I'm going to get somewhere else, but I found out quickly for what I wanted 500£ was very optimistic lol
 

bigben

Master Poster
Oh, not such impressive budget keeping then lol. What keyboard and mouse etc are you thinking of?
 

Brockwinch

Bronze Level Poster
Probably one from the crosair range, I'll probably get most of the stuff from ebay, also want the noc 21.5 " 1080 monitor its like 80£ on ebay and I thing 150£ on PC specialist
 
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