Advice on Gaming Desktop Please

[WFIsland]

Hi there and thank you in advance. This is my first PC purchase in roughly 10 years and I'm incredibly ignorant about parts and such, so any advice / recommendations would be greatly appreciated! I'm expecting to have to change a lot (most) but who knows, maybe I got it reasonable first go!

I have a fairly hard cap of £800, might be able to stretch it if I can get much better within a reasonable amount. I don't need the best of the best, just a desktop that can play releases for the next few years, serves as a good start point for incremental upgrading in the future and does well with modern MMOs (The Secret World, GW2).

Case
PCS MAELSTROM T900 BLACK GAMING CASE
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i5 Quad Core Processor i5-3570 (3.4GHz) 6MB Cache
Motherboard
ASUS® P8Z77-V LX: USB 3.0, SATA 6GBs, ATI®CrossFireX
Memory (RAM)
8GB KINGSTON HYPER-X GENESIS DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz, X.M.P (2 x 4GB KIT)
Graphics Card
2GB AMD RADEON™ HD7870 - 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
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 7 Home Premium 64 Bit w/SP1 - inc DVD & Licence (£79)
Office Software
FREE 60 Day Trial of Microsoft® Office® 2010 Professional Edition
Anti-Virus
BULLGUARD INTERNET SECURITY - FREE 90 DAY TRIAL
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

 

[Fear]

That is a good spec for your budget the only thing i would suggest is for you to up the PSU to a 650W Corsair as it's always good to get a good branded power supply for your system plus it will leave you more room for future upgrades, if you need to keep the price down then you can get the 650W Corsair PSU and drop the CPU down 1 to the i5-3470 as you are using this for gaming the GPU is what you need most and the CPU after and i very much doubt you will notice much if any difference between the two of them.

 

[WFIsland]

Thanks a lot for the advice! I had a quick look at the power supply and just learned about overclocking, go me. Cheers for the heads up, will definitely change the power supply to a branded one now.

 

[Grimezy]

Yea I'd go with what Fear said. That build will be just fine playing high settings on modern games and will last a long while for MMO's as they don't normally require top-end specs.

I wouldn't worry about overclocking though! For one the processor you selected won't allow for it. For two, you'd need a better cooling system (normally liquid) and for three it can present a lot more problems with your machine and shorten the life of your components. Sticking with your standard build will be more than enough

 

[Fear]

I wouldn't worry about overclocking though! For one the processor you selected won't allow for it. For two, you'd need a better cooling system (normally liquid) and for three it can present a lot more problems with your machine and shorten the life of your components. Sticking with your standard build will be more than enough

Yep i will definitely second that.