Any advice on ne pc spec would be great.

[elmono]

Hi all, several months ago I looked at PCS for a new laptop but held off buying and now have the space for a pc. Any advice you could give me would be greatly appreciated.

Btw, this computer would be used purely for gaming, pretty much fps/Cod type games.

The budget is pretty much limited to the price shown below, give or take a few quid.
A couple of quick questions too, if thats ok?
The PCS site has warned me that I don't need the 850w corsair (said 650 would be sufficient), but 2 (trusted) people I've asked for advice have both suggested it. Do you think they recomended it in case of future overclocking? Or possibly extending the component life of the PC? Sorry, bit ignorant about this stuff. Probably wouldn't want to O/clock anyway.
Also, I was recommended the Cyborg V.5 keyboard, logitech g500 mouse and viewsonic vp2365wb as a monitor. They've all got fairly good reviews....I know it's subjective but any suggestions, opinions on these last three? Any advice would be great. Thanks for looking!

Case
COOLERMASTER CM690 MKII ADVANCED CASE
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7-2600k Quad Core (3.40GHz, 8MB 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
3GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 580 - 2 DVI, HDMI, DP - 3D Vision Ready
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
160GB INTEL® 320 SERIES SSD, SATA 3 Gb/s (upto 270MB/sR | 165MB/sW)
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
Memory Card Reader
INTERNAL 52 IN 1 CARD READER (XD, MS, CF, SD, etc) + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT
Power Supply
CORSAIR 850W ENTHUSIAST SERIES™ TX850 V2-80 PLUS® BRONZE (£99)
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
NO OPERATING SYSTEM REQUIRED
Office Software
NO OFFICE SOFTWARE
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Surge Protection
6 Socket Compact 2M UFO Surge Protector + Auto Power Off Function (£19)
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: £1,497.00 including VAT and delivery.

 

[Teaz]

650w and 750w is plenty of breathing room and fine, 850 is just there if you want pop in lots of upgrades or power hungry stuff for example a bigger power hungry graphics card like a 590. 750 is plenty in my view. as for life, its a bronze certified psu so it will last you a long time

go for the non K variant i7 as overclocking for gaming isnt really recommended or worthit in my view. the cpu alone has plenty of punch to handle games. so the fast 1600mhz ram isnt really needed as its usually for some good overclocking.

go for the 1.5gb 580 as its plenty if youre just gona play on one screen as the 3gb model is just really for big multple screen setups. 1.5gb is plenty. investments could be made elsewhere like the motherboard or case.

apart from that, the spec is good.

 

[Wozza63]

get rid of the sound card, thats not really needed unless you are into your sound, the onboard is fine

also get a p8z68 board, they are much better with plenty of cool new features

also if you find your budget dont cut it, you can drop to the i5 2500 where you will notice only the tiniest amount of difference in gameplay, and probably not even noticable until higher requirements are needed, and most say for recommended a quad core at any speed

i dont entirely agree with the statement about the 1.5 and the 3gb, sometimes games use more than 1.5gb especially with big maps to process, so if you can afford it, get the 3gb, its always nice to know that you can have multiple monitors later if you so wish

you could also get a 1050W PSU to futureproof you if you ever want to get a second 580 which is what ill be doing that may be better than having to buy a completely different card a couple of years down the line which may require more power than your PSU can provide

also the SSD is probably the main thing thats making your cost high, how about dropping it to a 120gb or 80gb to save some cash which can be spent elsewhere

 

[elmono]

Thanks.

Ok, thanks for the advice fellas! It's much appreciated. (Gotta love this forum).

Definitely some food for thought. Gonna have (another) look at the specs and try and review it with your advice in mind. I already have a seagate 1TB external HD, so I may well cut the 160GB down to 120 maybe even 80, and look at upgrading the motherboard as you suggest. This pc would be purely for gaming, all other storage of photos/music would be done on my old laptop, it's still good enough for that. As for the soundboard, I am pretty much into that aspect of the game, i find in fps it does give an advantage, especially through a pair of half decent headphones. I suppose it's individual preference on this one.

One more question (sorry!), on the point of upgrading the case, does it give any real advantage in terms of performance? For example, would a bigger, more expensive case allow components to be cooled easier and possibly better build quality, or for this sort of spec is it purely a personal preference of design? I'm going the difference maybe between the COOLERMASTER CM690 MKII ADVANCED CASE and the Nine Hundred Two V3 - UK. Or am I completely wrong and it's about the number/size available of drive bays etc for future upgrades.... (?!?) Also why all the fuss about the sniper case? Sorry for the almost TOTAL lack of knowledge... Thanks again for any help. Cheers.

 

[Teaz]

if its gaming then the non K variant i7 and 1600mhz ram isnt needed as said the non K variant i7 and 1333mhz ram is plenty.


as for case, its all down to individual preference really, well...usually anyways.

when you look for a case, you would want to think it through of how many boxes it can tick for your requirements, what some people miss out is what is needed and important for them but they just wack out the moneyy an go for the looks of the case on what it can hold along with the biggest price tag is who i tend to bump into most or see lol.

The cm690 is a good all rounder case for anyone with a good price tag as the case has many optional features like many additional fans and the antec 902v3 is also good for its features. a case will always have some form of downside to it, you just got to pick whats good for yourself.

for example, when i look for a case, i check if its features can tick most of my boxes like removeable drive cage, side fan, good front ports, good cable management, good cooling, good space, affordable for me, easy to clean etc etc. The sniper ticked most of it for me which is good so i went for it. so not sure where the sniper fuss is coming from lol you can see some pics of my sniper here if you want to see whats it like. its a tad different now though as ive upgraded it and made some adjustments which is improvements. will update it with pics at a later time.

do some research on the cases you like, if you think its good for you to double check.

 

[elmono]

Yeah. Sorry. Minor misunderstanding on the sniper case point, I just meant that looking through the specs of contributers here it seems very popular. Bear with my ignorant ways... Thanks again for all the help Teaz, you've been a star. Cheers.