Beat the Minerva

[Danpez]

Howdy all,

Lots of searching the internet has shown that pc specialist is generally the cheapest around. Couple that with the reviews section and its a no brainer where to buy.
The Minerva is smack bang on budget which I came to after deciding I wanted a good gaming PC centered around the 970.
While great value, I cant help but feel the Minerva is slightly overkill as I have no plans for any rendering, CAD or over clocking. Can anyone suggest a slightly better value build that still keeps the performance able to justify getting a 970? I have 8GB of Ram I can put in the system so done money could be saved there.
Thanks chaps and chapesses x

 

[keynes]

Howdy all,

Lots of searching the internet has shown that pc specialist is generally the cheapest around. Couple that with the reviews section and its a no brainer where to buy.
The Minerva is smack bang on budget which I came to after deciding I wanted a good gaming PC centered around the 970.
While great value, I cant help but feel the Minerva is slightly overkill as I have no plans for any rendering, CAD or over clocking. Can anyone suggest a slightly better value build that still keeps the performance able to justify getting a 970? I have 8GB of Ram I can put in the system so done money could be saved there.
Thanks chaps and chapesses x

You could re-spec the Minerva with the things you don't find necessary like less ram and so on. You could get a cheaper motherboard with the gtx 970 for around £800

 

[Utilize]

Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i5 Quad Core Processor i5-4690 (3.5GHz) 6MB Cache
Case
InWIN GT1 BLACK GAMING CASE
Motherboard
ASUS® H81-Gamer: ATX, LG1150, USB 3.0, SATA 6GBs
Memory (RAM)
2GB KINGSTON DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz (1 x 2GB)
Graphics Card
4GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 970 - 1 DVI, 1 mHDMI, 3 mDP - 3D Vision Ready
Free Item
FREE BATMAN: ARKHAM KNIGHT Game with Select GTX 9 Series GPUs!
1st Hard Disk
1TB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD1003FZEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
Power Supply
CORSAIR 650W CS SERIES™ MODULAR 80 PLUS® GOLD, ULTRA QUIET (£69)
Processor Cooling
Super Quiet Titan DragonFlyTriple Copper Heatpipe Intel CPU Cooler (£19)
Thermal Paste
STANDARD THERMAL PASTE FOR SUFFICIENT COOLING
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Wireless/Wired Networking
10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT (Wi-Fi NOT INCLUDED)
USB Options
MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 4 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS
Power Cable
1 x 1 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Operating System
Genuine Windows 8.1 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£79)
Windows 10 Upgrade
FREE Upgrade to Windows 10 with all Windows 7 & Windows 8.1 Purchases*
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 9 to 11 working days
Quantity
1

Price: £830.00 including VAT and delivery.

Unique URL to re-configure: http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/quotes/intel-home-office-pc/SRd8VsqFgR/


Not sure where the Minerva is but this will be great. You'll be able to take the 2GB RAM out and put your 8GB in (providing it's not 4x 2GB sticks of RAM, which I highly doubt). You can change it around to your liking, you might want to consider an SSD for your OS - just make sure that you set the SSD as the first hard drive because that's where they install the OS when building the machine.

 

[Danpez]

Thanks for your help both.
I decided to go for the Minerva as getting the price down marginally meant i was giving up shiny trinkets like the OC i5 and hydro cooler just to get my own build to the starting £1000 the Minerva has.
Also, if i don't strip the Ram out of my old PC, I should be able to get a couple of hundred squids for it.
The Minerva is a little overkill but everything is ready for a simple GPU upgrade in a couple of years without changing much else.
I am in day 3 of pre-production and it is this point that I start bemoaning my tight fist and wishing I had paid for an express build!
Great community on these forums (lots of lurking before ordering) and I shall give back by providing a review once it arrives.

Thanks again

Edit: Utilize, the Minerva is one of the review units that is almost like a pre-built system (without being pre-built) you can get for a lower price than if you specced an equivalent machine

 

[Utilize]

Thanks for your help both.
I decided to go for the Minerva as getting the price down marginally meant i was giving up shiny trinkets like the OC i5 and hydro cooler just to get my own build to the starting £1000 the Minerva has.
Also, if i don't strip the Ram out of my old PC, I should be able to get a couple of hundred squids for it.
The Minerva is a little overkill but everything is ready for a simple GPU upgrade in a couple of years without changing much else.
I am in day 3 of pre-production and it is this point that I start bemoaning my tight fist and wishing I had paid for an express build!
Great community on these forums (lots of lurking before ordering) and I shall give back by providing a review once it arrives.

Thanks again

Edit: Utilize, the Minerva is one of the review units that is almost like a pre-built system (without being pre-built) you can get for a lower price than if you specced an equivalent machine

Alright, enjoy your new system