Enthusiast Mid Level Gaming Machine

[Jacko99]

See below spec I have put togeather for a general use PC and enthusiast gaming machine, I play CS:Source, CS:GO, Battlefield and the like (also dable in RTS).

Any comments are welcome, please let me know your thoughts, this would be my first custom PC.

Thanks

Case
COOLERMASTER ELITE 311 BLUE CASE
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i5 Quad Core Processor i5-3470 (3.2GHz) 6MB Cache
Motherboard
ASUS® P8Z77-V: PCI-E 3.0 READY, WIFI, SLI, CROSSFIREX
Memory (RAM)
8GB KINGSTON HYPERX BEAST DUAL-DDR3 2400MHz X.M.P (2 x 4GB KIT)
Graphics Card
1.25GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 570 - 2 DVI, HDMI, DP (Special Offer)
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
1TB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD1002FAEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
4x BLU-RAY ROM DRIVE, 16x DVD ROM (£26)
Memory Card Reader
INTERNAL 52 IN 1 CARD READER (XD, MS, CF, SD, etc) + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT
Power Supply
CORSAIR 650W ENTHUSIAST SERIES™ TX650 V2-80 PLUS® BRONZE (£69)
Processor Cooling
Super Quiet 22dBA Triple Copper Heatpipe Intel CPU Cooler (£19)
Sound Card
Creative Sound Blaster® X-Fi™ Xtreme Audio (£28) *SPECIAL*
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 Professional 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£109)
Office Software
Microsoft® Office Home & Student 2010 (1 License Product Key Card) (£82)
Anti-Virus
BULLGUARD INTERNET SECURITY - FREE 90 DAY TRIAL
DVI-D & HDMI Monitor Cables
1 x 2 METRE DVI-D CABLE (£5)
Headsets
Creative HS-800 Fatal1ty Gaming Headset (£29)
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 8 to 10 working days
Quantity
1

Price: £1,038.00 including VAT and delivery.

 

[keynes]

morning,
what is your budget? I would go with a better case and for your budget you could consider the gtx 670. You could also try onboard audio first before adding a soundcard. Is it just for gaming? any particular reason for windows pro? are you planing to sli?

 

[Jacko99]

My budget is up to a max of around £1,100-£1,150.

Do you reccomend any particular cases?

How much better is the 670 than the 570?

For the extra £30 or so would a sound card not be worth while for gaming?

I would like the options to SLI in future, other than this is that the only benefit of windows pro (relatively)?

Thanks

 

[Grimezy]

My budget is up to a max of around £1,100-£1,150.

Do you reccomend any particular cases?

How much better is the 670 than the 570?

For the extra £30 or so would a sound card not be worth while for gaming?

I would like the options to SLI in future, other than this is that the only benefit of windows pro (relatively)?

Thanks

As far as I know you shouldn't need windows pro to SLI.

A regular sound card will be just fine for gaming, a soundcard only really starts to come into it's own if you're doing proper music recording and editing.

For your budget, I'd personally suggest my own build.

I5-3570 Processor
8gb standard ram (there is no need at all for the ram speed you have selected unless you were planning to overclock which you're clearly not as the processor selected won't allow overclocking)
2gb Nvidia GTX670 - This card is pretty much the best out there at the moment for the money. The only things that really beat it are the 680 and 690 and they only really come into their own when gaming on multiple screens or for extreme rigs.
750w Corsair PSU - Will give you sufficient power if you choose to add a second 670 in future.

I personally chose the Coolermaster CM690 II Advanced. Brilliant case and well worth the money. I can play for hours and my rig barely gets warm. So much space in the case, so many different USB ports and SD card slots, etc etc. Alot of it is down to personal preference though, a lot of the high end cases will perform the same. Definitely worth spending £80 on one though, it is of course a pretty main component when it comes to high end machines.

As for the rest, your motherboard is fine, CPU cooler is fine, Hard drive is fine, blu ray is obviously down to personal preference.

My rig cost £1115 and is pretty much what I just listed. Allows for good all round performance and excellent when gaming. Haven't come across a game yet that has strained it in the slightest.

What I would say is you definitely need to up that graphics card. Even if you can't afford the 670 it would be beneficial to at least go for the 660Ti. The card you selected may struggle with newer releases. Let me know if you want me to do the configurator for you to show you the build.

 

[steaky360]

Do you reccomend any particular cases?

If you were planning on SLi in the future I would recommend any of the larger cases as these will provide better airflow.

How much better is the 670 than the 570?

There are many bwnchmarks out there you can have a look at to help with this for example
http://www.pcper.com/news/Graphics-Cards/GeForce-GTX-670-vs-GTX-570-Performance-Update
http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=916&Itemid=72&limit=1&limitstart=5
Both show the 670 outstripping the 570 in terms of performance.

For the extra £30 or so would a sound card not be worth while for gaming?

I currently find the on-board sound on my rig to be perfectly adequate but have also been told once I got a sound card I would not think like this, so probably yes. Although I wouldn't lower anything else to get a sound card specifically. After-all you can always add one later.

I would like the options to SLI in future, other than this is that the only benefit of windows pro (relatively)?

I don't think any version of windows precludes you from being able to SLi so you should be fine (from this point of view) with any version of windows.

 

[Grimezy]

This was my personal build. Obviously there's a slight price difference since I got mine and you will need to add your own extra bits and bobs but it's a pretty solid build for the money in my opinion.

Case
COOLERMASTER CM690 MKII ADVANCED CASE
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i5 Quad Core Processor i5-3570 (3.4GHz) 6MB Cache
Motherboard
ASUS® P8Z77-V: PCI-E 3.0 READY, WIFI, SLI, CROSSFIREX
Memory (RAM)
8GB KINGSTON HYPER-X GENESIS DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz, X.M.P (2 x 4GB KIT)
Graphics Card
2GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 670 - 2 DVI, HDMI, DP - 3D Vision Ready
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
1TB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD1002FAEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
4x BLU-RAY ROM DRIVE, 16x DVD ROM (£26)
Memory Card Reader
INTERNAL 52 IN 1 CARD READER (XD, MS, CF, SD, etc) + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT
Power Supply
CORSAIR 750W ENTHUSIAST SERIES™ TX750 V2-80 PLUS® BRONZE (£86)
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
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: £1,032.00 including VAT and delivery.

Unique URL to re-configure: http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/quotes/intel-ivy-bridge-pc/Lt22mGZqso/

 

[Jacko99]

Thanks for the comments, I didnt realise the importanace of the case (which seems a bit stupid now thinking about it).

The tips on GPU and RAM hav been very useful (benchmark testing made for interesting viewing). I think I will go for the 670 and a decent power supply for the option to SLI at a later date.

Can anyone give an opinion on windows 8 vs windows 7? I'm trying to decide if I should stick to what i know with windows 7, are there any major differences? issues (gaming related)?

Also think I can still sneak in my sound card! =]

 

[keynes]

My budget is up to a max of around £1,100-£1,150.

Do you reccomend any particular cases?

How much better is the 670 than the 570?

For the extra £30 or so would a sound card not be worth while for gaming?

I would like the options to SLI in future, other than this is that the only benefit of windows pro (relatively)?

Thanks

I'd choose Grimezy's spec, the gtx 670 is significantly better than the GTX 570.

The spec posted above will allow you to SLI in the future. Higher memory bandwith doesn't provide a noticeable improvement in gaming, the 1600mhz should be fine.

 

[Grimezy]

Thanks for the comments, I didnt realise the importanace of the case (which seems a bit stupid now thinking about it).

The tips on GPU and RAM hav been very useful (benchmark testing made for interesting viewing). I think I will go for the 670 and a decent power supply for the option to SLI at a later date.

Can anyone give an opinion on windows 8 vs windows 7? I'm trying to decide if I should stick to what i know with windows 7, are there any major differences? issues (gaming related)?

Also think I can still sneak in my sound card! =]

Definitely go for the Soundcard if you want one and it doesn't leave you too bankrupt It just obviously wouldn't take priority over other components.

As for Windows 8 v 7... It's turning into the whole Intel v AMD endless discussion. I personally went for 7 with the thought process in my mind that I could use microsofts upgrade offer to go up to 8 if needed. I think I'm pretty happy with 7 for now though, only advantage 8 might have for me is I play on a 32" LCD tv which isn't the best resolution and I sit quite far back so the whole 'tiling' system on 8 might work well for me. In terms of performance, there's not a lot in it at the moment, 8 boots a little faster and a lot of people praise the new features, 7 performs slightly better in some games and vice versa. It really is only down to a couple of Frames Per Second though. I personally kind of wish I'd gone straight with 8 just to get the latest thing but then again, 7 has worked perfectly for me and it's what I'm used to.

And yea like you I also overlooked my case a little bit although I had already picked the CM690 just out of appearance preference. It was only at the end that I realised I hadn't researched them at all and wondered whether I was getting good bang for my buck which it turns out I did. A pre-warning though, if you've never had a high end rig before, be warned that they are massive. And I mean massive. Put it next to your standard office desktop it's ridiculous in size difference. Make sure you've got enough room wherever you plan to put it! The dimensions should be on the configurator.