I'm no expert so please help me!

[JoeFulford]

I want to buy a new gaming computer for christmas. But I also make gaming videos, so it would be good if I could get a powerful rendering machine also. But I'm not too bothered about that. I just want a PC that can run all games on atleast medium-high settings!

Here are the specs so far! Please tell me if anything needs to be changed!!


Case
COOLERMASTER HAF 922 MID TOWER GAMING CASE
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i5-2500 Quad Core (3.30GHz, 6MB Cache) + HD Graphics
Motherboard
ASUS® P8H67-M: M-ATX, DDR3, USB 2.0, SATA 6.0Gb/s, CrossFireX™
Memory (RAM)
4GB SAMSUNG DDR3 DUAL-DDR3 1333MHz (2 X 2GB)
Graphics Card
1GB AMD RADEON™ HD6790 - DVI,HDMI,mDP - DX® 11, Eyefinity 3 Capable
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
1TB WD CAVIAR GREEN WD10EARX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE
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
450W Quiet 80 PLUS Dual Rail PSU + 120mm Case Fan (£29)
Processor Cooling
TITAN FENRIR EVO EXTREME HEATPIPE CPU COOLER (£39)
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
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
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£79)
Office Software
FREE Microsoft® Office Starter 2010 (Limited functionality Word & Excel)
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 10 to 12 working days
Quantity
1

Price: £730.00 including VAT and delivery.


PLEASE TELL ME ANYTHING THAT I COULD CHANGE AND WOULD PERFORM BETTER.

MY BUDGET IS ONLY £750 MAX!! Although I would prefer it if I could get around £650-£700 but still with a powerful computer!


Thanks for your help!

 

[mantadog]

you could save yourself some money by getting rid of the Titan Fenrir and getting the tripple copper heatpipe one. That would get you to £710 for no performance loss at all as the fenrir is too much for this build.

With the rendering i would stick with the i5 2500, its a very good processor and will serve you well for gaming aswell. Overall i would like to see a slightly better GPU to give it a little more performance the 6870 would take the build to £741, under the max budget but over your ideal budget. That will have to be your call.

 

[JoeFulford]

you could save yourself some money by getting rid of the Titan Fenrir and getting the tripple copper heatpipe one. That would get you to £710 for no performance loss at all as the fenrir is too much for this build.

With the rendering i would stick with the i5 2500, its a very good processor and will serve you well for gaming aswell. Overall i would like to see a slightly better GPU to give it a little more performance the 6870 would take the build to £741, under the max budget but over your ideal budget. That will have to be your call.

Thanks a lot for your feedback! Do you think the case is too much? I was just thinking that I need it to have very good ventilation? But if I downgraded the case slightly, I would be able to upgrade the hard drive or the RAM... or maybe something even more necessary?

 

[Fear]

This is £1 over but the best i can make for your budget really i would suggest adding a little extra to the budget to make it better but if not this should keep you going for a good while.

Case
PCS MAELSTROM T900 BLACK GAMING CASE
Processor (CPU)
AMD PHENOM II X4 QUAD CORE 955 (3.20GHz/8MB CACHE/AM3)
Motherboard
ASUS® M5A87: AM3+ PLATFORM, DUAL DDR3,SATA 6.0GB/s, USB 3.0
Memory (RAM)
4GB SAMSUNG DDR3 DUAL-DDR3 1333MHz (2 X 2GB)
Graphics Card
1GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 560 Ti - 2 DVI,HDMI,VGA - 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
600W Quiet 80 PLUS Quad Rail PSU + 120mm Case Fan (£59)
Processor Cooling
STANDARD AMD CPU COOLER
Sound Card
ONBOARD 8 CHANNEL (7.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
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
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£79)
Office Software
FREE Microsoft® Office Starter 2010 (Limited functionality Word & Excel)
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 10 to 12 working days
Quantity
1

Price: £751.00 including VAT and delivery.

 

[JoeFulford]

This is £1 over but the best i can make for your budget really i would suggest adding a little extra to the budget to make it better but if not this should keep you going for a good while.

Case
PCS MAELSTROM T900 BLACK GAMING CASE
Processor (CPU)
AMD PHENOM II X4 QUAD CORE 955 (3.20GHz/8MB CACHE/AM3)
Motherboard
ASUS® M5A87: AM3+ PLATFORM, DUAL DDR3,SATA 6.0GB/s, USB 3.0
Memory (RAM)
4GB SAMSUNG DDR3 DUAL-DDR3 1333MHz (2 X 2GB)
Graphics Card
1GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 560 Ti - 2 DVI,HDMI,VGA - 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
600W Quiet 80 PLUS Quad Rail PSU + 120mm Case Fan (£59)
Processor Cooling
STANDARD AMD CPU COOLER
Sound Card
ONBOARD 8 CHANNEL (7.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
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
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£79)
Office Software
FREE Microsoft® Office Starter 2010 (Limited functionality Word & Excel)
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 10 to 12 working days
Quantity
1

Price: £751.00 including VAT and delivery.

Thanks a lot for your help.

This setup looks very good, the reason I chose to go with the intel was because of the fact that I've heard AMD's don't last as long? But if you believe this setup is a lot better than my old one I will go for it.

But would the old setup I had be able to cope with any game on medium - high/max details well?

 

[Fear]

Tbh if you are wanting high/max on games you really need to be looking at either a GTX570 or HD6950 as your minimum cards, both of them setups i would say will be running around med/high on new games but really depends on the game i only looked at the BFBC2 test between the 2 cards but the GTX560TI is about 10FPS better on that game have a look here for the review just make sure you look at the resolution you will be using and then look at the test for when the AA and AF are added on as that is when the nvidia cards normally leave AMD's behind.

I prefer intel/nvidia setups but this is a personal choice and you also have to look at the budget you have and with your budget where it is to get the best all round spec is with an AMD processor, the majority of people will change there system before the CPU breaks on either AMD or intel setups.

 

[JoeFulford]

Thanks for your help! But I'm not really looking to play the big sort of games like BF3 etc. on max settings. It's really just to play games like Minecraft, Runescape, Magicka, RIFT, Diablo 3 etc.

I am also a video maker for gameplay so I think I'd prefer to go with the Intel CPU. Another reason I'd like to go for the intel is because I'm going to be using this computer for everyday use such as school work and so on. I've heard Intel's are a lot better for everyday use whereas AMD's are normally made for hard gaming?

 

[mantadog]

Intel perform better than AMD in for very intensive tasks like video rendering and hardcore gaming. The trouble is they cost alot more when you look at price/performance. AMD processors are perfectly able to keep up with everyday tasks, even gaming wont be that badly compromised as the GPU takes the load. Really the only place you will see a big performance would be something like rendering a huge video file or encrypting a huge file where raw power will make it happen faster. But for the odd runescape video edit you should be able to cope with an AMD.

I'm also an intel/nvidia kind of guy but you just cant argue with the value offered by AMD. If it were me i would stick with your first build but possibly add a slightly bigger psu so you could add in a better graphics card should you wish.

 

[JoeFulford]

Intel perform better than AMD in for very intensive tasks like video rendering and hardcore gaming. The trouble is they cost alot more when you look at price/performance. AMD processors are perfectly able to keep up with everyday tasks, even gaming wont be that badly compromised as the GPU takes the load. Really the only place you will see a big performance would be something like rendering a huge video file or encrypting a huge file where raw power will make it happen faster. But for the odd runescape video edit you should be able to cope with an AMD.

I'm also an intel/nvidia kind of guy but you just cant argue with the value offered by AMD. If it were me i would stick with your first build but possibly add a slightly bigger psu so you could add in a better graphics card should you wish.

Thanks a lot for this. As you said with the rendering, the videos I'd be rendering would be over 30 minutes long seeming as I could have a computer to handle it. I've also changed a few things around on the first build so that I can have the nVidia 560 graphics card. If I do this I won't even have to upgrade the psu. but overtime i can easily upgrade everything if need be seeming as I'll be getting a new job for a while. I'll be making £4-£5 an hour which isn't too bad for a 15 year old

 

[Tehmoe]

Thanks a lot for this. As you said with the rendering, the videos I'd be rendering would be over 30 minutes long seeming as I could have a computer to handle it. I've also changed a few things around on the first build so that I can have the nVidia 560 graphics card. If I do this I won't even have to upgrade the psu. but overtime i can easily upgrade everything if need be seeming as I'll be getting a new job for a while. I'll be making £4-£5 an hour which isn't too bad for a 15 year old

New system look great but 1 thing to never cheap out on is the PSU, if it has a hiccup you lose everything, I would recommend atleast 500+, should also allow some head room, also never get no name psu.

 

[Rakk]

also never get no name psu.

Whilst I would recommend the Corsairs over the no name ones available (better quality generally), the no-names ones will be perfectly fine, my previous machine had a no name PSU from here and it worked perfectly fine for the PC's life