Mid- high level gaming + photography

[DavidM4164]

Hi guys,

I'm a total noob and no use pretending otherwise, but I posted a build a while back and got some excellent feedback. I have taken all that on board and also done some more research and here is what I think is the right build for me.

Before I fork our slightly more than I intended on this build, I'd really appreciate it if someone more knowledgeable than me critiqued it.

It's intended for FPS games like BF3, PS2, I also do photography and music as a hobby.

I want future proofing if possible so I can up the spec by adding more RAM, a new/second graphics card etc.

Finally I'm an impatient so-and-so and would like something that boots fast and runs basic software fast.

My budget was £700 to £900, but this comes in a tad over so any tips on shaving a few quid off, without reducing performance or future-proofing very, very welcome.


Case
COOLERMASTER ELITE 311 BLUE 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 HYPERX BEAST DUAL-DDR3 2400MHz X.M.P (2 x 4GB KIT)
Graphics Card
2GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 660 Ti - 2 DVI, HDMI, DP - 3D Vision Ready
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
120GB KINGSTON V300 SSD, SATA 6 Gb (450MB/R, 450MB/W)
2nd Hard Disk
500GB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD5003AZEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)
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 650W ENTHUSIAST SERIES™ TX650 V2-80 PLUS® BRONZE (£69)
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® 2013
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)

 

[Toxophilix]

If you want the option of adding a second graphics card, without disposing of the original one, then you have the issue that to run 2 x Nvidia cards you need a motherboard that supports SLI (the motherboard you have selected supports CrossFireX, the AMD equivalent, but not SLI). Solutions would be to upgrade to an SLI-ready motherboard, ie the 'LK' model, which costs £18 more, or to switch to an AMD GPU. An AMD7950 seems to cost £1 more than a GTX-660 Ti. The benchmarks are similar overall - http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/550?vs=647 - although the cards excel in different games. Tbh, if it were me I'd prefer to stick with the GTX-660Ti and either not worry about SLI (you might not ever want to add a second card before it came time to replace the whole machine) or else get the SLI-ready motherboard. Of course, if you want an Nvidia card because you use photo/video-editing software that benefits from CUDA then an AMD card may be a non-starter on that ground.

Btw, the 1600 MHz RAM will perform as well as the 2400 MHz and will save a (very) few pounds.

Also, if you are keen to shave off as much cost as possible, you could go for the stock CPU cooler. I think there is a benefit in the triple-copper-pipe cooler if you are going to run your PC particularly hard, but even then, we should probably resist the idea that the stock cooler is not able to cool a CPU running at its stock speed.