New PC! Recommendations would be grrrreeat!

[MrKarco]

Soo.. Getting a new computer in a couple months.. (can't stop thinking about it!!)
Here are the specs...
Budget: £900-1300

Case
NZXT PHANTOM WHITE GAMING CASE

Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7-2600 Quad Core (3.40GHz, 8MB Cache) + HD Graphics

Motherboard
ASUS® P8Z68-V: USB 3.0, SATA 6GBs, NVIDIA®SLI™, ATI®CrossFireX

Memory (RAM)
8GB SAMSUNG DDR3 DUAL-DDR3 1333MHz (2 X 4GB)

Graphics Card
1.25GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 570 - 2 DVI, HDMI, DP - 3D Vision Ready

Memory - 1st Hard Disk
750GB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD7502AAEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)

1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM

Power Supply
CORSAIR 750W TX SERIES (TX750) 80+ ULTRA QUIET PSU (£86)

Processor Cooling
SUPER QUIET 22dBA TRIPLE COPPER HEATPIPE CPU COOLER (£19)

Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)

Network Facilities
ONBOARD GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS 802.11N 300Mbps PCI CARD (£16)

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
NORTON ANTI-VIRUS 2011 - 1 Year Licence for 1 PC (£13)

Monitor
IIYAMA E2271HDS 22" LED WIDESCREEN, HDMI/DVI-D HD 1920x1080 (£139)
(^may wait a couple more months after i've got my PC to get the monitor.. as i already have a 19" 1080p screen which will do the job for a while)

Mouse
LOGITECH® G500 LASER GAMING MOUSE (£48)

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

Do you recommend i should change anything??

 

[Wozza63]

just dont rip yourself off and get Norton, use Avast! Free with Malwarebytes Anti-Malware, that provides much better protection than Norton + its free!

 

[MrKarco]

hmmm... okay cheers

 

[Fear]

If your not editing photos or video then you can drop to 4GB Ram as this is more than enough for gaming at present, unless your going to sli your PC at some point you only need a 650W PSU and if you are thinking of sli with the GTX570's then you would be best getting a 850W also i would leave out the wi-fi card and invest in a set of homeplugs much more reliable and lastly as Wozza has already pointed out stay away from Norton, if you are happy paying for a full security suite then try the free bullguard trial i have been using it for 3 years with no problems or if you want to use free security software you can try the ones Wozza has listed above.

 

[Teaz]

This is what i would recommend for your use since your gaming im assuming along with general everyday use:

Case
NZXT PHANTOM WHITE GAMING CASE

Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i5-2500 Quad Core (3.30GHz, 6MB Cache) + HD Graphics

Motherboard
ASUS® P8Z68-V: USB 3.0, SATA 6GBs, NVIDIA®SLI™, ATI®CrossFireX

Memory (RAM)
4GB SAMSUNG DDR3 DUAL-DDR3 1333MHz (2 X 2GB)

Graphics Card
1.25GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 570 - 2 DVI, HDMI, DP - 3D Vision Ready

Memory - 1st Hard Disk
750GB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD7502AAEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)

SSD CACHE DRIVE
20GB INTEL® SSD 311 SERIES - CACHE DRIVE FOR SYSTEM / 1st HDD

1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM

Power Supply
CORSAIR 650W TX SERIES (TX650) 80+ ULTRA QUIET PSU (£72)

Processor Cooling
SUPER QUIET 22dBA TRIPLE COPPER HEATPIPE CPU COOLER (£19)

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)

Monitor
IIYAMA E2271HDS 22" LED WIDESCREEN, HDMI/DVI-D HD 1920x1080 (£139)

Mouse
LOGITECH® G500 LASER GAMING MOUSE (£48)

Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£5)

Total: 1287

This is a a power house work horse pc for pretty much anything you would throw at it. i5 is near in performance as the i7 so the saved amount was invested in the ssd caching to boost up speed performances.

 

[senaiboy]

Agree with above. Speed-wise, i7 isn't much better than i5 (not with the price you pay for it anyway!). Also with the RAM, 4GB will be enough for games these days - if you needed more in the future there's always the option to add in.

 

[MrKarco]

I will probs be doing quite a bit of multitasking.. and a tiny bit of video editing for youtube etc..
I think i'm definitely going to sli my gpu's in the future! but in like...2/3 years so i'll think about that later on :L
and I think I've already got one of those... internet plug thingy's (noob much?) in my room.. do i have to plug my router into it and plug my computer into the back of the router?
i may stick with the wifi card as i will probably not be allowed to move the router.. but I'll see what happens!

 

[Teaz]

The spec ive posted is a workhorse pc to handle your needs without problems then
you can either upgrade to an 850 psu now to handle the sli of the 570 or buy that time you could just upgrade to a better gpu to which ever you feel is a better choice. if not a psu is a pretty simple to change. you just pull out the connections(no power is circulating) and unscrew the psu box then replace with the psu choice by screwing it back in then plug in the same connections into the the motherboard and components.

i dont have much knowlodge or experience with home plugs as they arent really fast so i never bothered with them. you should just get a pci wireless n card which would be alot easier.

 

[MrKarco]

haha still REALLY wanting the i7 :L but i'm gonna hold back on the monitor and get the 20gb intel ssd! and seeming as the 8gb 1600mhz ram is only about £10 more than 1333mhz.. plus it comes with.. steel around it? and the 1333 doesn't? (apparently.. :S) i may get te 1600 ram :L i think i should be getting a bit more money than expected.. so should be all good or i may keep everything low and get the 580 GPU..

 

[MrRaich]

Yeah, my 1600MHz RAM comes with some sort of cooling metal around the outside of it. Seems like it does a good job of keeping the RAM cool.

 

[MrKarco]

but the 1333 RAM might come with it as well? you never know?

 

[Teaz]

haha still REALLY wanting the i7 :L but i'm gonna hold back on the monitor and get the 20gb intel ssd! and seeming as the 8gb 1600mhz ram is only about £10 more than 1333mhz.. plus it comes with.. steel around it? and the 1333 doesn't? (apparently.. :S) i may get te 1600 ram :L i think i should be getting a bit more money than expected.. so should be all good or i may keep everything low and get the 580 GPU..

the i7 isnt really needed unless you have some intense usage, its more of the premium price thing.

if your happy to pay extra and go over budget with the kingston ram then go ahead the samsung ram will just do as perfectly fine for you.
if you meant the steel coating or layer then its the heatsink for the ram, usually higher ram clocks like 1600mhz+ usually have heatsinks around the ram for overclocking. and no, the samsung doesnt come with an encased heatsink.

and keeping everything low to get the 580 gpu is not a wise choice or idea. a balanced spec will serve you better in the long run than having a single high powered component overpowering everything else pretty much.

 

[MrKarco]

Okay.. Thanks.. I want this computer to last me as long as possible.. And be top of the range for quite a while! Which is why i'm going for the i7.. But i will get 8gb of 1333mhz ram.. I should be getting a bit more money than expexted so i shouldn't go over budget And with the 20gb ssd.. Can you choose what to put on there? Because it says it automatically see's what programmes you use mpst and it automatically puts them on there... And if i put the operating system on there would it takw up pretty much all of it??

 

[Wozza63]

with the SSD cache it will put most used files on there, it wont put the whole of windows, infact it will probably give you better performance than just on the SSD because some files will load from HDD and most from SSD rather than all from SSD so it will maximize speeds as much as possible

 

[MrKarco]

Aaah okay.. So it'll automatically put my most used proggrammes on there? Haha it'll only have minecraft and a facebook tab on there (joke btw i'll be on bf3) :L

 

[Wozza63]

you could always get a 40GB or 32GB SSD and then you can re-install windows on to it alongside BF3 and minecraft will probably fit on there as well, along with a few main programs, eg internet browser

from personal experience i believe Windows 7 when extracted and installed is about 20GB, and bf3 will be 10-15GB I assume, so i would probably recommend a 40GB as it will also give you 5GB for some of your main programs, and you'll be surprised at how many programs you can fit onto it, also unlike normal drives id probably recommend filling it as much as possible because you pay a lot of money for that space and you may as well make the most of the small space it offers

 

[MrKarco]

okay so don't get the intel ssd.. get one of the other one's which are actually on the HDD section :L okay! i'll have a look.. recommendations for one??

 

[MrKarco]

60GB OCZ vertex 2 series..? that's the smallest ssd (on pc specialist..) i could always buy one from amazon or something.. :L any good 40-60GB ones you know??

 

[Wozza63]

the ocz one will be fine but i thought you were purchasing it later on... in which case you should go for what i suggested, or a 60gb if you wish

 

[MrKarco]

yeah i'll probs purchase it later on.. i reckon 60gb as i will probs have a few other things i will put on there.. plus always a bit of lee-way i get about £100 a month so can always ust wait a month and get it then :L... but then would i have to re-install windows and loose everything? -.-