Building a Gaming PC - Budget £2600-Help Is Much Appreciated!

Hello Ladies and Gentlemen,

As the title says, I am building a new gaming PC. At the moment I am not water cooling, however in the future this is a possible upgrade I am considering. Preferably I would like a full tower case with plenty of airflow and high quality finish-much like the Corsair 800D case, although this case is mainly focused on water cooling. One question, which you may know the answer to, if I were to purchase a Z77 Motherboard and the Enthusiast Line of
Intel's Ivy Bridge models were released, would my current motherboard be compatible? Sorry if this is a stupid question! Preferably my colour scheme for
The PC and component's is ''Black and White''. Your help is much appreciated!

My Specification List

Corsair 800D-£190
(I'm also considering A Silverstone TJ11 or Lian Li V2120-Both have second to none build quality and finish, however they are extremely expensive and I will most likely purchase either one of them as a upgrade down the line.
What us your take on them?

Asus Sabertooth Z77-£ 146 Intel Z77 Chipset ( However Asus are soon to be releasing The Maximus V Formula/Rampage and I'm unsure whether to wait and get the new one because it has extra features and a better on board sound card and overclocking potential.)

Intel i7 3770k- Ivy Bridge £220 (Overclocking to 4.6Ghz Stable)

CPU Cooler-Corsair H100-£70

16GB (2x8GB) Corsair Vengeance DDR3 Memory-£75

2GB EVGA GTX 680 (X2)- £720 ( I May get the EVGA GTX 680 SC Signacture version for the SC and the Black and White colour Scheme to match my build.)

Corsair 850w HX Series Power Supply Version 2 Modular-£105

A Solid State Drive-I'm Currently unsure so your suggestions on SSD's would be appreciated, I was looking at the Crucial 128GB SSd and the OCZ Vertex 4 SSD's.

1TB Seagate Barracuda-£60

LiteOn IHOS104-6, BluRay Reader-£40

Asus Xonar Essence STX Sound Card-£120

Sharkoon 4'' White 2 in 1 Kit-£5 (Is it possible to get a White UV LED Lighting Strips. The UV capability is a must because I will upgrade to water cooling eventually and I would like to use clear tubes to get the ''glow in the dark affect''. Would I need a Flexlight IR Controller?

24" Asus VS247H LED 1920x1080-£130

I already have a Gaming Keyboard/Mouse I would just need a monitor included in the price.

Thankyou for taking the time and reading my specification list and if you have any Suggestions/Improvements I'd Like to hear them

Many Thank's Joe

Welcome,

Thats a good spec to start with, you seem to know what goes together and what you need for your uses.

To answer your question a Z77 motherboard would not be compatible with Ivybridge-E as i think thatd be the same as Sandybridge-E on the 2011 socket (x79 chipset).

Do you have any need for a sound card? On-board sound is great nowadays. Unless you are using a lot of music/mixing programs you won't see the full benefit.

Those prices there are good.

I'd imagine you'll want to go with a 120hz monitor to take advantage of the great frame rates you'll be getting with that rig...

Thank's for the fast reply!

To be honest your right, I don't need a sound card as high specification as that. I'm using this Rig for Gaming, and Graphic Design (although not as much as gaming). Would you recommend Ivy Bridge line of processors or Sandy Bridge. The main reason I chose Ivy Bridge because it is newer and that I will be upgrading to Ivy Bridge E thinking I will be able to use the same motherboard.

What monitor would you recommend. I am willing to pay extra because a monitor lasts through many builds.

Joe1234 said:

Thank's for the fast reply!

To be honest your right, I don't need a sound card as high specification as that. I'm using this Rig for Gaming, and Graphic Design (although not as much as gaming). Would you recommend Ivy Bridge line of processors or Sandy Bridge. The main reason I chose Ivy Bridge because it is newer and that I will be upgrading to Ivy Bridge E thinking I will be able to use the same motherboard.

What monitor would you recommend. I am willing to pay extra because a monitor lasts through many builds.

Click to expand...

To upgrade to Ivybridge-E you'd have to build a sandybidge-e rig. There is even speculation there may not be an ivybridge-E as its been pushed back to march 2013, only 3 months before haswell arrives.

Ivybridge will be fine for your uses.

Does Sandy Bridge perform better than Ivy Bridge, such aas the 3930k.Also once the intel haswell is 22nm architecture will it have the same heat issues as ivy bridge?

Finally what monitor and SSD would you recommend?

As can be seen here the 3930k performs better than the 3770k, only a little though and for twice the price i feel its not worth it.

Ivybridge on a Z77 Platform is a lot cheaper with great performance though doesn't offer a chance to upgrade to ivybridge-e (if released) or Haswell (LGA 1150).

The Ivybridge heat problem doesn't stem from the fact its 22mn just the fact the thermal paste used in the CPU was of a poor quality. This should be easily sorted for haswell.

SSD wise, The Crucial M4's are fast, reliable and cheap, so a bargain at the moment.
The Vertex 4's are also worth it, though a bit more expensive.
M4: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-009-CR

Monitor, like has been said earlier, a good monitor will be perfect to portray the quality the rig will give you. If you want to fully commit to it the Hazro is the way to go: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MO-013-HO&groupid=17&catid=1120&subcat=

Cheaper option, though only 1080p, the hazro is 1440p.: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MO-165-SA&groupid=17&catid=1120&subcat=

Would you recommend the Corsair 800d or the Lian Li V2120 or even the Silverstone TJ11 as I am upgrading to water cooling in the future. Finally I would like a UV glow lighting affect preferably white, mainly because when I do upgrade to water cooling i'll be using clear tubing to get the ''glow in the dark affect'' will i need a Flexlight IR controller?

When The Haswell line of processors be a worthwhile upgrade over Ivy Bridge and Sandy Bridge?


Thank's for all your help, You've defiantly pointed me in the right direction!

Much Appreciated - Joe

Am I correct in thinking most PC Games such as BF3 do not rely heavily on Multi Cores, but on Single Cores? I may be wrong but that's just a theory. Since the Ivy Bridge Has better Single Threaded Benchmarks, wouldn't the 3770k be better for Gamers and the 3930k be better for Graphics Designers/3D designer and Gaming? The best all in one solution?

Thank's Joe

For now, i'd take a 3770k as the best processor for gaming. If you look at the benchmarks posted by Doomedspeed most of the FPS on games were superior on the IB compared to the SB-E.

As for the future, nothing has actually been said about Haswell aside its existence so even building an SB-E system with hopes to upgrade is 'risky' for that. I'd save the money on the processor now and get the 3770k instead of the SB-E line.

Also for monitors look towards Benq. They make some nice monitors. What size screen do you want?

edit: Also I believe you are correct. Newer games are coming with quad core processors in mind and I don't believe the extra 2 cores of the high end SB-E line will affect your gaming much at all.

Thank's for your reply,

Ideerly I'm aiming for a monitor size of 24'' however the maximum resolution on that size of a screen is 1920 x 1200. I'm considering getting a 27'' one because of the higher resolution.

If you were to upgrade any of my specification, what would you upgrade?
Thank's Joe

Another monitor option: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MO-052-DE&groupid=17&catid=510&subcat=

Case wise, Id go for the 800d, its a great case and cheaper than the others. For the extra money i feel you'd be gaining very little.

I don't know about lighting or watercooling, so i can't advise you on that, sorry.

It's worth sticking with Ivybridge, you wont feel the need to upgrade for a long while.

Your spec looks good, though i'd think about getting a GPU with 4GB memory. 2GB is defiantly enough for now, though 4GB would make it that little more future proof. Though it's not certain whether it'll be needed.

I know they do 4GB varieties of GTX 670, im not sure about the GTX 680 though.

Thank's for all your information Doomedspeed especially, but thank's a lot to all who have contributed to help build my PC. I'll post pics to see the finished product!

Would you get the asus sabertootg Z77 or wait for the Asus Maximus V Formula/Extreme?

They defiantly do 4gn gtx 680. I'm sure I saw a Palit version.

The Sabertooth looks a solid board and fits your scheme well.

The Formula and Extremes are naturally good boards with a few extra features, though i don't these will truely revolutionize the field. You won't be dissapointed with the sabertooth.

Ah, lovely. I know the 4GB versions are expensive but it will prepare you for all future releases.

Also the Palit 4gb is a good looking card IMO... and matches my scheme very well.

Would you purchase two of those or 1? The only problem i've got is that the 4gb are quite a lot more expensive, therefore I may have to get 1 $gb Pality gtx 680 and a gtx 670 then when I get more funds upgrade the 670 to the Palit 4GB gtx 680...

What do you think? Would you upgrade any of the parts I have listed in my Specification?

Thank's-Joe

You won't be able to pair a GTX670 with a GTX680 will you?

If this was my rig, I'd get myself 2 4GB GTX670s and spend what you've saved on other components.

Thank's for the reply illuz,

I'm not sure, it was just a theory, your probably right. Is their anything you would upgrade if this was your system?