£1000-£1200 build

Soldato
Joined
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Hi all,

I'm about to build a gaming rig that will handle most, if not all modern day games on max detail. I would prefer a solid state drive for the OS, decent memory(8GB), quality M/B and PSU. I would like the Antec 1200 Twelve Hundred Ultimate Gaming Case - Black, and Windows Ultimate edition, and would prefer Intel(as I have more faith in their stability).

I don't want to overclock.

Is it possible to do it within that budget? If yes could you please list components. I don't need keyboard,mouse or speakers.

I'm a bit behind with current PC components, hence needing advice.

Thanks

PS I could afford slightly more then £1200.
 
Don't plan to overclock & running games at max in same post? :O

You could get a pretty sweet OC'd watercooling setup for that budget. Pretty much silent running, and blazingly fast. The 1200 is pretty much designed with OC'ing in mind due to the cooling options.
 
I'm a bit unsure about combining water with electricity, but if it's fool proof I could go for it.

Also, 6GB would do, if it frees up some cash to improve the system as a whole by improving in other areas...
 
Win 7 ultimate is a waste of money. You must overclock to get better fps in games definitely when running on maximum detail you will need as much fps as possible to make it play smooth.
 
it's not fool proof and the 1200 is quite a bad case for WCS

anyway try this:
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edit: woops, didn't include an OS, you'd either have to drop the SSD or go for a 460 768MB or stick with the stock cooler instead of an aftermarket one and go for a CM 690 II advanced instead of the antec 1200
 
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If you really want Win 7 Ultimate, good SSD and 8GB RAM and Intel on that budget:

HIS iCooler V ATI Radeon HD 5850 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £211.49
(£179.99) £211.49
(£179.99)
Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate - Retail (Full Version) £167.99
(£142.97) £167.99
(£142.97)
Intel Core i5 760 2.80GHz (Lynnfield) (Socket LGA1156) - Retail £152.74
(£129.99) £152.74
(£129.99)
Antec 1200 Twelve Hundred Ultimate Gaming Case - Black £124.98
(£106.37) £124.98
(£106.37)
Crucial RealSSD C300 64GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive (CTFDDAC064MAG-1G1) £115.14
(£97.99) £115.14
(£97.99)
Asus P7P55D-E Intel P55 (Socket 1156) DDR3 Motherboard £112.99
(£96.16) £112.99
(£96.16)
Antec TruePower New Modular 750W Power Supply £96.98
(£82.54) £96.98
(£82.54)
2x OCZ Reaper Low-Latency 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 12800C6 (1600MHz) Dual-Channel (OCZ3RPR1600C6LV4GK) £88.99
(£75.74) £177.98
(£151.48)
Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (ST3500418AS) £35.24
(£29.99) £35.24
(£29.99)
Samsung SH-S223C/BEBE 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £13.99
(£11.91) £13.99
(£11.91)
Sub Total : £1,029.39
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £14.75
VAT is being charged at 17.50% VAT : £182.72
Total : £1,226.86

At stock speeds the i5 is just as fast in games (faster in a lot of them). However most games won't benefit at all from having more than 4GB RAM so you could drop down to 4GB and swap the graphics card for:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-002-HS&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=1502
 
Thanks all.

The reason for Ultimate is that I thought it was a more secure version of Windows 7.

I feel the 6/8GB would make the system more future proof, and generally faster at multitasking.

I'm a bit overwhelmed with possibilities, but I'll single HW91's spec.

Why would I need a 150mm fan when the case comes with all the fan slots taken with 150mm ones and one big one on top?

Also, how much difference would the cooler fan make that you recommended?

And is Gigabyte a better board then the ASUS equivalant?

Finally, the Geforce card, what ATI card is it most comparable to?

Thanks
 
Thanks all.

The reason for Ultimate is that I thought it was a more secure version of Windows 7.

I feel the 6/8GB would make the system more future proof, and generally faster at multitasking.

I'm a bit overwhelmed with possibilities, but I'll single HW91's spec.

Why would I need a 150mm fan when the case comes with all the fan slots taken with 150mm ones and one big one on top?

Also, how much difference would the cooler fan make that you recommended?

And is Gigabyte a better board then the ASUS equivalant?

Finally, the Geforce card, what ATI card is it most comparable to?

Thanks

Card equivalent of a 5850 I think.
 
Security wise all the Windows 7 versions are the same, Pro/Ultimate just have a few extra features that the average home user/gamer will never care about.

The 120mm fan in his spec is for the CPU cooler as that doesn't come with one, however if you don't plan to overclock you might as well just use the stock cooler as the Intel ones aren't particularly noisy.
 
Thanks all.

The reason for Ultimate is that I thought it was a more secure version of Windows 7.

I feel the 6/8GB would make the system more future proof, and generally faster at multitasking.

I'm a bit overwhelmed with possibilities, but I'll single HW91's spec.

Why would I need a 150mm fan when the case comes with all the fan slots taken with 150mm ones and one big one on top? it's a 120mm fan for the cooler

Also, how much difference would the cooler fan make that you recommended?
It'll help quite a lot if you intend on on overclocking

And is Gigabyte a better board then the ASUS equivalant?
I prefer it but you could go with either

Finally, the Geforce card, what ATI card is it most comparable to?
5870 when overclocked, 5850 at stock, also I'd recommend the KFA2 460 1GB after reading reviews, usually better than the 5850, keeping up with the 470, sometimes beating the 5870 (in Dirt 2 when overclocked even more anyway) and cost £217 so £30 saving on 470

Thanks
 
i7 version of my spec if you're not fussed about sticking with the Ultimate version of Windows:

HIS ATI Radeon HD 5870 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £279.99
(£238.29) £279.99
(£238.29)
Intel Core i7 930 2.80GHz (Bloomfield) (Socket LGA1366) - OEM £217.36
(£184.99) £217.36
(£184.99)
Asus P6X58D-E Intel X58 (Socket 1366) DDR3 Motherboard £149.99
(£127.65) £149.99
(£127.65)
Patriot Viper 6GB (3x2GB) DDR3 12800C8 (1600MHz) Low Latency Tri-Channel (PVT36G1600LLK) £132.99
(£113.18) £132.99
(£113.18)
Antec 1200 Twelve Hundred Ultimate Gaming Case - Black £124.98
(£106.37) £124.98
(£106.37)
Crucial RealSSD C300 64GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive (CTFDDAC064MAG-1G1) £115.14
(£97.99) £115.14
(£97.99)
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-Bit - OEM (GFC-00599) £79.99
(£68.08) £79.99
(£68.08)
OCZ ModXStream Pro 600w Silent SLI Certified Modular Power Supply £58.74
(£49.99) £58.74
(£49.99)
Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (ST3500418AS) £35.24
(£29.99) £35.24
(£29.99)
Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro Rev 2 CPU Cooler (Socket 939 / AM2 / AM3 / 775 / 1156 / 1366) £18.99
(£16.16) £18.99
(£16.16)
Samsung SH-S223C/BEBE 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £13.99
(£11.91) £13.99
(£11.91)
Sub Total : £1,044.60
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £13.75
VAT is being charged at 17.50% VAT : £185.21
Total : £1,243.56

£1,227.41 with free shipping.
 
Redmint:

Thanks for your time first off.

With this setup being SLI compatible, do you think it might work well if I get 1 Geforce 470 card now, with a view of an additional one later? I've never used an nvidia card for sometime and don't know how SLI works, is it easy to setup? Do the cards come with the cables? Can you have 2 different 470 cards in SLI mode?

I'm a bit weary of just a 600W PSU, would that comfortably handle the components installed? Also, if I get the 470, would it handle 2 of them in the future?

Thanks
 
Redmint:

Thanks for your time first off.

With this setup being SLI compatible, do you think it might work well if I get 1 Geforce 470 card now, with a view of an additional one later? I've never used an nvidia card for sometime and don't know how SLI works, is it easy to setup? Do the cards come with the cables? Can you have 2 different 470 cards in SLI mode?

I'm a bit weary of just a 600W PSU, would that comfortably handle the components installed? Also, if I get the 470, would it handle 2 of them in the future?

Thanks

it's very easy to setup, SLI is exactly like crossfire but for nvidia cards, most cards will come with the adaptor, yes you can have 2 different 470's, the 600w might take it providing you don't overclock anything, and it had the necessary power cables
 
If you want to run 2 cards then stick with a 750W+, especially if they're GTX 470s (might even be safer to go for a 850W if you're thinking of going for the 470s). Small point is that if you do SLI GTX 470s with air cooling, don't expect your PC to be especially quiet. :p

Setting up SLI is pretty easy though, and less hassle than crossfire driver wise, all you really need is the SLI bridge which comes with the motherboard.

For any single GPU setup the 600W would be fine, just included it to stick closer to the £1200 mark.
 
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There is all this talk about overclocking but the op said he won't overclock so wouldn't he be better of with a 5870 especially since he said he wants to max things out?
 
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