£2k budget - Give my spec the once-over!

Tweaker said:
Is anyone else noticing how every item is a couple pounds more in the OP image.
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That screen grab was taken yesterday, some prices have changed overnight it seems.

Aretenon said:
I really don't think a H50 is a good use of £60, you can get better, quieter air coolers for less. ... The Samsung is also quieter and produces less heat according to the reviews I've seen. And actually faster in most aspects., despite 'only' being SATA 3Gbps.
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Thanks for your comments Aretenon. Which cooler(s) would you suggest that are quieter/better than the H50 in roughly the same price bracket?
 
Either this:
Prolimatech Megahalems £48
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HS-005-PL&groupid=701&catid=57&subcat=1395
With your choice of fan.
Or:
Noctua NH-U12P SE2 £56
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HS-010-NC&groupid=701&catid=57&subcat=1395

The Thermalright Frio (£43) is also a popular choice, which is known for it's prowess at cooling, but you have the option to choose what speed the fans spins at. So could optimise it for being quiet if you want.
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HS-031-TT&groupid=701&catid=57&subcat=1395

Unfortunately I don't absolutely know if these will fit in the Antec DF-30, I have attempted to find out what it can accommodate by reading reviews and searching google, but nothing has come up.
The Thermaltake Frio is the tallest at 165mm, Prolimatech is 160mm and Noctua is 158mm.
 
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Thanks for looking into it Aretenon. I suspect it would be a close call anyway, as the DF-30 isn't particularly wide. I did a bit of looking around myself and I've found that cases with identical or very similar width have had difficulty fitting some of those coolers - alas. So if I go with the DF-30, I'll probably need something more svelte.
 
Just my opinion, but here's what I'd get:

MSI GeForce GTX 580 Twin FrozR II 1536MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £409.99
Asus VG236HE 23" TRUE 120Hz 3D Widescreen LCD Monitor - Black £285.95
Intel Core i7-2600K 3.40GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - OEM £236.99
Asus P8P67 PRO Intel P67 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard - (Sandybridge) £151.99
OCZ Vertex 2E Bigfoot 90GB 3.5" SATA-II Solid State Hard Drive £149.99
Nvidia GeForce 3D Vision Kit £119.99
Cooler Master Silent Pro Modular 850W Power Supply £107.22
G.Skill RipJawsX 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (F3-12800CL9D-8GBXL ) £99.98
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-Bit - OEM (GFC-00599) £81.98
Fractal Design Define R3 Midi Tower Case - Black Pearl £81.70
Sennheiser PC 330 Gaming Headset £71.99
BeQuiet Dark Rock Pro CPU Cooler (Socket LGA 775 / 1155 / 1156 / 1366, AM2 / AM2+ / AM3 / 754 / 939 / 940) £54.98
Samsung SH-B123L/BSBP 12x BluRay ROM DVDRW DL & RAM Lightscribe SATAII Optical Drive - Retail Black £50.99
Samsung SpinPoint F3 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (HD103SJ) £41.99
Razer Arctosa Keyboard - Silver £39.80
Razer DeathAdder Respawn 3500dpi Xtreme Precision Gaming Mouse and FREE Boogie Bug AimB.Pad XL Gaming Mouse Surface £44.06

Sub Total : £1,691.33
Shipping : £25.45
VAT is being charged at 20.00% VAT : £343.36
Total : £2,060.14

If you want a smaller cooler, you could get the H50 and install a quieter fan.

Sorry, but I'm not a fan of Antec cases. IMO they look cheap and don't provide decent cable management.

I was looking for a PC of this spec as well (minus the monitor and 3D kit), but since seeing the new Fortress case from Silverstone, I'm thinking of building something small, but powerful instead.

http://www.silverstonetek.com/products/p_spec.php?pno=FT03&area=usa
 
Benh89 said:
Sorry, but I'm not a fan of Antec cases. IMO they look cheap and don't provide decent cable management.
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To each their own :) Personally I like the distinctive appearance of the DF-30, and judging from the reviews I've read, it has all the features I would need. It's not a set-in-stone choice, but it's one of my favourites from the cases I've checked out so far.

The main disadvantage I can see with the case is that the narrow width rules out a lot of the larger coolers. The BeQuiet Dark Rock Pro cooler in your spec caught my eye earlier this evening, actually - looks like a very nice piece of kit.
 
If you like the look of the Antec DF-30 then surely you would like the look of the Antec DF-85, which is wide enough for an 180mm heatsink according to my research, and seeing as your budget is quite large I'd have thought you'd be able to afford it.

There are some narrow cases that can fit heatsinks that are 160mm in height, such as the Cubitek Tattoo (202mm), CM Elite 430 (190mm), Fractal Design Core 3000 (200mm) (according to the Fractal website), Silverstone PS05 (190mm). Disclaimer, my research could be faulty.

Another thing you could do is buy the case (as well as everything except the heatsink), measure the distance from the motherboard to the side panel, and then buy an appropriate heatsink. As it has a hole in the motherboard tray you could even try running it off the stock heatsink until it arrives and 'easily' change it when you've bought it.
 
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Yup, the DF-85 is another option that I'm considering - the two cases do look very similar to each other. It's £50 more expensive, but that's not really an issue given the budget. The main advantage, as you say, is that I'd be able to fit in some of the larger coolers without a problem.

On the flip-side, my only hesitation with the DF-85 is that in every respect other than the CPU cooler, it doesn't seem like I have any pressing need for the significantly larger size of the case, by comparison to the DF-30. No large collection of hard drives to plug into the many available hard drive bays, for example.
 
I wouldn't spend over £400 on a graphics card, but then that is just me (this is for either brand).

Also, a £2,000 rig and a crappy £15 mouse? Sort that out :p.

I also strongly recommend getting Windows 7 Retail rather than the OEM.
 
Thats it exactly, everyone has different thoughts on what looks good and what doesnt, but as long as the case actually performs well then its ok.

If the case was rubbish, we would tell you.
 
mglover070588 said:
a £2,000 rig and a crappy £15 mouse? Sort that out :p.
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Hehe. It's the black sheep of the build! I've not completely made up my mind on the mouse for this build just yet, and I will be looking around some more in the coming days. I'm spoiled for choice in that area, and it seems like a relatively minor decision alongside the big-ticket components.

I think the Gigabyte doesn't deserve to get a bad rap based purely on its price tag, though. Judging by the reviews I've found, it's a better mouse than people seem to be giving it credit for. It looks like a gaming mouse with good performance, that just happens to be good value as well. Conversely, I've heard tales of bits of rubber peeling off some considerably more expensive mice, the buttons failing, the coating fading quickly, tracking problems on some surfaces, et cetera.

Just to be clear, by no means am I saying that all expensive peripherals are unreliable pieces of junk. :D The above are all isolated cases that I have heard about. I'm just saying that price is not necessarily the definitive indicator of quality. If the market were not already so well covered, I'd imagine Gigabyte would stick a higher price tag on their gaming mice. We've come to a point where the underlying technology in optical/laser gaming mice is quite cheap to manufacture, and there are only so many dots-per-inch that one can effectively make use of.
 
After some pondering, I've made a few updates to the spec. Most significantly:


- I'm now inclined to go with the DF-85 case instead of the DF-30, to afford myself more cooling options (and more space in general).

- BeQuiet Dark Rock Pro has taken the place of the Corsair H50. Reviews are thin on the ground as of yet for this cooler, but I'm liking what I've heard so far.

- Swapped out the WD Caviar in favour of the Samsung Spinpoint as suggested by stulid and Aretenon.

- 850W power supply added to the build. This should offer ample headroom for a future SLi setup. Thanks stulid and chaparral for your observations.

- Went up from 90GB to 120GB SSD, as the difference in price is not huge.

- For RAM, at the moment I'm tempted by a 8gb G.Skill RipJawsX set. The exact set I'm looking at isn't available on OcUK though (the timings are slightly tighter), so it's not in my basket screengrab below. The size of the heatsinks was initially a concern, but I've found verification that they should fit along with the Black Rock Pro (although they would have to be installed before the cooler is fitted).


So, spec v2.0, with just the 2x4gb RAM set absent:

spec_new.png
 
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