Please check before I buy...

Magpie2121

Magpie2121

Magpie2121

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Joined
13 Aug 2011
Posts
210
Hi guys, I'm a newby here so please be gentle...

I'm about to purchase the following system from Overclockers but think it may be a bit pricey...

*CUSTOMISED* OcUK 3000i Quad Core i5 2500k DDR3 System

SW-127-MS Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit OEM
HD-076-OC OCZ Agility 3 120GB SSD
GX-070-GI Gigabyte GeForce GT 430 OC "Dual Fan" 1024MB GDDR3
MB-343-GI Gigabyte Z68MA-D2H Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard
CP-360-IN Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155
Processor - Retail
CA-037-ZA Zalman Z9 Plus Tower Case with Fan Controller - Black
MY-094-KS Kingston HyperX Genesis Grey 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9
1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1600C9D3X2K2/8GX)
CD-107-LG LG BH10LS30 10x BluRay-RW / 16 x DVD±RW Drive - Black
(Retail)
CA-047-OC OCZ StealthXStream 2 700W Power Supply

Total: 845.96

I currently have a Pentium 4 with only 1GB of RAM and a 100GB hard drive and still have plenty of room free. I definitely want a SSD drive to boot into Windows quickly and the 120GB will be enough storage for me (I won't need an additional hard drive)
I'm not much of a gamer but would like to play games in future and will put a better graphics card in later. Is this graphics card any good or are there better ones for roughly the same price?
I will be doing some video encoding so will need 8GB of RAM. I'm also thinking of downgrading the blu ray writer to just a reader to save more money. Are there any other ways you can think of to cut the cost down?
Thanks
 
to be honest, that graphics card is complete poo.

would you be happy to build it yourself? its very easy (especially with all the help everyone is willing to provide on these forums) and it will save you a huge chunk of cash (probably about a £150 saving if you built that computer yourself)
 
Reaper 392 said:
to be honest, that graphics card is complete poo.

would you be happy to build it yourself? its very easy (especially with all the help everyone is willing to provide on these forums) and it will save you a huge chunk of cash (probably about a £150 saving if you built that computer yourself)
Click to expand...

Hi, thanks for your instant reply. I've been on AVforums for advice which I got very little of and it took people more than 2 days to reply to anything I asked, even then their reply was complete poo like this graphics card. Your instant reply is much appreciated.
Yes, I suppose I could TRY to build it myself :)
Especially if it means saving that much money.
Will this definitely work out cheaper if I build myself? I think I tried to price the parts separately and it seemed to be more expensive?
 
works out cheaper plus its more fun.
with the money you save from building it, you could probably get a HD6870 which is way better than the GT430.
 
Magpie2121 said:
Will this definitely work out cheaper if I build myself? I think I tried to price the parts separately and it seemed to be more expensive?
Click to expand...

For an extra £15 (including P&P) , you can get this which has got a more reliable SSD + 1TB storage, a much faster graphics card and better motherboard:


YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £169.99
1 x Asus GeForce GTX 560 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £147.98
1 x Asrock Z68 Extreme4 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £146.99
1 x Crucial RealSSD M4 64GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive £94.99
1 x Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-Bit - OEM (GFC-00599) £79.99
1 x Kingston HyperX Genesis Grey 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1600C9D3X2K2/8GX) £53.99
1 x BeQuiet Pure Power L7 530W '80 Plus' Power Supply £45.98
1 x Samsung SpinPoint F3 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (HD103SJ) £44.99
1 x Zalman Z9 Plus Tower Case with Fan Controller - Black £44.99
1 x LiteOn IHAS124-19 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £16.99
Total : £860.99 (includes shipping : £11.75).
 
Thanks for your reply guys.

Jordan97 - I need at least a 120GB SSD drive as that will be more than enough for all my needs. I don't need a 1TB hard drive.
I also definitely need a blu ray player. Many thanks for the recommendation though.

I've added the cost of all the parts which I originally posted and it comes to £810
So all in all I'm saving £40 if I build it myself. I would much prefer they build it to save the hassle and I don't really have time to do it myself (unless the saving was a lot more).
Any other recommendations guys? Or even if you could recommend a decent graphics card for around £30 - £50 please. I've already purchased an Acer GD245HQ 23.6 Inch Widescreen LCD Monitor for what I think is a bargain £65 so a graphics card to utilise this would be nice.
I've also heard that the tower I'm after is a little bit noisy (£45). Can anybody recommend a nice looking case that runs quietly for around the same price. I like the blue LED lights on the tower so something similarly designed is what I'm after
Thanks again
 
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It's not just that your saving £40 by building it yourself, it's more like for £40 cheaper your getting a much more powerful rig and it's more customised and building it is great fun

I've no experience with the case you mention but the case I personally have is this it's great case, lots of room, quiet and shiney blue LEDs as standard
 
i've just had a check of the build, and if you ordered all the parts separately you would save the grand total of about 20p in that build. are you sure you havent got the wrong price (you may have looked at the pre-VAT price or something)

this is what it comes out as for me:

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £169.99
1 x OCZ Agility 3 120GB 2.5" SATA-3 Solid State Hard Drive (AGT3-25SAT3-120G) £152.99
1 x Gigabyte Z68MA-D2H Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £109.98
1 x LG BH10LS30 10x BluRay-RW / 16 x DVD±RW Drive - Black (Retail) £78.98
1 x Microsoft Windows 7 Bundle - Home Premium 64 Bit £68.40
1 x Western Digital Caviar Blue 500GB SATA 6Gb/s 16MB Cache - OEM (WD5000AAKX) £32.99
1 x OCZ StealthXStream 2 700W Power Supply £64.99
1 x Kingston HyperX Genesis Grey 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1600C9D3X2K2/8GX) £53.99
1 x OcUK GeForce GT 430 1024MB GDDR3 Low Profile PCI-Express Graphics Card £51.98
1 x Zalman Z9 Plus Tower Case with Fan Controller - Black £44.99
Total : £845.78 (includes shipping : £13.75).

(or £829.28 not including shipping).

not to say i'd og with that build, but it doesnt seem right that overclockers would be taking a whole 20p in labour.

with £850 inc p&p i'd go for something like this:

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £169.99
1 x OCZ Agility 3 120GB 2.5" SATA-3 Solid State Hard Drive (AGT3-25SAT3-120G) £152.99
1 x Asrock Z68 PRO3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £99.98
1 x OcUK GeForce GTX 460 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card - Bare OEM £95.99
1 x Microsoft Windows 7 Bundle - Home Premium 64 Bit £68.40
1 x Western Digital Caviar Blue 500GB SATA 6Gb/s 16MB Cache - OEM (WD5000AAKX) £32.99
1 x LG CH10LS20 10x BluRay-ROM / 16x DVD±RW Drive - Black (Retail) £52.99
1 x Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C10 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (BL2KIT51264BA160A) £49.99
1 x BeQuiet Pure Power L7 530W '80 Plus' Power Supply £45.98
1 x Zalman Z9 Plus Tower Case with Fan Controller - Black £44.99
1 x Corsair A50 High-Performance CPU Cooler (Socket AM2/AM3/LGA775/LGA1155/LGA1156/LGA1366) £23.99
Total : £854.78 (includes shipping : £13.75).

if you really want SLI i'd suggest going for an MSI P67 GD53 because the gigabyte Z68 boards are pretty terrible

*edit*
changed a couple of things around (found out something shocking about the motherboard i originally specced and also fund the case had been delayed until mid september)
 
Last edited:
Reaper 392 said:
i've just had a check of the build, and if you ordered all the parts separately you would save the grand total of about 20p in that build. are you sure you havent got the wrong price (you may have looked at the pre-VAT price or something)

this is what it comes out as for me:

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £169.99
1 x OCZ Agility 3 120GB 2.5" SATA-3 Solid State Hard Drive (AGT3-25SAT3-120G) £152.99
1 x Gigabyte Z68MA-D2H Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £109.98
1 x LG BH10LS30 10x BluRay-RW / 16 x DVD±RW Drive - Black (Retail) £78.98
1 x Microsoft Windows 7 Bundle - Home Premium 64 Bit £68.40
1 x Western Digital Caviar Blue 500GB SATA 6Gb/s 16MB Cache - OEM (WD5000AAKX) £32.99
1 x OCZ StealthXStream 2 700W Power Supply £64.99
1 x Kingston HyperX Genesis Grey 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1600C9D3X2K2/8GX) £53.99
1 x OcUK GeForce GT 430 1024MB GDDR3 Low Profile PCI-Express Graphics Card £51.98
1 x Zalman Z9 Plus Tower Case with Fan Controller - Black £44.99
Total : £845.78 (includes shipping : £13.75).

(or £829.28 not including shipping).

not to say i'd og with that build, but it doesnt seem right that overclockers would be taking a whole 20p in labour.

with £850 inc p&p i'd go for something like this:

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £169.99
1 x OCZ Agility 3 120GB 2.5" SATA-3 Solid State Hard Drive (AGT3-25SAT3-120G) £152.99
1 x Asrock Z68 PRO3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £99.98
1 x OcUK GeForce GTX 460 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card - Bare OEM £95.99
1 x Microsoft Windows 7 Bundle - Home Premium 64 Bit £68.40
1 x Western Digital Caviar Blue 500GB SATA 6Gb/s 16MB Cache - OEM (WD5000AAKX) £32.99
1 x LG CH10LS20 10x BluRay-ROM / 16x DVD±RW Drive - Black (Retail) £52.99
1 x Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C10 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (BL2KIT51264BA160A) £49.99
1 x BeQuiet Pure Power L7 530W '80 Plus' Power Supply £45.98
1 x Zalman Z9 Plus Tower Case with Fan Controller - Black £44.99
1 x Corsair A50 High-Performance CPU Cooler (Socket AM2/AM3/LGA775/LGA1155/LGA1156/LGA1366) £23.99
Total : £854.78 (includes shipping : £13.75).

if you really want SLI i'd suggest going for an MSI P67 GD53 because the gigabyte Z68 boards are pretty terrible

*edit*
changed a couple of things around (found out something shocking about the motherboard i originally specced and also fund the case had been delayed until mid september)
Click to expand...

Hey T (Reaper), first of all I would like to thank you for such a very informative and helpful post.
I'm a little confused as to which motherboard you are now recommending, which one would you recommend? Also, you wrote that you would recommend the 1 x Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C10 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (BL2KIT51264BA160A) over the Kingston ones. Any particular reason for this?
Since the case I'm interested in is not available until mid September, are there any cases you would recommend with blue LED's?
Finally, would you happen to know where I can possibly get a voucher code to help reduce the overall price?
Thanks
 
Last edited:
Magpie2121 said:
Hey T (Reaper), first of all I would like to thank you for such a very informative and helpful post.
I'm a little confused as to which motherboard you are now recommending, which one would you recommend? Also, you wrote that you would recommend the 1 x Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C10 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (BL2KIT51264BA160A) over the Kingston ones. Any particular reason for this?
Since the case I'm interested in is not available until mid September, are there any cases you would recommend with blue LED's?
Finally, would you happen to know where I can possibly get a voucher code to help reduce the overall price?
Thanks
Click to expand...

for the motherboard it really depends on what you want from it. the features that change the price the most are SLI/crossfire speeds that wont bottleneck the graphics cards (x8/x8 or higher). SLI and crossfire being Nvidia's and ATI's name for using a second graphics card to get an almost 100% boost in FPS.

the other main price changer is having a motherboard with all the Z68 chipsets benefits. the first is intel smartcaching which uses some of your freeSSD space to speed up loading times on programs on your hard drive.
the second is lucid virtu which saves power by shutting your graphics card down completely and uses the onboard graphics when you arent doing graphics intensive stuff (like web browsing or office work).
the third is intel quicksync which gives faster video encoding times, but very few programs use this and you get poor quality video from this feature at the moment.

so, depending on what you want from there i would recommend the following:
none of the above - Asus P8P67 LE £75.99
Z68 with no SLI/crossfire - Asrock Z68 PRO3 £99.98
cossfire/SLI but no Z68 - MSI P67A-GD53 £107.99
Z68 and crossfire/SLI - Asus P8Z68-V £131.99

the gen3 motherboard that are ready for ivybridge processors are a bit out of your budget at £160


i recommended the crucial RAM simply because it was a bit cheaper than the kingston and i was struggling to get the price in budget. there isnt much of a difference between them


the case you are after is due in about a week so go for the zalman. the reason i said about a case being due mid september is because i originally recommended a different case which i later found out was due in september and then changed my build to fix that problem (and went with your original choice of case)

as for vouchers they are far and few between. i've been a member for 6 months and have only ever heard of two vouchers in that time. the first was for a discount on the corsair H50 several months ago and the second was 5% off for customers who havent bought from OcUK for a while. luckily the 5% off one was only a couple of days ago so you might want to ask around the general discussion if someone was willing to lend you one because i've heard that some people have one but arent planning on using it.
 
Last edited:
OCUK do not tend to send out many voucher codes, long term forum members get free delivery.

My advice is that the builds put forward by the guys on here tend to be brilliant, and I have put together my last two pc's using advice from the people here.
 
Reaper 392 said:
for the motherboard it really depends on what you want from it. the features that change the price the most are SLI/crossfire speeds that wont bottleneck the graphics cards (x8/x8 or higher). SLI and crossfire being Nvidia's and ATI's name for using a second graphics card to get an almost 100% boost in FPS.

the other main price changer is having a motherboard with all the Z68 chipsets benefits. the first is intel smartcaching which uses some of your freeSSD space to speed up loading times on programs on your hard drive.
the second is lucid virtu which saves power by shutting your graphics card down completely and uses the onboard graphics when you arent doing graphics intensive stuff (like web browsing or office work).
the third is intel quicksync which gives faster video encoding times, but very few programs use this and you get poor quality video from this feature at the moment.

so, depending on what you want from there i would recommend the following:
none of the above - Asus P8P67 LE £75.99
Z68 with no SLI/crossfire - Asrock Z68 PRO3 £99.98
cossfire/SLI but no Z68 - MSI P67A-GD53 £107.99
Z68 and crossfire/SLI - Asus P8Z68-V £131.99

the gen3 motherboard that are ready for ivybridge processors are a bit out of your budget at £160


i recommended the crucial RAM simply because it was a bit cheaper than the kingston and i was struggling to get the price in budget. there isnt much of a difference between them


the case you are after is due in about a week so go for the zalman. the reason i said about a case being due mid september is because i originally recommended a different case which i later found out was due in september and then changed my build to fix that problem (and went with your original choice of case)

as for vouchers they are far and few between. i've been a member for 6 months and have only ever heard of two vouchers in that time. the first was for a discount on the corsair H50 several months ago and the second was 5% off for customers who havent bought from OcUK for a while. luckily the 5% off one was only a couple of days ago so you might want to ask around the general discussion if someone was willing to lend you one because i've heard that some people have one but arent planning on using it.
Click to expand...


Hi mate, I won't be playing games just yet so any old graphics card will do for the time being. I'll need a motherboard that will be able to handle a good graphics card in the future.
I will need a motherboard for smart caching purposes - which one would you recommend for this please?
Also, my modem is downstairs so I'll need either an internal wireless card or something. What would you recommend for this in order to achieve fast and efficient wireless internet speeds? I will be using the PC to stream videos etc to my PS3 downstairs as well.
Thank you
 
stulid said:
What resolution is the important bit?
Click to expand...

Errr....no idea to be honest. Full HD if there is such a thing. Or anything for the time being as long as the motherboard is good enough to handle a better graphics card in future. The motherboard is the most important thing at this time
 
stulid said:
Well thats only 1920X1080

VGA charts at 1920X1200 - http://www.guru3d.com/article/vga-charts-spring-2011/2
Click to expand...

Thanks for the link, so which one would you recommend up to around £50?
Also, which motherboard should I go for?
Ok, basically I definitely want a 120gb SSD & want to build my system around this with the intentions of caching along with the 2500k processor & 8gb ram. Please can somebody just recommend a motherboard that will be best for this as well as the motherboard being able to handle a good graphics card in the future. Any HD graphics card will do for the time being, preferably a full HD one. Overall cost if the system including case and all other components should not exceed £850 (I already have a monitor). If your recommendations exceed this amount then I will spend more but £850 is already a LOT of money for me so it really would have to be worth spending extra if it will benefit my needs greatly
 
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