New Pre-Built Advice

Hendie

Hendie

Hendie

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Joined
14 Nov 2011
Posts
4
Hello

It's now getting on for 3 years since I last upgraded my desktop and so I can justify getting a new system.

The last couple of rigs I've had I've built myself, however, this time round I've decided to get a pre-built system; the cash I would save building my own isn't as much of a factor as the time I'd save and the peace of mind of knowing that someone has put it together who knows better than I do :)

I've pretty much settled on getting the "Ultima Tyrannosaur" Intel Core i7 2700K 3.50GHz @ 4.80GHz DDR3 Sandybridge System with the Crucial RealSSD M4 64GB SSD Upgrade and OcUK GeForce GTX 580 1536MB GDDR5 Upgrade. I'm also intending to get in touch with the Support Team to enquire about increasing the RAM, if possible/affordable.

Does anyone have any thoughts on this? Are there better pre-built options for a similar price? Is it over the top and could I get something comparable for a more reasonable price?

Cheers
 
I was expecting that the feedback would be to get the components and build my own; I can appeciate that that'd be the expected response on a forum for a site specialising in parts rather than systems :)

The main reason for my reluctance is the fear that I'll balls something up as well as the worry that any issues that I've had with systems that I've built previously could have been avoided by simply buying a complete system.
 
After having a bit of a read up I thought I'd have a look at what my options would look like if I did go down the route of building my own.

I came up with the following list which looks like an improvement on the pre-built I was considering and at a pretty similar price.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated, especially if I've done something incredibly stupid :)

I already have DVD drives and another HDD from my old machine.


YOUR BASKET
2 x MSI GeForce GTX 580 Lightning 1536MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £419.99 (£839.98)
1 x OcUK V8 Watercooled Case - Corsair 650D **2011 Compatible** £295.32
1 x Mayhems Aurora - Nebula Blue Coolant 1L £14.99
1 x Intel Bracket Fitted £0.00
1 x Intel Core i7-2700K 3.50GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail **Supplied with BattleField 3 PC Game** £284.99
1 x Asrock Fatal1ty Z68 Pro Gen3 intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £214.99
1 x G.Skill RipJawsZ 16GB (4x4GB) DDR3 PC3-17000C9 2133MHz Dual/Quad Channel Kit (F3-17000CL9Q-16GBZH) £149.99
1 x Western Digital Caviar Green 2TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (WD20EARX) £143.99
1 x Corsair HX 850W ATX Modular SLI Compliant Power Supply (CMPSU-850HXUK) £139.99
1 x Corsair Force Series 3 120GB SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Drive (CSSD-F120GB3-BK) £129.98
1 x Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 32-Bit - OEM (GFC-02021) £79.98
Total : £2,315.08 (includes shipping : £17.40).

 
couple of questions:

are the HDD and DVD drives that you are recycling SATA? (if they're IDE then they wont be compatible

what will the machine be used for

do you realise that the pre watercooled case only watercools the processor, not the graphics card. if you have your heart set on a custom loop for the processor then go for it, but if you really want watercooling you ought to do it with the graphics cards as well, because, to be honest, the processor doesnt need watercooling.

couple of other tips for you:
going above 1600Mhz for the RAM speed, or below CL9 for the RAM timings doesnt really make much difference in the PCs performance.
you will want the 64 bit version of windows, otherwise it will only use 4GB RAM combined (so 1.5GB for the graphics cards, and 2.5GB of the system RAM)
the equivalent crucial M4 SSD is slightly faster in the real world, and hasnt had any problem threads. there have been a few problem threads about the corsair SSD
you might want to change the motherboard to the asrock Z68 extreme 4 gen3. i havent seen any major differences that will affect you between the two, and the extreme 4 is considerably cheaper. i'm happy to be proved wrong here though

if i have time tomorrow (today) i'll see if i can spec you something much better priced with very similar performance
 
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Your taking on a challenge there with the WC... especially if your not 100% confident in building in the first place.

I'm personally a fan of watercooling. So I say, go for it :D

If it's just for games. Perhaps drop the crazy speed ram. The 2500K should also be suffice.
 
although after my experience I'm reluctant to suggest it but if you're looking at spending around £200 on the mb get the extreme7, it has the nf2000 chip which allows for x16/x16 pci-e when in sli/xfire(yes there isn't much differnce in performance to x8/x8 but it's only £5 extra) which I believe the fatality board doesn't.

for ram speeds over 1600mhz is not really worth it especially at the price of the ram you've chosen.

for £40 you can get 2x ocuk(pallit) 3gb VRAM version 580s.

buchanan the water-cooling comes preinstalled in the case, no 'building' required just pop in motherboard and pop on the waterblock job done. will be a challenge if he wants to add the graphics cards tho.
 
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It is probably irrelevant now but I think you're spending too much on a rig because something pre-built like the "Titan Supersaurus" Intel Core i5 2500K 3.30GHz @ 4.60GHz DDR3 Sandybridge System ( http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=FS-190-OE&groupid=43&catid=2040&subcat= ) for half that price would max out any games anyway (unless you have a monster resolution). Each to their own of course, but that is what I went for and the piece of mind was worth the 75GBP or so I paid extra for having it built by people who know what they're doing... Intel Core i7, 16GB RAM, it all seems a bit overkill to me.
 
FlyingPig said:
It is probably irrelevant now but I think you're spending too much on a rig because something pre-built like the "Titan Supersaurus" Intel Core i5 2500K 3.30GHz @ 4.60GHz DDR3 Sandybridge System ( http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=FS-190-OE&groupid=43&catid=2040&subcat= ) for half that price would max out any games anyway (unless you have a monster resolution). Each to their own of course, but that is what I went for and the piece of mind was worth the 75GBP or so I paid extra for having it built by people who know what they're doing... Intel Core i7, 16GB RAM, it all seems a bit overkill to me.
Click to expand...

if you know what you're doing/want to learn then you can use the extra £75 and get better components.
 
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