New Build £700

Monkey00

Monkey00

Monkey00

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Joined
19 Jul 2012
Posts
385
Okay, I posted a little while a go asking for a spec, and my apologies for not going off that one, but the budget has changed slightly as have the deals etc, so just wondering what is the best I can get. £700 for components only. But there's not a lot of wiggle room on that, and if it's under I wouldn't mind :p No SSD at the moment as I'll add that in later. Decent big case to keep all the wires nice and tidy and not too cramped etc. Thanks to anyone that takes the time to help.
 
YOUR BASKET
1 x Sapphire HD 7850 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card w/ Nexuiz & Dirt Showdown PC Games £173.99
1 x Intel Core i5-3570K 3.40GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - OEM £169.99
1 x Gigabyte Z77-D3H Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £78.98
1 x Cooler Master Silent Pro Modular 600W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £65.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA 6Gb/s 16MB Cache - OEM (ST500DM002) £59.99
1 x Zalman Z9 Plus Tower Case with Fan Controller - Black £49.99
1 x GeIL Dragon 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (GD38GB1600C11DC) £39.95
1 x Gelid Tranquillo CPU Cooler (Socket 754/939/940/AM2/AM2+/AM3/LGA775/LGA1155/LGA1156/LGA1366) £24.79
1 x LG GH24NS90 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £16.99
Total : £695.66 (includes shipping : £12.50).



depends on how much wiggle you have, you can upgrade the hdd to 1tb for an extra 10 quid

YOUR BASKET
1 x Sapphire HD 7850 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card w/ Nexuiz & Dirt Showdown PC Games £173.99
1 x Intel Core i5-3570K 3.40GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - OEM £169.99
1 x Gigabyte Z77-D3H Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £78.98
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST1000DM003) £69.98
1 x Cooler Master Silent Pro Modular 600W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £65.99
1 x Zalman Z9 Plus Tower Case with Fan Controller - Black £49.99
1 x GeIL Dragon 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (GD38GB1600C11DC) £39.95
1 x Gelid Tranquillo CPU Cooler (Socket 754/939/940/AM2/AM2+/AM3/LGA775/LGA1155/LGA1156/LGA1366) £24.79
1 x LG GH24NS90 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £16.99
Total : £705.66 (includes shipping : £12.50).

 
if 720 is your absolute max i'd say this:

YOUR BASKET
1 x Sapphire HD 7850 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card w/ Nexuiz & Dirt Showdown PC Games £173.99
1 x Intel Core i5-3570K 3.40GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - OEM £169.99
1 x Gigabyte Z77-D3H Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £78.98
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST1000DM003) £69.98
1 x Cooler Master Silent Pro Modular 600W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £65.99
1 x Zalman Z9 Plus Tower Case with Fan Controller - Black £49.99
1 x Kingston HyperX Genesis Grey 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1600C9D3X2K2/8GX) £41.99
1 x Alpenföhn Matterhorn Pure Edition CPU Cooler (Socket LGA2011/1366/1155/1156/775/ AMD AM3/AM3+/AM2/AM2+/FM1) £29.99
1 x LG GH24NS90 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £16.99
Total : £712.90 (includes shipping : £12.50).


1tb hdd, better heatsink, (arguably) better ram
 
Okay cool, thanks very much, when you say arguably better ram, how much better is it? I want this computer to last as is for a while, apart from the SSD, so for a few pounds more I don't mind paying for better ram, cheers again.
 
Spec'd this earlier.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Sapphire HD 7850 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card w/ Nexuiz & Dirt Showdown PC Games £173.99
1 x Intel Core i5-3570K 3.40GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - OEM £169.99
1 x ASRock Z77 Extreme4 M Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £101.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST1000DM003) £69.98
1 x Cooler Master Silent Pro Modular 600W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £65.99
1 x Zalman Z9 Plus Tower Case with Fan Controller - Black £49.99
1 x GeIL Dragon 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (GD38GB1600C11DC) £39.95
1 x Cooler Master Hyper 612S CPU Cooler (Socket LGA1366/1156/1155/775/AM3/AM2+/AM2) £32.99
1 x LG GH24NS90 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £16.99
Total : £736.86 (includes shipping : £12.50).



A lil over the £720 but it is Xfire capable.

The RAM is fine, the difference between CAS9 and 11 isn't anything to really worry about. I own the Kingston RAM it is good stuff for the price, I think the Geil RAM looks better on the Asrock mobo though.

I prefer the Coolermaster 612S as it comes with a reusable tube of paste. The fans are easier to install as well. It's geared towards being quiet, if you want better performance you could attach 2 of the Z9 LED fans and reuse the quiet fan on the case ;)
 
Thanks guys, I don't really know anything about XFire, is it worth it? Because I was thinking of sticking with a single graphics card? But if it leaves my options open to upgrade I suppose the extra £10 is worth it. Also I'm not quite sure what the CAS9 and 11 is? Also, I'm considering to upgrade to 16gb of RAM reasonably soon, probably the first thing after the SSD, would that be worthwhile or is 8gb more than enough? Thanks again for the information.
 
honosuseri said:
A lil over the £720 but it is Xfire capable.
Click to expand...

think you mean sli? most z77 boards are xfire capable

Monkey00 said:
Thanks guys, I don't really know anything about XFire, is it worth it? Because I was thinking of sticking with a single graphics card? But if it leaves my options open to upgrade I suppose the extra £10 is worth it. Also I'm not quite sure what the CAS9 and 11 is? Also, I'm considering to upgrade to 16gb of RAM reasonably soon, probably the first thing after the SSD, would that be worthwhile or is 8gb more than enough? Thanks again for the information.
Click to expand...
2 choices for gpu upgrade, say in 2-3 years, either drop a new one in, or get a cheap 2nd hand one (that is the same model that you have now. essentially that is what sli/xfire enables you to do) but you'll need a psu capable of handing the extra juice a 2nd gpu will need
dont worry about cas 9 or cas 11, it makes little real world difference (outside of benchmarking)
16gb is overkill for gaming, 8gb is enough
save the extra you'd have spent on the extra 8gb ram for the ssd
 
Okay, I'm a little confused now, Tam, if I go with your spec, the MoBo and GFx card, can I go dual cards? Or will I need to use Honos spec? As it's only a few pounds I don't mind paying a little extra. I'll leave the 16gb for now, would I notice any different on loads times etc or will it really be a complete waste? I'll definitely be getting an SSD, just not sure what size to go with, and to be honest, not quite sure what to do with it, would I use my normal HDD for storage, and the SSD for games/OS?
 
sli = nvidia, only some boards support it
xfire = amd/ati most z77 boards support it
both boards that me and hono specced support xfire, but only hono's board support sli
but as we both specced amd gpu, the sli part really doesnt matter (much) unless you'll sli nvidia gpus later in the future
outside of few instances (content creation/mega number crunching) 16gb gives no improvement over 8gb. 8gb is more than sufficient
128gb ssd is the sweetspot atm


YOUR BASKET
1 x Samsung 128GB SSD 830 Desktop Series SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Drive - (MZ-7PC128B/WW) £79.99
Total : £88.69 (includes shipping : £7.25).



ssd for games and os, hdd for your media files
 
Monkey00 said:
Thanks guys, I don't really know anything about XFire, is it worth it? Because I was thinking of sticking with a single graphics card? But if it leaves my options open to upgrade I suppose the extra £10 is worth it. Also I'm not quite sure what the CAS9 and 11 is? Also, I'm considering to upgrade to 16gb of RAM reasonably soon, probably the first thing after the SSD, would that be worthwhile or is 8gb more than enough? Thanks again for the information.
Click to expand...

For gaming 8GB is fine. Everything has it's lil pros and cons, you just have to weigh up what matters for a price you like. The kingston RAM i guess is technically better but the Geil RAM does overclock well and has an interesting look.

Nothing really wrong as such with tams spec, there is always room for difference of opinion. I own the Z9, tam doesn't but he has taken my word that modular PSUs are better in the Z9. I've used the CM Pro units a few times, it's a good PSU for the price and definately worth a couple of quid more than say the OCZ ZT 550W
 
Thanks a lot guys much appreciated, apart from giving me the option of SLi, is there any difference in the MoBos? Because if it's just SLi then I'll probably go for the slightly cheaper one and keep myself with AMD as I doubt I'd be buying 2 new GPUs for this computer. I love the look of that case too, I was looking at ones that would have costed twice as much and that one seems pretty much perfect.

Thanks for the SSD info too Tam, I'll definitely be investing in one reasonably soon, how much difference do you notice in load times?
 
tamzzy said:
sli = nvidia, only some boards support it
xfire = amd/ati most z77 boards support it
both boards that me and hono specced support xfire, but only hono's board support sli
but as we both specced amd gpu, the sli part really doesnt matter (much) unless you'll sli nvidia gpus later in the future
outside of few instances (content creation/mega number crunching) 16gb gives no improvement over 8gb. 8gb is more than sufficient
128gb ssd is the sweetspot atm


YOUR BASKET
1 x Samsung 128GB SSD 830 Desktop Series SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Drive - (MZ-7PC128B/WW) £79.99
Total : £88.69 (includes shipping : £7.25).



ssd for games and os, hdd for your media files
Click to expand...

If you want to use TWO GPUs (Xfire/SLI) you want the PCI slots running in sync (ie at the same speed). The cheap entry level mobos DONT do this, they claim Xfire support but it's not really worth it at X8 & X4.

I used the Asrock as it can do both Nvidia or AMD GPUs in pairs. Both lanes run at X8 which is good. It looks nice and has THX rated onboard audio. You can use the GB mobo if you wish as it's cheaper for a single GPU. Or it's bigger brother which is on offer and a lil dearer than the Asrock if you want SLI/Xfire.

How you balance it should really be down to your taste fella, we can just help by making suggestions for certain parts. Hope we help more than we hinder.

I chose the Asrock as it can run TWO cards at X8 & X8.
 
honosuseri said:
If you want to use TWO GPUs (Xfire/SLI) you want the PCI slots running in sync (ie at the same speed). The cheap entry level mobos DONT do this, they claim Xfire support but it's not really worth it at X8 & X4.

I used the Asrock as it can do both Nvidia or AMD GPUs in pairs. Both lanes run at X8 which is good. It looks nice and has THX rated onboard audio. You can use the GB mobo if you wish as it's cheaper or it's nice brother which is on offer and a lil dearer than the Asrock.

How you balance it should really be down to your taste fella, we can just help by making suggestions for certain parts. Hope we help more than we hinder.

I chose the Asrock as it can run TWO cards at X8 & X8.
Click to expand...
ah yea, the d3h runs at x8 x4
 
Cheers again, I've never used dual GPUs before so I'm just wondering whether or not it's worth it really. And obviously as it's pushing my budget that bit over, so I'm just wondering if it's worth it :p Would the ASRock MoBo produce good enough sound for me not to need a soundcard? I have an oldish SoundBlaster card from my last comp and I dunno whether or not it's needed? Also, I'm going to need an OS, is Windows 7 Home Premium good enough, as I've heard people talking about Windows 8 etc, but I'm always wary of the newest of OS' as they have been rather temperamental for me in the past.

Thanks again for all the help guys, and sorry if some of these questions are pretty basic.
 
soundcard not really needed unless you're one of those peeps with golden ears

you can try win 8 for free at the moment, then when you get your ssd and have to reinstall your os, then choose whether you'd want win 7 or win 8

home edition is sufficient
 
Cool, probably just go with 7, also, do MoBos come with Wireless cards or is that another addition that I'll need? As I have an old one from the same computer as the sound card and if I can reuse that I will. That's my final question, I think I've got a spec I'm happy with, muchas gracias gents, I'll post pics of the build etc when it's done.
 
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