Just bought an Antec 300 case. Populate it for me for £600

jimbob2405

jimbob2405

jimbob2405

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Hi Guys,

As title says, i bought an Antec 300 case yesterday as a starting point for my first PC build. So now its time to decide what to put in it.

I want an Intel build, an SSD to run the OS on and a mobo that can support running 2 gfx cards side by side. Other than that im pretty clueless about what i can get for the money and what will work with what!

I already have a dvd optical drive and a small 320gb SATA drive i can use for the meantime when she gets built up.

Ideally i want a gaming build that will be fairly capable of running games on high settings and can be easily upgraded in the future. Limit is about £600.

Thanks a lot guys!
 
Assuming you don't have any other components other than listed and that you don't need an OS included in the £600 I would go for something like this currently. Although there are deals on the 7950s quite often so you might get a non-reference 7950 for a similar price this coming week:

YOUR BASKET
1 x OcUK HD 7950 3072MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card with FREE Sleeping Dogs PC Game £219.95
1 x Intel Core i5-3570K 3.40GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail £184.99
1 x Gigabyte Z77-D3H Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £84.98
1 x OCZ ZS Series 750W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £72.98
1 x GeIL Black Dragon 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (GD38GB1600C11DC) £28.00
Total : £602.90 (includes shipping : £10.00).

 
He'll need the Z77X-D3H for future sli/xfire :) With a 7850, it could work with the budget but then he probably needs an OS too.
 
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Cheers for the help guys. I don't need an OS so count that out. Just noticed the above build doesn't include an SSD. Could I possibly sacrifice the gfx card selected for a smaller card and then have enough to grab an SSD. But then I don't want to limit the gaming I can do with a smaller card. Decisions decisions!
 
My advice would be to get the best CPU/GPU within your budget and use your HDD until you can afford to add an SSD.
It'll only improve boot/access times and level loading in games. You won't get an fps increase.

Skimp now, curse yourself later ;)
 
Hmm yeah good point.

Call me a noob, but is an OCuk branded gfx card really as good as a brand one like Nvidia?

The build won't all be built at the same time. So my budget could possibly increase over time. Is there anything I can do to make a big difference for saucy, another hundred? Ideally I would like a build that would last a year before needing to upgrade anything.

Cheers guys
 
jimbob2405 said:
Hmm yeah good point.

Call me a noob, but is an OCuk branded gfx card really as good as a brand one like Nvidia?

The build won't all be built at the same time. So my budget could possibly increase over time. Is there anything I can do to make a big difference for saucy, another hundred? Ideally I would like a build that would last a year before needing to upgrade anything.

Cheers guys
Click to expand...

nVidia is the GPU manufacturer, the actual board partner (e.g. Asus, MSI, Gigabyte, XFX) is something different. In the past OcUK branded graphics cards (GPU ≠ graphics card IMHO, but that's just semantics) have come from board partners such as Inno3D and VFX.
 
jimbob2405 said:
Hmm yeah good point.

Call me a noob, but is an OCuk branded gfx card really as good as a brand one like Nvidia?

The build won't all be built at the same time. So my budget could possibly increase over time. Is there anything I can do to make a big difference for saucy, another hundred? Ideally I would like a build that would last a year before needing to upgrade anything.

Cheers guys
Click to expand...

YOUR BASKET
1 x OcUK HD 7950 3072MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card with FREE Sleeping Dogs PC Game £219.95
1 x Intel Core i5-3570K 3.40GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail £184.99
1 x Gigabyte Z77X-D3H Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £112.99
1 x Corsair Builder Series CX 750W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply (CP-9020015-UK) £69.98
1 x Adata S510 120GB SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Drive - Retail with Acronis True Image £64.99
1 x GeIL Black Dragon 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (GD38GB1600C11DC) £28.00
Total : £692.90 (includes shipping : £10.00).



You can get better ssd's, but tbh I doubt most would notice any difference and it'll still be a massive improvement over a hdd.
You'll be fine with the stock cpu cooler if you're not planning to overclock immediately. Budget £30 or so for a decent aftermarket cooler.
You can also save a bit on the PSU and Motherboard if you decide that xfire isn't that important.
 
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OcUK cards like the one I specced is a reference model graphics card. I.e. default normal cooler. This is exactly the same as XFX, HIS etc reference cards just a different sticker. The cards with the fancy coolers are non-reference cards - these are generally superior but cost more. Some prefer the exhaust fan nature of the reference cards though.

Uncle Pete was right, the mobo I specced earlier is only x16 and x4. If you added another £100 you could include a nice SSD which is a luxury item even with the current pricing but I would do this with £700 if I were you:

YOUR BASKET
1 x OcUK HD 7950 3072MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card with FREE Sleeping Dogs PC Game £219.95
1 x Intel Core i5-3570K 3.40GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail £184.99
1 x ASRock Z77 Pro4 Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £97.99
1 x Samsung 128GB SSD 830 Series SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Drive - (MZ-7PC128B/WW) £89.99
1 x OCZ ZS Series 750W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £72.98
1 x GeIL Black Dragon 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (GD38GB1600C11DC) £28.00
Total : £705.90 (includes shipping : £10.00).

 
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Defy Belief said:
I'd definitely recommend the extra £30 on a non reference GPU.
Click to expand...

I dunno, it's quite a small case. Exhaust reference cooler might suit better. £30 is like 15% more. Agreed if he has the spare cash, go for it. Personally, I'd spend the £30 on an aftermarket CPU cooler such as:

YOUR BASKET
1 x Alpenföhn Matterhorn Pure Edition CPU Cooler (Socket LGA2011/1366/1155/1156/775/ AMD AM3/AM3+/AM2/AM2+/FM1) £27.59
Total : £33.56 (includes shipping : £4.98).




And overclock that i5 !!
 
How about those over clocked CPU/mobo/ram bundles? Worth buying over buying stuff separately?

When it comes to other things I need. I'll be connecting to the net via wifi, so will I need a wifi card to connect?

As you can tell I'm horribly out of touch with modern life!
 
Yes you would need a wifi card.

Also what monitor do you have? (Resolution) a 7850 overclocked would probably be enough for your needs depending on what you are planning on playing? Why do you want dual gpu options available? Often a single card is a lot less hassle.
 
I don't have a monitor yet. I'm gonna set aside about £300 for a 27" or 30" for that.

Umm, mostly shooting games I guess. Cod, battlefield etc...

Mind you, I would like to be able to run some fairly processor intensive software such as MineCAD.
 
Right, cheers for the help guys. Ill keep you updated on how the build goes once i start getting all the parts together. I imagine ill order the OCZ 750w power supply first and go from there.

In the meantime ill do some research into the whole building process because im definitely feeling like a fish out of water at the moment! Cheers!
 
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