Spec me - Gaming machine with around £2k budget

James J

James J

James J

Soldato
Joined
4 Dec 2002
Posts
14,520
Location
North Lincolnshire
Howdy!

I'm selling my photography gear due to not having to time or space for it due to my new job and new apartment size (moved to another town!) and haven't had a gaming machine in over a year now but have the itch seen as theres a few games I want to play through such as RE6, Dead space 3, aliens colonial marines, crysis 3 and the latest assassins creed game to name a few.

I'll be giving my fiance the macbook air I'm currently typing on and I'm starting from scratch, so need OS, keyboard, mouse, mouse mat (lol!), monitor and speakers plus obviously a powerful base unit.

Don't mind building myself or buying premade if needed, but what can i realistically get for my budget? I'd prefer a mechanical keyboard to a normal one, plus a 120hz monitor to a 60 hz one. Not too bothered about going higher than 1920x1080 due to the 120hz requirement.

Prefer a factory sealed water cooler on the CPU also as I cba to make my own loop again, which although was great to use, is a bit of a time and money sink this time round!
 
This is what you are looking at, but personally, I wouldn't spend that much money until Haswell has come out. Haswell is the next gen Intel chip due in July, there will be no upgrade path on the 1155 socket.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Gigabyte ATi Radeon HD 7950 Windforce 3X 3072MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card with Crysis 3 & Bioshock PC Games £249.95
1 x Benq XL2411T 24" TRUE 120Hz 3D Vision 2.0 Widescreen LED Monitor - Black/Red £227.99
1 x Samsung 256GB SSD 840 PRO SATA 6Gb/s Basic - (MZ-7PD256BW) £209.99
1 x Intel Core i5-3570K 3.40GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail £179.99
1 x Qpad MK-80 Blue LED Backlit Mechanical Gaming Keyboard - UK Layout - Blue Switches £99.98
1 x Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (WD1002FAEX) HDD £94.99
1 x Corsair Hydro H80i High Performance Liquid CPU Cooler (Socket LGA1155 / LGA1156 / LGA1366 / LGA2011/ AM2 / AM3 / FM1 / FM2) £76.98
1 x Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-Bit - OEM (GFC-02050) £71.99
1 x LG CH10LS28 BD-ROM 10x BluRay ROM / DVDRW SATA-II Optical Drive - Black (Retail) £59.99
1 x XFX Pro 550W Core Edition '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £54.98
1 x Corsair Vengeance M60 5700dpi Laser Gaming Mouse (CH-9000005-EU) £51.98
1 x BitFenix Shinobi USB3.0 Gaming Case - OcUK Edition £49.99
1 x GeIL EVO Leggera 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (GEL38GB1600C9DC) £31.99
1 x Creative A220 2.1 Speakers (51MF0400AA008) £25.99
1 x OcUK Mega Mat XXL Elite Tactical Gaming Surface £9.98
Total : £1,514.47 (includes shipping : £14.75).



What kind of form factor were you looking at? Full/Mini/Micro ATX?
 
1 x OcUK Tech Lab H2O Custom HD 7970 3072MB GDDR5 £324.58
- 1 x EK Water Blocks EK-FC7970 - Nickel Plexi CSQ £79.99
1 x Intel Core i7-3820 3.60GHz (Sandybridge-E) Socket LGA2011 Processor - Retail £229.99
1 x Asus VE276N 27" Widescreen LCD Multimedia Monitor - Black £199.99
1 x Plextor M5 Pro 256GB Extreme Series Solid State Drive - (PX-256M5P) £179.99
1 x ASRock X79 Extreme4 Intel X79 (Socket 2011) DDR3 Motherboard £167.99
1 x OcUK Tech Labs - BitFenix Shinobi XL Big-Tower Case - Black - Noise Dampened £145.99
1 x Seasonic 520w FANLESS '80 Plus Platinum' Modular Power Supply £129.98
1 x Western Digital Caviar Red 3TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache WD30EFRX - OEM HDD £124.99
1 x Kingston HyperX Beast 16GB (4x4GB) PC3-19200C11 2400MHz Quad Channel Kit (KHX24C11T3K4/16X) £99.95
1 x Microsoft Windows 8 64-Bit DVD - OEM (WN7-00403) £71.99
1 x LG CH10LS28 BD-ROM 10x BluRay ROM / DVDRW SATA-II Optical Drive - Black (Retail) £59.99
1 x Corsair Hydro H60 V2 High Performance Liquid CPU Cooler (Socket LGA2011 / 1366 / 1155 / 1156 / 775 / AM2 / AM3) £59.99
Total : £1,899.53 (includes shipping : £20.10).



not picked mouse / keyboard and speakers and tbh they are more personnel choices, what i like you may not, money left in budget for a good setup

gone i7 on 2011 and also went for quad ram at a quick speed, dvd retail as win 8 doesn't support bluray out of the box, went for liquid cooling on cpu and video for less noise and cooler running, and also a fanless psu, and a noise dampened case as well :)

1 x OcUK Tech Lab H2O Custom HD 7970 3072MB GDDR5 £324.58
- 1 x EK Water Blocks EK-FC7970 - Nickel Plexi CSQ £79.99
1 x Asus VE276N 27" Widescreen LCD Multimedia Monitor - Black £199.99
1 x Intel Core i5-3570K 3.40GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail £179.99
1 x Plextor M5 Pro 256GB Extreme Series Solid State Drive - (PX-256M5P) £179.99
1 x OcUK Tech Labs - BitFenix Shinobi XL Big-Tower Case - Black - Noise Dampened £145.99
1 x Seasonic 520w FANLESS '80 Plus Platinum' Modular Power Supply £129.98
1 x Western Digital Caviar Red 3TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache WD30EFRX - OEM HDD £124.99
1 x Gigabyte Z77-D3H Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £79.99
1 x Microsoft Windows 8 64-Bit DVD - OEM (WN7-00403) £71.99
1 x LG CH10LS28 BD-ROM 10x BluRay ROM / DVDRW SATA-II Optical Drive - Black (Retail) £59.99
1 x GeIL Black Dragon 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (GD316GB1600C11DC) **OcUK Exclusive** £59.99
1 x Corsair Hydro H60 V2 High Performance Liquid CPU Cooler (Socket LGA2011 / 1366 / 1155 / 1156 / 775 / AM2 / AM3) £59.99
Total : £1,724.09 (includes shipping : £22.20).



same bits with a i5 options. just incase, added more ram with cpu and different m/b :)

just got the same monitor, and tbh wasn't thinking it would be great for price, and we very happy to see it, it's not led and tbh doesn't need to be either

with both builds, gone for silent parts or less noise etc, liquid cooling for both and also went fan less with psu, many say not needed and costs a lot for so little power, but if not going sli / crossfire more than enough
 
Last edited:
YOUR BASKET
1 x Iiyama Prolite G2773HS 120Hz 27" Widescreen LED 1MS Monitor - Black £319.99
2 x Gigabyte ATi Radeon HD 7950 Windforce 3X 3072MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card with Crysis 3 & Bioshock PC Games £249.95 (£499.90)
1 x Plextor M5 Pro 256GB Extreme Series Solid State Drive - (PX-256M5P) £179.99
1 x Intel Core i5-3570K 3.40GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - OEM £161.99
1 x Gigabyte Z77X-D3H Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £112.99
1 x XFX 850W XXX Edition Modular '80 Plus Silver' Power Supply £99.98
1 x Antec P280 Super Midi Tower Case - Gun Metal Black £99.98
1 x Seagate Barracuda 3TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST3000DM001) HDD £95.99
1 x Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-Bit - OEM (GFC-02050) £71.99
1 x LG BH16NS40 16x SATA Internal BDRW - OEM £71.99
1 x Qpad MK-50 Mechanical Gaming Keyboard - UK Layout - Red Switches £64.99
1 x Edifier E3350 (Prisma) 2.1 Speaker System £59.99
1 x Corsair Hydro H55 Quiet Liquid CPU Cooler (Socket LGA2011 / 1366 / 1155 / 1156 / AM2 / AM3 / FM1) £52.99
1 x GeIL EVO Leggera 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (GEL38GB1600C9DC) £31.99
1 x Logitech G400 3600DPI Gaming Mouse (910-002279) £27.98
1 x OcUK Mega Mat XXL Elite Tactical Gaming Surface £9.98
Total : £1,989.36 (includes shipping : £22.20).

 
Last edited:
YOUR BASKET
1 x Gigabyte GeForce GTX 670 Windforce 3X 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £335.99
1 x Benq XL2411T 24" TRUE 120Hz 3D Vision 2.0 Widescreen LED Monitor - Black/Red £227.99
1 x Plextor M5 Pro 256GB Extreme Series Solid State Drive - (PX-256M5P) £179.99
1 x Intel Core i5-3570K 3.40GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - OEM £161.99
1 x Gigabyte Z77X-UP4 TH Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £159.98
1 x Gigabyte Osmium Mechanical Gaming Keyboard £109.99
1 x XFX 850W XXX Edition Modular '80 Plus Silver' Power Supply £99.98
1 x Logitech Z506 5.1 Surround Sound Speakers - 75W RMS (980-000432) £79.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 2TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST2000DM001) HDD £79.99
1 x Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-Bit - OEM (GFC-02050) £71.99
1 x Corsair Carbide 300R Mid Tower Windowed Case - Black £69.98
1 x Alpenföhn K2 Mount Doom CPU Cooler (Socket 775 / 1155 / 1156 / 1366 / 2011 / AM2 / AM2+ / AM3 / FM1 / FM2) £59.99
1 x Logitech G500 5700DPI Gaming Mouse (910-001262) £36.98
1 x GeIL EVO Leggera 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (GEL38GB1600C9DC) £31.99
1 x OcUK 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £18.98
Total : £1,758.88 (includes shipping : £27.55).

 
1 x MSI HD 7950 Twin Frozr III OC V2 3072MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card with Crysis 3 & Bioshock PC Games £239.99
1 x Samsung S27B750HS 27" Widescreen LED Monitor - Glossy Black/White £229.99
1 x Plextor M5 Pro 256GB Extreme Series Solid State Drive - (PX-256M5P) £179.99
1 x Intel Core i5-3570K 3.40GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail £179.99
1 x OcUK Tech Labs - BitFenix Shinobi XL Big-Tower Case - Black - Noise Dampened £145.99
1 x Seasonic 520w FANLESS '80 Plus Platinum' Modular Power Supply £129.98
1 x Western Digital Caviar Red 3TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache WD30EFRX - OEM HDD £124.99
1 x Gigabyte Z77-D3H Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £79.99
1 x Microsoft Windows 8 64-Bit DVD - OEM (WN7-00403) £71.99
1 x Corsair Hydro H60 V2 High Performance Liquid CPU Cooler (Socket LGA2011 / 1366 / 1155 / 1156 / 775 / AM2 / AM3) £59.99
1 x LG CH10LS28 BD-ROM 10x BluRay ROM / DVDRW SATA-II Optical Drive - Black (Retail) £59.99
1 x GeIL Black Dragon 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (GD316GB1600C11DC) **OcUK Exclusive** £59.99
Total : £1,586.99 (includes shipping : £20.10).



taken away liquid cooled video and added led monitor just incase you want it and stayed with i5 as everyone else seems to like them, seems only me went for i7 again, and also windows 8 but it's the same price so take your pick, stayed with sdd and hdd chose and also psu beng fanless and pre sound proofed case :) same as above, no kb/ mouse / pad and speakers, still think these are far too personnel to chose for others so have left them out for you to pick yourself
 
Zakk there is a very obvious problem with the 7970 GPU solution you have used......can you see what it is? There is no custom waterloop to hook the GPU into ;)
 
see i've never used one before, thought the kit was it all eg 1 x EK Water Blocks EK-FC7970 - Nickel Plexi CSQ £79.99 extra etc, case picked to support it as well :(

failed again, thanks m8 for letting me know.
have taken it out second attempt as price too high for me anyway
 
honosuseri said:
YOUR BASKET
1 x Gigabyte GeForce GTX 670 Windforce 3X 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £335.99
1 x Benq XL2411T 24" TRUE 120Hz 3D Vision 2.0 Widescreen LED Monitor - Black/Red £227.99
1 x Plextor M5 Pro 256GB Extreme Series Solid State Drive - (PX-256M5P) £179.99
1 x Intel Core i5-3570K 3.40GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - OEM £161.99
1 x Gigabyte Z77X-UP4 TH Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £159.98
1 x Gigabyte Osmium Mechanical Gaming Keyboard £109.99
1 x XFX 850W XXX Edition Modular '80 Plus Silver' Power Supply £99.98
1 x Logitech Z506 5.1 Surround Sound Speakers - 75W RMS (980-000432) £79.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 2TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST2000DM001) HDD £79.99
1 x Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-Bit - OEM (GFC-02050) £71.99
1 x Corsair Carbide 300R Mid Tower Windowed Case - Black £69.98
1 x Alpenföhn K2 Mount Doom CPU Cooler (Socket 775 / 1155 / 1156 / 1366 / 2011 / AM2 / AM2+ / AM3 / FM1 / FM2) £59.99
1 x Logitech G500 5700DPI Gaming Mouse (910-001262) £36.98
1 x GeIL EVO Leggera 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (GEL38GB1600C9DC) £31.99
1 x OcUK 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £18.98
Total : £1,758.88 (includes shipping : £27.55).

Click to expand...

Nice spec mate, just one problem!

mouse mat (lol!),
Click to expand...
:eek: :p
 
I was just thinking why hasn't my buddy Idleman done a spec yet ;)

Yes I left the matt out, not quite as essential as a mobo though is it? :P It's what £10ish for a matt, the sizes vary and they can be huuuuuge. I'd rather he picked one for his desk :)
 
Is windows 8 worth going with for games and work based stuff? I'll be buying the new version of office also.
 
in the long run yes, works better with memory and sdd's, has later support for dx etc, and for the same price, it's win win, can't say i like it much myself, but as soon as sp1 comes out for it, i'll make the change
 
James J said:
Is windows 8 worth going with for games and work based stuff? I'll be buying the new version of office also.
Click to expand...

Down to you really fella. Many people dislike windows 8 but I think that might be because it's designed to be touchscreen friendly. It takes a little getting used to, if you fear change then get windows 7.......or even just try the developers preview of 8 for free for 3 months, then buy the OS of your choice ;)

I suppose you could toy with getting a touch screen panel but there are no 120Hz panels that I know of. Using a 60Hz screen (aiming for a solid 60FPS) would make life easier on the GPU front, if you went touch over 120Hz

If you want to spend £2K and want 120Hz, I would probably balance it out like so............

YOUR BASKET
1 x Benq XL2420TX 24" TRUE 120Hz 3D Vision 2.0 Widescreen LED Monitor - Black/Red w/ 3D Vision 2.0 Bundle £359.99
2 x Gigabyte GeForce GTX 670 Windforce 3X 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £335.99 (£671.98)
1 x Intel Core i5-3570K 3.40GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - OEM £161.99
1 x Gigabyte Z77X-D3H Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £112.99
1 x XFX 850W XXX Edition Modular '80 Plus Silver' Power Supply £99.98
1 x Plextor M5 Pro 128GB Extreme Series Solid State Drive - (PX-128M5P) £99.95
1 x Logitech Z506 5.1 Surround Sound Speakers - 75W RMS (980-000432) £79.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 2TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST2000DM001) HDD £79.99
1 x Microsoft Windows 8 64-Bit DVD - OEM (WN7-00403) £71.99
1 x Corsair Carbide 300R Mid Tower Windowed Case - Black £69.98
1 x Qpad MK-50 Mechanical Gaming Keyboard - UK Layout - Red Switches £64.99
1 x Alpenföhn K2 Mount Doom CPU Cooler (Socket 775 / 1155 / 1156 / 1366 / 2011 / AM2 / AM2+ / AM3 / FM1 / FM2) £59.99
1 x Logitech G500 5700DPI Gaming Mouse (910-001262) £36.98
1 x GeIL EVO Leggera 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (GEL38GB1600C9DC) £31.99
1 x OcUK 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £18.98
Total : £2,021.77 (includes shipping : FREE).



120Hz screen now in 3D, 670 GPUs in SLi to "feed" the screen, modular silver 850W PSU to cover the use of highend dual GPUs.

Mobo does SLi/Xfire properly and has a dual BIOS, 3 year UK based warranty on it and the GPUs. 8GB of RAM is ample for a gaming rig, you can add more cheaply and easily enough later.

Case is down to you really. I wouldn't bother with a CLC cooler, ideally you want something like the H100i but then you have to be careful and get a case that supports the rad on it. Really you can get just as good performance by spending half as much on an air cooler and it's less faff.

5.1 surround for gaming and movies. Decent gaming mouse and "gaming" Mech keyboard. I dont want any back chat about a mouse mat, we've been through that.......you should have got one for Crimbo ;)

Hope this helps, really look forward to seeing what you settle on :D
 
I dont want any back chat about a mouse mat, we've been through that.......you should have got one for Crimbo
Click to expand...

ooooh, get you. :D

On a more serious note, is the Win8 Developer still available for download?
 
Idleman said:
ooooh, get you. :D

On a more serious note, is the Win8 Developer still available for download?
Click to expand...

It seems so.

I heard that microsoft were going to up the price of windows 8 as it hasn't sold well at all, not sure how that will help. Currently it is the same price as windows 7 so if he wants to embrace 8, might be wise to do so now not later.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom