Critique my shopping list!

Dunks

Dunks

Dunks

Soldato
Joined
31 Oct 2004
Posts
8,691
Location
London
Hey guys, following on from my '£500 spec me' thread, I've decided to increase my budget! I've decided an extra £200 wont break the bank and it's worth it as I'll no doubt have this rig for a couple of years! I may tone down the cpu and case, but I'm a little unsure at the moment, my current basket is as follows:

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-3570K 3.40GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - OEM £179.99
1 x Asus GeForce GTX 660 DirectCU II 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £167.99
1 x Gigabyte Z77-D3H Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £89.99
1 x OCZ Agility 4 128GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive (AGT4-25SAT3-128G) £83.99
1 x Corsair Carbide 300R Mid Tower Case - Black £64.99
1 x Corsair Builder Series CX 600w Modular '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply (CP-9020060-UK) £62.99
1 x **B Grade** Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (S (HD-257-SE) £45.00
1 x Patriot Viper Xtreme 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C8 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (PXD38G1600LLK) £39.95
1 x Tenda W322P+ V2.0 300Mbps Wireless N PCI Adapter £9.98
Total : £744.86 (includes shipping : FREE).




Any tweaks and suggestions? Thanks!
 
Looks good, I would try and change the PSU for a 500w (XFX, BeQuiet, Silverstone, Corsasir) and the 660 for a 7870. The 7870 overclock well and will be on par with the 7950 as they are using the same architecture.
 
Yeah, I was going for the same model of PSU except the 500w version, but it's out of stock! I'll go with a 500w of the brands you mentioned, save me £8-10!

I'm leaning towards Nvidia as I hear their graphic drivers support tends to be a lot better? I know with linux (which I use on occasion but not often due to my current ATi card) Nvidia far outplays ATi on that front.

I'm also thinking of going for a more budget case, but I'm looking at perhaps going for a custom water-cool build later (360mm rad?) so probably want to get something more capable.

Also, I'll be buying Wednesday, I was wonder if 'this week only' will get updated Wednesday at midnight, or during the day.
 
Dunks said:
Aha, good catch!

Any recommendations for one capable of handling overclocking?
Click to expand...

a lot of the good value ones are out of stock fella

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-3570K 3.40GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - OEM £179.99
1 x **B Grade** Gigabyte ATI Radeon HD 7850 OC Windforce 2X 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card w/ Nexuiz, Sleeping Dogs & Dirt Showd (GX-100-GI) £129.95
1 x Gigabyte Z77-D3H Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £89.99
1 x Plextor M5S 128GB Solid State Drive - (PX-128M5S) £89.99
1 x Silverstone Strider Plus 500W Modular '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply (SST-ST50F-P) £67.99
1 x Zalman Z9 USB 3.0 Midi Tower Case - Black £54.98
1 x **B Grade** Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (S (HD-257-SE) £45.00
1 x Patriot Intel Extreme Masters 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-14900C9 1866MHz Dual Channel Kit (PVI38G186C9K) £39.95
1 x Thermalright Macho 120 CPU Cooler (Socket 775 / 1155 / 1156 / 1366 / 2011 / AM2 / AM2+ / AM3 / FM1 / FM2) £29.99
1 x TP-Link 300Mbps Wireless N PCI Express Adapter (TL-WN881ND) £16.99
1 x Akasa USB 3.0 internal adapter cable (AK-CBUB09-15BK) £5.99
Total : £750.80 (includes shipping : FREE).



Slightly styled option there with a windowed case
 
What's the deal with the USB 3.0 internal adapter? Pardon my ignorance :p

Also, any benefits over the Silverstone 600w PSU over the cheaper Corsair 600w? Just better quality?
 
The front USB3 ports need the adapter to connect directly to the mobo header, otherwise you have to route the cable out the back of the case through the PCI brackets. You don't "need" it as such but makes things tidier. You get a lot of kit with the case, you could look at the Corsair 200R which wouldn't need the adapter.

500W is ample for a single GPU setup. The Silverstone I used is fully modular so it's dead easy to remove from the chassis to clean. It also has a nice blue fan to continue the blue colour scheme, I always mount PSUs fan up in the Zalman Z9 or any windowed case for show ;)

P.S Yes there have been some complaints about the quality of the Corsair CX range. It is part of their budget range and you have to factor in some people get more vocal about decent branded stuff being faulty
 
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Dunks said:
Aha, I see, thanks :)

Argh, decisions decisions!
Click to expand...

Haha yes that is part of the fun of building your own rig, inifinite possibilities as my sig says ;)

I did my best to style something decent, used some B grade bits and bobs to help you get the most for your cash. Budget cases and watercooling don't really mix. The 300R would take a 240mm rad or a H100 CLC but it's a tight fit. £100 for the case opens the options up but that's hardly "budget". Unless you fancy doing a mini-itx build in the Prodigy.......

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-3570K 3.40GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail £189.95
1 x **B Grade** Gigabyte ATI Radeon HD 7850 OC Windforce 2X 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card w/ Nexuiz, Sleeping Dogs & Dirt Showd (GX-100-GI) £129.95
1 x Gigabyte Z77N-WIFI Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Mini ITX Motherboard £103.99
1 x Plextor M5S 128GB Solid State Drive - (PX-128M5S) £89.99
1 x BitFenix Prodigy 'Yin' Mini-ITX Cube Case - White/Black £69.95
1 x Corsair Builder Series CX 500w Modular '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply (CP-9020059-UK) £54.98
1 x **B Grade** Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (S (HD-257-SE) £45.00
1 x Patriot Intel Extreme Masters 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-14900C9 1866MHz Dual Channel Kit (PVI38G186C9K) £39.95
Total : £736.36 (includes shipping : £10.50).



Or see how the deals favour you on wednesday lol Look forward to seeing what you settle on in the end fella :)
 
Nice little case that Prodigy, just googled around for water-cooling setups using it, pretty nifty!

I'll wait and see what deals pop up on Wednesday. To think my original budget was £500, but I think the extra £200 to get the SSD, geforce 660 and 3570k is totally worth it :D
 
It is proving popular, I think they are working on a mATX variant after having so many requests for one :)

I'm not a fan of the 660. The 660Ti is better being closely related to the 670, if you have to have Nvidia that's what I would suggest. The price of the 660Ti is in 7950 territory though and that is a fine GPU too, when they bundled games with the AMD GPUs it was a no brainer for value for money. I'm no AMD fan boy, I still run an Nvidia 1GB 460 and that will do me till october when BF4 will be released and bundled with AMD GPUs. I'll weigh my options up then ;)
 
So, just a little update guys! I went for this in the end:

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-3570K 3.40GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail £189.95
1 x EVGA GeForce GTX 660 Superclocked 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £167.99
1 x Plextor M5S 128GB Solid State Drive - (PX-128M5S) £89.99
1 x Gigabyte Z77-D3H Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £85.99
1 x XFX Pro 550W Core Edition '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £54.98
1 x Corsair Carbide 200R Compact ATX Case - Black £49.99
1 x Patriot Viper Xtreme 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C8 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (PXD38G1600LLK) £43.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA 6Gb/s 16MB Cache - OEM (ST500DM002) HDD £39.95
1 x Tenda W322P+ V2.0 300Mbps Wireless N PCI Adapter £9.98
1 x OcUK Value 8GB USB Drive Black £5.39
Total : £738.20 (includes shipping : FREE).




Already pushing my budget so rather than ditch the SSD and stick with a 1TB HDD, I went for a 500GB instead, 1TB can come later :)

Shall be arriving tomorrow! My monitor doesn't arrive until Friday though, so I guess it gives me some time to tidy the cables ;)
 
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