Help speccing £1000 Gaming rig.

El_Commi · 25 Apr 2011 at 17:51

Hey guys!
I'll give a little background. I've been running a 2.2Ghz Amd Athalon x64, 4GB DDR 2 ram with a 4350 for quite a while now. And, aside from the GPU, (which originally was a backup after my previous died), it suited me ok. I always fancied an upgrade, but always found better places to spend my money.
Well. My monitor finally died on me a few days ago. And it's the push I've needed to finally go for that new rig.

So, I've been agonising over this for quite a while. Drafting in some friends to help until one of them suggested dropping a forum post here, and have you guys give it a look over.

So, this was the build I had settled on:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=BU-029-OB
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-222-AS
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MO-067-IY
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-244-SE
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-037-OP
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-366-WD
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-037-ZA
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CD-099-SA
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=FG-000-FD

Without you having to click the links. Here's the specs:

Zalman Z9 Plus Tower Case with Fan Controller and additional case fan.
Generic cheap Dvd burner
Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 32MB
OcUK Battle 750W Dual Rail High Efficiency Modular Power Supply
Seagate Barracuda Green 2TB SATA 6Gb/s Hard Drive
Iiyama ProLite E2409HDS 24" Widescreen LCD Monitor
Krypton Intel Core i7 950 3.06GHz @ 4.00GHz Overclocked Bundle

And for the GPU:
Asus GeForce GTX 480 1536MB GDDR5

All in all I think a pretty solid build.

The spanner in the works right now was the introduction of a 2GB 6950. Which can be flashed to a 6970. That is a really tempting idea. Here's the 6750 I was looking at as a possible alternative:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-254-AS&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=1752

The worry here is, obviously void warranty with a flash, and subsequently overheating the card, or otherwise breaking it. Especially since it seems the GTX 480 is pretty close in terms of benchmarks to the 6970. Though the extra half Gb of RAM would probably be very nice I doubt I'll notice it much, as I plan to run around 1680x1040. (Or the monitors native 1900 ish res.) Which ever looks better and works best in the system.

So, here's the question.
Can anyone here design a better build, or make changes to this one (bearing in mind that I'm already around £50 over my initial budget of £1000, not factoring in the £35 delivery to N.Ireland), or help me decide which card to go with. If you can shave a few £'s off and still maintain something similar to my spec. That would be awesome too!

Currently i'm very taken with the I7 (Would prefare a i7 2600k sandybridge, but they seem to be pushing my build up to over £1250 :< )
Games i'm currently playing are WoW(primarily for high end arena). Eve online, and Dragon Age.
Playing Crysis 2 on my work pc, cause my home pc can't really handle it too well. I play to play Bf3 and StarWars ToR on release.

Points to consider, I rather like the look and feel of that case, but it too is open for change. I don't mind doing a little Oc'ing/flashing. But I'm a little wary of it, as I don't really know how to particurlarly well, and don't want to burn out any parts. And I definitely need a monitor as I've borrowed my sisters old 17" LCD which is horrible.

Many thanks in advance!
Gerard.

*edit typos*

Ps- I have speakers, peripherals and headset. But a new headset, keyboard would be nice too- but not essential.

stulid · 25 Apr 2011 at 17:54

Ever heard of Sandybridge?

This bundle will be much faster - http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=BU-062-OE&groupid=43&catid=339&subcat=1802

for gaming the quad core 2500K is about as fast as it gets.

And the PSU isnt something that gets nuch love around here, buy a proven named make.

Plec · 25 Apr 2011 at 17:55

If it's primarliy use is for gaming you could save money by swapping to a 2500K.

Pohly · 25 Apr 2011 at 17:58

i would go with an i5 2500k reading reviews and stuff they are equal if not better than the 950 and a bit cheaper plus they oc like a beast i have mine at 4.5ghz no problem.

and i wouldnt buy a cheap psu i brought an 800w £40 one a while ago and it blow up in a couple of days :S.

i would suggest this

and go for the 6950 they run a lot cooler and use a lot less power. (and have about the same performance as the 480) but get this onethis will save u a few quid and only takes up 2 slot not 3 so u have an option to crossfire in the future

stulid · 25 Apr 2011 at 18:02

And is that 1GB blue drive suppose to be the main boot drive? as this one is faster - http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-082-SA&groupid=701&catid=14&subcat=1279

stulid · 25 Apr 2011 at 18:06

Your basketProduct Name Qty Price Line Total
"Radon Torosaur" Intel Core i5 2500K 3.30GHz @ 4.40GHz Overclocked Bundle - Gigabyte £409.98
(£341.65) £409.98
(£341.65)
Asus GeForce GTX 480 1536MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card with FarCry 2 & Operation Flashpoint Games £199.98
(£166.65) £199.98
(£166.65)
Iiyama ProLite E2409HDS 24" Widescreen LCD Monitor - Black £143.99
(£119.99) £143.99
(£119.99)
Corsair Enthusiast Series TX 650W V2 High Performance Power Supply (CMPSU-650TXV2UK) £69.98
(£58.32) £69.98
(£58.32)
Seagate Barracuda Green 2TB SATA 6Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM (ST2000DL003) £59.99
(£49.99) £59.99
(£49.99)
Zalman Z9 Plus Tower Case with Fan Controller - Black £44.99
(£37.49) £44.99
(£37.49)
Samsung SpinPoint F3 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (HD103SJ) £42.98
(£35.82) £42.98
(£35.82)
Samsung SH-S223C/BEBE 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £14.99
(£12.49) £14.99
(£12.49)
Fractal Design 140mm Silent Cooling Fan £12.24
(£10.20) £12.24
(£10.20)
Sub Total : £832.60
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £20.10
VAT is being charged at 20.00% VAT : £170.54
Total : £1,023.24

that would be much faster

Just have to decide on GTX480 or ATI 6950 2GB.

And do you have a operating system?

El_Commi · 25 Apr 2011 at 20:36

Hey!
Thanks for the replies. Very helpful so far!

stulid said:
Ever heard of Sandybridge?

This bundle will be much faster - http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=BU-062-OE&groupid=43&catid=339&subcat=1802
.

The main issue with this bundle deal is the lack of RAM. I know 4GB is often touted as enough, but I'm running 4GB atm, and I often find myself running low on available RAM. I want to avoid this for sure.

Pohly said:
i would go with an i5 2500k reading reviews and stuff they are equal if not better than the 950 and a bit cheaper plus they oc like a beast i have mine at 4.5ghz no problem.

and i wouldnt buy a cheap psu i brought an 800w £40 one a while ago and it blow up in a couple of days :S.

Yeah, the PSU I was thinking of changing. Though the last cooler master I bought, had sparks flying everywhere. Took us a day to figure out it was a loose cable behind the screwhole that was frayed from the screw. Noob mistake :<

The 6950 is a serious contender, only choose the other cause the cooling seems better, and I'm worried that it'll heat up too much with the bios being flashed. But looking over the case it is unlikely to be an issue.

stulid said:
And is that 1GB blue drive suppose to be the main boot drive? as this one is faster - http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-082-SA&groupid=701&catid=14&subcat=1279

Point noted.

The build you linked is very nice, I'll certainly take the HDD's and PSU onboard. The main issue is the RAM. I can't do less that 6GB. When I play, I tend to have a browser, MSN, skype, music and the game hogging my RAM (amongst others), and I want to avoid caching issues.

I could certainly go for an I5 bundle, but I'm still sold on the I7. What's the main difference(s) between the i7 950 and the i5 2500k?
I mean, faster clock and less cores obviously
But surely a slightly slower clock, with more available cores is worth it- no?

Thanks very much for the tips so far guys. I know i'm a pain, just pushing for the best rig i can afford.

*edit*
Forgot to say that I have a copy of windows on disk at home. Win 7 64bit, think its premium. not 100% sure.

stulid · 25 Apr 2011 at 20:39

El_Commi said:
I could certainly go for an I5 bundle, but I'm still sold on the I7. What's the main difference(s) between the i7 950 and the i5 2500k?
I mean, faster clock and less cores obviously
But surely a slightly slower clock, with more available cores is worth it- no?

Heres a stock speed comparison - http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/100?vs=288 - some of the benches are lower is better.

They both have the same number of cores, 4, but i7 cpus have hyperthreading too, which is useless for gaming.

El_Commi · 25 Apr 2011 at 20:50

stulid said:
Heres a stock speed comparison - http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/100?vs=288 - some of the benches are lower is better.

They both have the same number of cores, 4, but i7 cpus have hyperthreading too, which is useless for gaming.

I had read in a few places, that a good number of software firms were starting to take hyper threading seriously. and whilst its pretty much impossible to "future proof" your computer. The plan was to make the cpu/mobo solid enough that when I next need to upgrade, it'll be a whole system overhaul again a couple years down the line.

I'm also ashamed to admit I thought the i5's were Dual cores

Gonna finish my dinner then have a look at a few of the i5 bundles. See if i can find one with more RAM- cause those benchmarks are actually swaying me.

El_Commi · 25 Apr 2011 at 21:32

Ok- Think I'm certainly swaying for the i5 now. Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be an oc'd bundle with more than 4gb ram. So thinking now to build a setup from scratch myself, and forget about the oc for the time being. especially since the i5 can out perfrom that i7 at factory clock speeds.

stulid · 25 Apr 2011 at 21:47

Heres exactly the same parts contained within that OCUK 2500K bundle, but with 8GB of ram

Your basketProduct Name Qty Price Line Total
Asus ATI Radeon HD 6950 OC 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £209.99
(£174.99) £209.99
(£174.99)
Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor with FREE Operation Flashpoint Red River Game £169.99
(£141.66) £169.99
(£141.66)
Asus P8P67 PRO Intel P67 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard - (Sandybridge) ** B3 REVISION ** £147.98
(£123.32) £147.98
(£123.32)
Iiyama ProLite E2409HDS 24" Widescreen LCD Monitor - Black £143.99
(£119.99) £143.99
(£119.99)
XFX Pro 750W Core Edition Power Supply £72.98
(£60.82) £72.98
(£60.82)
Corsair XMS3 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMX8GX3M2A1600C9) £69.59
(£57.99) £69.59
(£57.99)
Seagate Barracuda Green 2TB SATA 6Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM (ST2000DL003) £59.99
(£49.99) £59.99
(£49.99)
Zalman Z9 Plus Tower Case with Fan Controller - Black £44.99
(£37.49) £44.99
(£37.49)
Samsung SpinPoint F3 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (HD103SJ) £42.98
(£35.82) £42.98
(£35.82)
Corsair A50 High-Performance CPU Cooler (Socket AM2/AM3/LGA775/LGA1155/LGA1156/LGA1366) £27.98
(£23.32) £27.98
(£23.32)
Samsung SH-S223C/BEBE 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £14.99
(£12.49) £14.99
(£12.49)
Fractal Design 120mm Silent Cooling Fan £9.98
(£8.32) £9.98
(£8.32)
Sub Total : £846.20
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £20.10
VAT is being charged at 20.00% VAT : £173.26
Total : £1,039.56

Now the above motherboard does something known as Crossfire/SLI, this is the ability to add two GPU's to get almost double the performance, the idea is in a few years time when the pc is starting to struggle with new games, you pick up a second hand/cheap identical card to get the extra boost.

If this is something that you are not interested in, then the motherboard above can be swapped for a much cheaper one such as,

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-167-MS&groupid=701&catid=5&subcat=1906

And you can also cut back on the PSU wattage to around 650w whcih is enough for any single GPU.

Pohly · 25 Apr 2011 at 21:53

El_Commi said:
Hey!

Yeah, the PSU I was thinking of changing. Though the last cooler master I bought, had sparks flying everywhere. Took us a day to figure out it was a loose cable behind the screwhole that was frayed from the screw. Noob mistake :<

The 6950 is a serious contender, only choose the other cause the cooling seems better, and I'm worried that it'll heat up too much with the bios being flashed. But looking over the case it is unlikely to be an issue.

i have never heard of that from a cooler master psu i have this and i couldnt reccomend it more its awesome and has 80A on 1 12v rail which is great.

and the asus 6950 shouldnt heat up any more that a 6970 even if it is flashed because i believe they are the same card (cooler and everything).

Pohly · 25 Apr 2011 at 22:04

oh you could get this :
Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - OEM - OEM £161.99
(£134.99) £161.99
(£134.99)
2X XFX ATI Radeon HD 5870 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card with FREE Stalker Call of Pripyat PC Game Voucher XFX ATI Radeon HD 5870 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card with FREE Stalker Call of Pripyat PC Game Voucher £149.99
(£124.99) £299.98
(£249.98)
OcUK 24" True HD Widescreen LED Monitor - Black OcUK 24" True HD Widescreen LED Monitor - Black £134.99
(£112.49) £134.99
(£112.49)
MSI P67A-G45 Intel P67 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard (Sandybridge) ** B3 REVISION ** MSI P67A-G45 Intel P67 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard (Sandybridge) ** B3 REVISION ** £119.99
(£99.99) £119.99
(£99.99)
Coolermaster Silent Pro Modular 850W Power Supply Coolermaster Silent Pro Modular 850W Power Supply £99.98
(£83.32) £99.98
(£83.32)
Zalman Z9 Plus Tower Case with Fan Controller - Black Zalman Z9 Plus Tower Case with Fan Controller - Black £44.99
(£37.49) £44.99
(£37.49)
Samsung SpinPoint F3 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (HD103SJ) Samsung SpinPoint F3 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (HD103SJ) £42.98
(£35.82) £42.98
(£35.82)
Corsair XMS3 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMX4GX3M2A1600C9) Corsair XMS3 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMX4GX3M2A1600C9) £35.99
(£29.99) £35.99
(£29.99)
Corsair A50 High-Performance CPU Cooler (Socket AM2/AM3/LGA775/LGA1155/LGA1156/LGA1366) Corsair A50 High-Performance CPU Cooler (Socket AM2/AM3/LGA775/LGA1155/LGA1156/LGA1366) £27.98
(£23.32) £27.98
(£23.32)
Samsung SH-S223C/BEBE 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM Samsung SH-S223C/BEBE 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £14.99
(£12.49) £14.99
(£12.49)
Sub Total : £819.88
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
FREE SHIPPING (DPD Next Day)
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : FREE
VAT is being charged at 20.00% VAT : £163.98
Total : £983.86

this would be one hell of a rig!!

El_Commi · 25 Apr 2011 at 22:49

stulid said:
Heres exactly the same parts contained within that OCUK 2500K bundle, but with 8GB of ram

That is actually very nice.

This is what I came up with:

RAM: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-061-GS
G.Skill RipJawsX 8GB (2x4GB)
CPU:http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CP-360-IN
Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz
mobo:http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-449-AS
Asus P67 Sabertooth. Clocks in at rouglhy around the same price.

Pohly said:
oh you could get this

I bought it from ** Mentioning of Competitors is strictly prohibited ** last year. In the end, we couldn't send it back cause we;d open it up to find out what the issue was. A lesson learned though.
I really like your build. With the parts i listed above, cooling on the cpu was one of my concerns. I'm not too sure what the stock fans are like with the i5's.
I love the idea of 2 5870's. Gonna run the bench marks for those now. And it comes in a little under budget. So upping the RAM won't be a big deal. We could be on to a winner here you know

Ps-
This is a lot harder than I expected it to be, so much equipment falls into my price range, its hard to choose lol.

Pohly · 25 Apr 2011 at 23:00

El_Commi said:
I bought it from ** Mentioning of Competitors is strictly prohibited / please do not quote ** last year. In the end, we couldn't send it back cause we;d open it up to find out what the issue was. A lesson learned though.
I really like your build. With the parts i listed above, cooling on the cpu was one of my concerns. I'm not too sure what the stock fans are like with the i5's.
I love the idea of 2 5870's. Gonna run the bench marks for those now. And it comes in a little under budget. So upping the RAM won't be a big deal. We could be on to a winner here you know

Ps-
This is a lot harder than I expected it to be, so much equipment falls into my price range, its hard to choose lol.

yeah http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/300?vs=292 as you can see 2 5870's are a LOT better than 1 6970. and you could have 8gb of ram for 1019.85 not too bad. im sure u could cut somthing back £20 psu maybe. or cooler.

El_Commi · 25 Apr 2011 at 23:03

Pohly said:
yeah http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/300?vs=292 as you can see 2 5870's are a LOT better than 1 6970. and you could have 8gb of ram for 1019.85 not too bad. im sure u could cut somthing back £20 psu maybe. or cooler.

Yeah, performs a hell of a lot better. Main issue is if I decide to upgrade it at some point I'll need to replace 2 cards, or get a really expensive gpu. But thats unlikely to happen for a long while. also I've never ran crossfire before- not sure if its difficult to set up

£20 over budget isn't bad. I can do that np. What do you think of the ram I linked above, over the corsair xms?

El_Commi · 25 Apr 2011 at 23:09

Can always try 2x of G.Skill RipJawsX 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-057-GS

instead of the 2x 4GB sticks. Slightly slower latency timings, doubt I'll notice it though, and I'll save about £30.

Pohly · 25 Apr 2011 at 23:11

El_Commi said:
Yeah, performs a hell of a lot better. Main issue is if I decide to upgrade it at some point I'll need to replace 2 cards, or get a really expensive gpu. But thats unlikely to happen for a long while. also I've never ran crossfire before- not sure if its difficult to set up

£20 over budget isn't bad. I can do that np. What do you think of the ram I linked above, over the corsair xms?

i doubt you will need to upgrade that for at least 4 years. as with the ram i have heard they are very good but if you buy 1 set of these you get free postage so you save at least £20 (dont know how long this will last tho). and that ram is very expensive. you can buy 2 sets of these thats 16gb!! for £35 more

and setting up a crossfire system is really easy. just install both card and the crossfire bridge (included) and install the drivers.

El_Commi · 25 Apr 2011 at 23:24

The 2x4GB corsair is on offer this week though clocking in at a normal £99. I figured for an extra £5, I'll get ram with some heatsinks. I'm probably not likely to order until Wednesday at the earliest, by which stage offers expire and new ones come up. Maybe I'll get lucky and all my parts will be on offer

The free postage is nice, but I live outside mainland UK, so I don't think it applies to me and for £4/stick. Heatsinks! Cooling is an issue as currently I'm living in a small room, that is always super hot. I'll likely be spending tomorrow in work reading up on crossfire- now that you've put that idea into my head

*edit*
Also comparatively speaking the Corsair XMS3 8GB (2x4GB) has timings of 9-9-9-24. With the G.Skill RipJawsX 8GB (2x4GB) running @ 7-8-7-24.
I'll probably never notice it, but for such a small price difference (£5) it's silly not to I think. Ofc depends all on the offer expiring this week.
(Bed for me now most likely. Will catch up with this thread in work tomorrow

)

Pohly · 25 Apr 2011 at 23:38

El_Commi said:
The 2x4GB corsair is on offer this week though clocking in at a normal £99. I figured for an extra £5, I'll get ram with some heatsinks. I'm probably not likely to order until Wednesday at the earliest, by which stage offers expire and new ones come up. Maybe I'll get lucky and all my parts will be on offer

The free postage is nice, but I live outside mainland UK, so I don't think it applies to me and for £4/stick. Heatsinks! Cooling is an issue as currently I'm living in a small room, that is always super hot. I'll likely be spending tomorrow in work reading up on crossfire- now that you've put that idea into my head

*edit*
Also comparatively speaking the Corsair XMS3 8GB (2x4GB) has timings of 9-9-9-24. With the G.Skill RipJawsX 8GB (2x4GB) running @ 7-8-7-24.
I'll probably never notice it, but for such a small price difference (£5) it's silly not to I think. Ofc depends all on the offer expiring this week.
(Bed for me now most likely. Will catch up with this thread in work tomorrow)

yeah good point its only a fiver

its sham you are not buying it now though because the price of those xms3's is unbelievable

.

thinking about it you could just buy 2 5850s (not quite as quick as the 2 5870s but still is a LOT better than a 6970 for nearly the same price £230) i have two of these 5850 and they are great value and run super cool which is good for your situation this would save you a good £70 to put towards ram.

benchmarks here