Couple of gaming rigs - £800 budget minus HDD

voodooflux · 19 Nov 2011 at 15:02

Could I trouble the esteemed members of this forum to cast an eye over the following spec for me. On behalf of Father Christmas I've been tasked with assembling a pair gaming-grade PCs for my kids, one of which will also be home to my X-Fi card for some audio shenanigans.

Given the current price premium on hard drives I'm going to plunder my NAS for the pair of Samsung 1TB drives contained within, then look to buy new drives once prices are more sensible. I've also got optical drives, keyboards, mice and speakers kicking around in other systems that I can requisition for these new builds.

The intention is to build a good foundation which I can overclock and then upgrade over the next couple of years, perhaps with the addition of a second video card (so I'll need a PSU to cope).

In summary I have HDDs, optical drives, speakers, keyboards and mice sorted, so I *just* need everything else (including 23-24" monitors), and budget-wise I'd like to keep the remaining components for each system as much under £800 as possible (sorry, the thread title should have reflected that the budget is per-system).

Motherboard - MSI Z68A-GD55-G3
CPU - Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor
Video - Asus GeForce GTX 560Ti DirectCU II 1024MB
Case - Cooler Master HAF 912 Case - Black
PSU - Antec TruePower New Modular 750W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply
RAM - Kingston HyperX Genesis Grey 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit
HDD - not required
DVD - not required
Keyboard/Mouse - not required
Cooler - Gelid Tranquillo CPU Cooler
Monitor - LG IPS235V IPS LCD LED 23" HDMI Monitor

That little lot comes in just over the £760 mark I think. The MSI motherboard choice is subject to stock, and whether I can still get the 20% rebate - I'll need to be quick. Failing that I was going to consider perhaps a Gigabyte Z68X-UD3P?

Much obliged for any advice and suggestions.

Cheers
v.f.

stulid · 19 Nov 2011 at 15:05

Thats good, the PSU is a good, order by the 21st to get the VAT back on the boards.

Failing that I was going to consider perhaps a Gigabyte Z68X-UD3P?

Another great board.

Are your drives SATA then?

voodooflux · 19 Nov 2011 at 15:11

Many thanks for the second pair of eyes stulid, I'll dust off the credit card tonight I think.

Reckon the PSU would handle the addition of second 560Ti? The Gigabyte motherboard was my original choice, but the MSI board gives me a warmer feeling towards PCI 3.0 compliance I think - I've heard questions raised (mostly by MSI it has to be said) surrounding the compliance of the Gigabyte boards despite their recent BIOS update.

stulid · 19 Nov 2011 at 15:17

The Gigabyte boards despite the lack of PCI-E3.0 switches are compliant to the top slot only as its directly connected to the CPU socket by 8 lanes and its the ivybridge cpu that hosts the PCI-E controller.

The PSU is plenty for a pair of those cards.
http://www.guru3d.com/article/geforce-gtx-560-ti-sli-review/14

A second card requires you to add another ~175 Watts. You need a 700+ Watt power supply unit if you use it in a high-end system (800+ to a KiloWatt is recommended if you plan on any overclocking).

Do take into account that the test system Guru3D used is a more power hungry socket 1366 based system.

voodooflux · 19 Nov 2011 at 15:43

stulid said:
Are your drives SATA then?

Yeah, they are a pair of Samsung HD103UJ 1AA0 drives. I'll look to put them back in the NAS next year once disk prices are more sensible, and then acquire newer SATA drives for each of these rigs, or possibly even consider SSDs.

stulid said:
The Gigabyte boards despite the lack of PCI-E3.0 switches are compliant to the top slot only as its directly connected to the CPU socket by 8 lanes and its the ivybridge cpu that hosts the PCI-E controller.

Thanks for clearing that up, sounds like the MSI board might be the best option with a view to maximising the potential upgrade path.

Much obliged for your assistance stulid.