Ultima 9300i Prism project, advice please.

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Ultima 9300i Prism project

Scroll down for final build pictures

Firstly let us say hello to one and all, our first post on the OCUK forums but me and my eldest son have been reading around on here for some time.

I used to be, many years ago (cough cough) a PC gamer and can remember when Dual ISDN was first offered by BT and paying £120 a month for the service and play Kingpin multi player and many others, ooh how things have changed over the years. Both myself and eldest son use A8 laptops but have now decided to invest in a dedicated system which will have to integrate into our home cinema which I will come on to shortly, and be able to easily play through the likes of Battlefield 3, Far Cry 3, ect ect at max settings and not have to really worry about upgrading for around 3 years or so.

So we have set a firm max budget of £2k delivered with a 2 day fast track system build ready to ship 2 days.

Using the bundle of Ultima 9300i Prisim Intel Core i7 3820 3.6GHz @ 4.20GHz with the following options the all in price come in at £1,863.90 inc VAT

BitFenix Colossus Blue LED Big Towered Window Case - White
Intel 330 Series 180GB SSD
Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit
Microsoft Office starter edition
Asus Geforce GTX 690 4096MB GDDR5

A few questions we have.
Firstly is this as a guide a good choice ?

Can we change the optical drive to a Blu-Ray reader, DVD writer

Would the Corsair TX650w PSU need to be uped a little ? 850w ?

We have a BT Home Hub 3 so would the Asus PCE-N53 300Mbs Dual Band Wireless N600 PCI-E adapter be the best choice ? The reason for this is currently there is no capacity for ethernet as all home plugs are used and I really do not want a cable laying on the floor to the rear of this unit so I have late January somebody coming in to trunk into the wall some extra cableing for us.

Now I am seriously fussy about quality of sound and have Kef floorstanders and a BK Monolith plus version subwoofer. We also want the ability to use on the odd occasion our headphones which do really need a headphone amp. Any ideas recommendations on this ?

Set up, well this will be connected in conjunction with a 50" Panasonic 3D TX-P VT30B THX reference Plasma and an THX certified Onkyo TX-NR 1008 AV receiver. can I assume the best route would be HDMI to the screen for visual from the GTX 690 and route from the sound card to the AV amp. I can audio return via HDMI back to the Onkyo if needed but really do not want to loose any sound quality.

Finally, maybe a silly question, are all original boxes / discs / manuals ect for components sent with the unit once built ?

I know this is a lot to cover but all advice welcome as we intend to order with in the next seven days and needs to fall in the 2K budget as mentioned earlier.

We also both use Logitech Wirless combo MK520 Mouse and Keyboard.

Many thanks in advance.

Alan / Gixer1970
 
Last edited:
Thanks for your reply Passey89. Neither myself or my eldest son want to build the unit and would like it bulit and delivered with the two year collect and return warranty. How would the two HD 7970's compare to the 690 ?

We are both used to windows 7, is there a real advantage with 8. Neither of us are interested in the fancy tiles or what ever you call them.

Many thanks

Alan / Gixer1970
 
The 7970 will perform better in most games but it depends really on the game due to it having more vram, the fancy tiles are metro, I use windows 8 and there isn't much of a difference, the boot times are faster then on windows 7, metro takes some time to he tuned to but once you do then its simple.
 
Thanks for your reply Passey89. Neither myself or my eldest son want to build the unit and would like it bulit and delivered with the two year collect and return warranty. How would the two HD 7970's compare to the 690 ?

We are both used to windows 7, is there a real advantage with 8. Neither of us are interested in the fancy tiles or what ever you call them.

Many thanks

Alan / Gixer1970

I run windows 8 and just press the desktop button 99.9% of the time and run in desktop mode.

Its a lot faster than 7 especially if you get a mobo that can do ultra fast boot. boots in about 5 seconds then.

Ok if you want to get a pre-built i'll take a look.
 
I run windows 8 and just press the desktop button 99.9% of the time and run in desktop mode.

Its a lot faster than 7 especially if you get a mobo that can do ultra fast boot. boots in about 5 seconds then.

Ok if you want to get a pre-built i'll take a look.

I do know if you ring overclockers and say the spec I suggested they charge £130 and they will build it for you and overclock it stress test it all out.

If not go for something like this.

YOUR BASKET
1 x "Ultima 9650i Laser" Intel Core i7 3770K 3.50GHz @ 4.50GHz DDR3 Ivybridge Gaming PC £775.00
- 1 x 24 MONTH WARRANTY - COLLECT & RETURN £0.01
- 1 x Asus GeForce GTX 690 4096MB PCI-Express Graphics Card £779.99
- 1 x Standard Build Systems - Approximately 5-7 working days £0.00
- 1 x Microsoft Windows 8 Pro 64-Bit DVD - OEM (FQC-05955) £109.99
- 1 x BitFenix Colossus Blue & Red LED Big Tower Case - Black £145.99
- 1 x Microsoft Office Starter Edition £0.00
- 1 x Intel 330 Series 180GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive - Retail £118.99
Total : £1,959.37 (includes shipping : £24.50).

 
Just a quick update and a big thank you to Nathan at OCUK for all the advise.

This is where we ended up.

Intel 330 Series 180GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid state Drive
Asus Geforce GTX 690 4096MB
Pioneer BDC-207DBK 8x BluRay
Corsair Enthusiast Series TX 750W V2 High Performance '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply
Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA 6/Gb/s 16MB Cache
Alpenfohn K2 Mount Doom CPU Cooler
Asus PCE-N53 300Mbs Dual-Band Wireless-N600
Gigabyte Z77-D3H Intel Z77 Motherboard
Asus Xonar D2X 7.1 Sound Card
Teamgroup Elite 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3
Microsoft Windows 8 64Bit
Intel Core i7-3770k
BitFenix Colossus Led Big Tower windowed Case

Stage 5 overclock

I think that was it........

Once it arrives we will post some pictures.

All the best

Alan / Gixer1970
 
Took a few quick snaps of the rig today, excuse the typical smartphone quality!

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Thanks for that Nathan, we are looking forward to delivery tomorrow. Many thanks once again for all your help and assistance.

Alan / Gixer1970
 
a PC fitting for the HULK himself!

Next time i order a pc im going to get mods to post pictures when its built before they send it off, great idea :D
 
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