£600-£650 spec, plus some questions.

redqueen

redqueen

redqueen

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I'm looking to put together a media-and-moderate gaming PC and have about £600 to spend, or a bit more if it'll really make a difference. Raw performance isn't as important as upgradablity and future-proofing, so I'm thinking a good motherboard/CPU and a mid-range graphics card?

So far I'm thinking:

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-2550K 3.40GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £184.99
1 x Gigabyte Z77X-D3H Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £104.99
1 x Sapphire HD 6670 "Ultimate Edition"1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £74.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA 6Gb/s 16MB Cache - OEM (ST500DM002) £58.99
1 x Corsair Builder Series CX 600W V2 '80 Plus' Power Supply (CMPSU-600CXUKV2) £52.99
1 x Corsair Vengeance Low Profile 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CML8GX3M2A1600C9) £39.95
1 x Xigmatek Asgard Pro Gaming Case - Black £34.99
1 x OcUK 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £17.99
1 x APC Home/Office SurgeArrest 6 outlets with Phone Protection 230V UK (PH6T3-UK) £17.38
Total : £602.26 (includes shipping : £12.50).

It's been a while since I did an own-build - are there any stupid mistakes? Is the Z77 motherboard okay or should I try to stretch the budget to something better? Should I buy a heatsink or can I get away with the intel one?

Luckily I don't need a monitor or an OS, so the whole budget can go into nice shiny not-from-the-dark-ages new hardware :)
 
That's okay.

Ivybridge is out now, so get an i5 3570K instead.


YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-3570K 3.40GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail £179.99
1 x EVGA GeForce GTX 460 Superclocked FTW 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card (01G-P3-1363-KR) £119.99
1 x Gigabyte Z77X-D3H Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £104.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA 6Gb/s 16MB Cache - OEM (ST500DM002) £58.99
1 x Corsair Builder Series CX 500W V2 '80 Plus' Power Supply (CMPSU-500CXUKV2) £44.99
1 x Corsair Vengeance Low Profile 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CML8GX3M2A1600C9) £39.95
1 x Xigmatek Asgard Pro Gaming Case - Black £34.99
1 x LG GH22NS90 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £18.98
Total : £617.87 (includes shipping : £12.50).



The 6670 is not a gaming card, the GTX460/6850 is the minimum I'd get for gaming, and do well at 1080p or lower. Z77 board is indeed the way to go, and this one supports SLI in the future. If you don't plan on overclocking, the stock heatsink it fine :)

To get it in budget, you could get this motherboard [which doesn't do SLI, but is good for one GPU]:
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-391-GI
 
 
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YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-3570K 3.40GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail £173.99
1 x XFX HD 6870 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £124.99
1 x MSI Z77A-G43 Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £84.00
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA 6Gb/s 16MB Cache - OEM (ST500DM002) £61.99
1 x Cooler Master Silent Pro Modular 500W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £49.99
1 x GeIL Dragon 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (GD38GB1600C11DC) £39.95
1 x Xigmatek Asgard Pro Gaming Case - Black £34.99
1 x Samsung SH-S222BB/BEBE 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £15.98
Total : £600.89 (includes shipping : £12.50).



• Modular PSU

The i5 2500K is missing a integrated GFX core, so you dont get Lucid Virtu/Quicksync when used with a Z68/Z77 board, its also only 100Mhz faster than a 2500K, but these chips can be easily overclocked as they have unlocked multipliers on them.
 
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So in the end I went for the i5 Ivybridge 3.4Ghz, GeForce GTX460, Gigabyte Z77X and 16Gb Corsair RAM. (I may, possibly, have gone a bit overbudget. Ahem) Delivery was v fast and there were no problems with the build - overall am v v pleased.

One tiny niggle - the intel CPU fan is pretty loud. It's not urgent but at some point I'd like to replace it with something quieter. Any suggestions? Also, is it normal for the cores to run at different temperatures? Sometimes dramatically different, ±10°C?
 
YOUR BASKET
1 x Gelid Tranquillo CPU Cooler (Socket 754/939/940/AM2/AM2+/AM3/LGA775/LGA1155/LGA1156/LGA1366) £25.99
1 x Akasa AK-CC4007EP01 Nero 3 CPU Cooler (Socket LGA775/1155/1156/1366/2011/AMD AM2/AM2+/AM3/FM1) £23.99
Total : £49.98 (includes shipping : FREE).



Couple of decent budget coolers there. I've used the gelid a lot, got the i5 2500Ks to 4.4Ghz at 54 degrees ish under full load

What 460 did you buy? I have the EVGA 460SC it comes clocked at 763mhz if you use MSI afterburner you can push it harder. 850mhz is easy, mine is clocked @900mhz :D
 
Excellent, thank you. How are they noise-wise? I have the EVGA GeForce GTX 460, and man, it's just beautiful. I know there are better cards out there, but my previous system was absolutely ancient and compared to that it's just sublime :D
 
The noise from the GPU will mask any noise from the cooler. Overclocking the GPU will mean the cards fan speed will increase. If you google some reviews they will state the noise in Db i'm sure.

There was a choice of two EVGA cards the f.t.w edition and the SC. I own the later, the f.t.w is already clocked at 867mhz not sure how much further it can be pushed but I imagine it is just as good as my version OC'd
 
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