£800 Gaming PC

Soldato
Joined
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Scotland, UK
Hi all,

Friend is buying a new PC on wednesday, and it more than likely going to go for OCUK's King Cobra System...

- Case: Shinobi BitFenix Case
- Power Supply: OCZ ZS 750 Bronze 80+ Rated PSU
- CPU: Intel Core i7 960 3.20GHz Bloomfield overclocked to 3.60GHz
- Motherboard: Intel X58 (Socket 1366) PCI-Express DDR3 Motherboard
- Cooler: OcUK H2 Flo Extreme Cooler
- RAM: 12GB (3x4GB) DDR3 Triple Channel Kit
- Hard Drive: Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 1TB 6GB/s SATA-II 32MB Cache & SSD Options
- Graphics Card: HIS ATI Radeon HD 6950 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card
- Sound: Onboard HD 7.1 Audio
- Optical Drive: Samsung SH-B123L/RSBP 12x BD-ROM / 16x DVD Writer Drive - Black

Can anyone suggest something better for the money as I am happy to build it? Can the 6950 in this comp be bios flashed to 6970?

Cheers,

Blair
 
I think for that price, a 6950 and an i7 (although last gen) is a bit of a bargain (especially with the £100 off at the moment) especially as it is ready built/ready made.

If you was to self build, then your base to start with would be an i5 2500k naturally. Then from there, a solid Z68 board. Then 8gb of RAM (12GB a little over kill at the moment, especially for gaming). The rest, I've tried to keep similar/same just for price comparison purposes (on self build to pre-built).

If your friend wants a ready made system, then the King Cobra is a bargain. That i7, while "last generation" is still more than sufficient for any gaming purposes. The advantage of a self build is that it is probably more future proof (in terms of expansion) but I doubt he will be wanting to upgrade to ivybridge in the new year or anything like that.



YOUR BASKET
1 x OcUK ATI Radeon 6950 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card with FREE DIRT3 & Deus Ex PC Games £205.99
1 x Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £184.99
1 x Gigabyte Z68XP-UD3P Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £127.99
1 x Samsung SpinPoint F3 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (HD103SJ) £65.99
1 x OCZ ZS Series 750W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £59.99
1 x BitFenix Shinobi Gaming Case - Black £49.99
1 x Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C10 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (BL2KIT51264BA160A) £37.99
1 x Gelid Tranquillo CPU Cooler (Socket 754/939/940/AM2/AM2+/AM3/LGA775/LGA1155/LGA1156/LGA1366) £25.99
1 x Samsung SH-S222AB/RSMS 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black/Silver/Biege) - Retail £18.98
Total : £800.83 (includes shipping : £19.10).

 
Have you not considered a sandybridge system?

If you were to go sandybirdge you get get something very decent for the same price. It will be a lot more up-to-date aswell.

I don't think that the modern 6950 allow bios flashing. I think that was stopped after the first revison.

Antec 300 Three Hundred Ultimate Gaming Case £46
OCZ ZS Series 750W £60
Gigabyte Z68AP-D3 £90
Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz £185
Antec Kúhler H2O 620 CPU Watercooler £40
Corsair Vengeance Blue 8GB (2x4GB) £43
HIS ATI Radeon HD 6950 IceQ X PLUS Edition 2048MB £213
Samsung SH-S222AB/BEBE 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter £18
Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000.C 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache £62

Total: £757
 
No.
I would say go with doomspeeds spec but change the hard disk to the Samsung suggested by barney, oem win 7 home premium is ~£75. Or there is a os + hard disk bundle, i'm on my phone so can't link.
 
Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 6950 FLEX 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card with upto 5 Monitor Support & with FREE DIRT3 & Deus Ex Games £215.99
(£179.99) £215.99
(£179.99)
Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £184.99
(£154.16) £184.99
(£154.16)
Gigabyte Z68XP-UD3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £109.99
(£91.66) £109.99
(£91.66)
Antec TruePower New Modular 650W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £69.98
(£58.32) £69.98
(£58.32)
Microsoft Windows 7 Bundle - Home Premium 64 Bit £68.40
(£57.00) £68.40
(£57.00)
Options applied to the above product:
Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 32MB Cache - OEM (ST31000524AS) £63.98
(£53.32) £63.98
(£53.32)
Zalman Z9 Plus Tower Case with Fan Controller - Black £49.99
(£41.66) £49.99
(£41.66)
Kingston HyperX Blu 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1600C9AD3B1K2/4G) £26.99
(£22.49) £26.99
(£22.49)
Samsung SH-S222AB/BEBE 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £17.99
(£14.99) £17.99
(£14.99)
Sub Total : £673.59
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £13.75
VAT is being charged at 20.00% VAT : £137.47
Total : £824.81

just something else to take a peak at
 
going to want a cooler if you want to oc the i2500k, the stock cooler will let you go to like 4ghz(maybe a bit higher) but the temps will be much better with a 3rd party cooler(well unless you go for really cheap ones which give you no improvement and in some cases are worse than the stock cooler).

the gelid tranquilo suggested is a decent cooler that doesn't break the bank(~£25) and allows you to oc to around 4.5ghz or so(another one is the corsair a50), 4.8/5ghz you'll need to go to the likes of d14, silverarrow etc
 
going to want a cooler if you want to oc the i2500k, the stock cooler will let you go to like 4ghz(maybe a bit higher) but the temps will be much better with a 3rd party cooler(well unless you go for really cheap ones which give you no improvement and in some cases are worse than the stock cooler).

the gelid tranquilo suggested is a decent cooler that doesn't break the bank(~£25) and allows you to oc to around 4.5ghz or so(another one is the corsair a50), 4.8/5ghz you'll need to go to the likes of d14, silverarrow etc

It not reccomended to Overclock on stock coolers, if you are going to overclock at all, it will be worth getting a after market cooler.

As folwer said, the gelid tranquilo and corsair a50 are around the £25 mark and are brilliant little coolers. And the ones he suggested for higher Ocing are great too.

You can alway look into closed loop water cooling though. They are quite cheap and offer a good alterntive to air cooling, I don't know which is better but it's just a personal choice. the Antec Kúhler H2O 620 is only £40 for this week.
 
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