Another 'help with a build' topic.

Mrbenw

Mrbenw

Mrbenw

Associate
Joined
28 Oct 2011
Posts
26
Hi everyone,

I've been pondering building a new PC in its entirity for a couple of months now and I feel I'm nearing the time to take the plunge. I've always been a keen Pc gamer and have confidently built my last 2 computers, though with the last one being some 4/5 years ago I have not kept up to speed with what is what on the market.

Having lurked this forum over the past 10 days I can see there are some really knowledgable people here who are always happy to aid and assist.

I have a budget ranging between 7 and 8 hundred pounds. BF3 is of course a major factor in what I'm putting together. I have a fantastic 24" monitor with a native display of 1900x1200. Aside from the monitor, keyboard, mouse and speakers this will be an entire new build. Even a new OS will be needed.

I was looking at the overclocked bundles and thought they looked a good deal. I can build computers but have no overclocking experience so for the performance difference would it be worth picking up one of these bundles or am I better off buying the parts as normal and using stock speeds?

Thanks in advance for any help!:)
 
Hi and welcome

The new intel series are really easy to OC, you can just up the multiplier, maybe add a few extra volts n thats it youre good to go


Asus GeForce GTX 560Ti DirectCU II TOP 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card **Supplied with FREE Batman: Arkham City PC game**
£179.99
Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail
£167.99
Gigabyte Z68AP-D3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard
£81.98
Microsoft Windows 7 Bundle - Home Premium 64 Bit
£68.40
Options applied to the above product:
Western Digital Caviar Blue 500GB SATA 6Gb/s 16MB Cache - OEM (WD5000AAKX)
£79.99
Antec TruePower New Modular 650W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply
£64.99
Antec 100 One Hundred Ultimate Gaming Case - Black
£46.99
Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C10 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (BL2KIT51264BA160A)
£37.99
Samsung SH-S222AB/RSMS 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black/Silver/Biege) - Retail
£18.98
Sub Total : £644.42
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 : £131.63
Total : £789.80
 
Mrbenw said:
I was looking at the overclocked bundles and thought they looked a good deal. I can build computers but have no overclocking experience so for the performance difference would it be worth picking up one of these bundles or am I better off buying the parts as normal and using stock speeds?
Click to expand...

It will be quite a bit cheaper to buy the components seperately and then overclock them yourself. Sandybridge is best bang for buck, very simple to overclock & very forgiving too as long as you keep your voltages within safe limits.

The overclocked bundles are guaranteed to reach their quoted speeds & the overclocks are fully backed up by after sales service. They have also done all the stability testing so you don't have to. This is why you pay the extra premium for them.

I'm pretty lazy these days & don't get a lot of free time anyway so I was very tempted to just buy an overclocked bundle. I bought seperately in the end to keep costs down & was amazed at how simple the Intel system was to overclock compared with previous sockets I've used :)
 
Thanks so much for the imput so far and that looks like a smart build! I have 2 quick questions though ;

1)Would I need an extra CPU fan in the build too?

2)If I was looking to shave off, say, £50, where could that saving best be made?
 
If you are going to overclock then yes, you will need a decent cpu cooler. The retail version of the cpu will come with a fan but it's no good for anything other than a very mild overclock.

This is a very good cooler. Quiet too.
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HS-029-CM&groupid=701&catid=57&subcat=

Gonna be difficult to shave much off the above spec. Perhaps stick with the stock cooler for the time being to save a bit of dough. That's what I had to do for the 1st month. The stock speed is fast anyway.
No point in going with 4gb ram instead of 8gb -you probably wont *need* 8gb ram at the moment but with memory prices as cheap as they are currently it would be mad to miss out on these prices. You'd only regret skimping here I reckon.
That PSU is about as cheap as you're gonna get for a quality power supply. You don't want some cheap tat that's gonna take out the rest of your components when it goes pop.

Hopefully someone else will be able to offer you some other spec options :) I cant offer much spec help right now as im typing this laboriously on my phone...
 
Well it hasnt gone unapreciated. I wasn't planning on Ocing, as I've never done it before and barely know how, so I may stick with the CPU's stock fan.
 
you've chosen a bad time to build as the prices of the hard disks have shot up(at least doubled if not more) over the last couple of weeks, couple weeks backs a 1tb drive was around the £40 mark but now it's around £90(another example is the os/hdd bundle speced above which was little over £100 now it's ~£150).

the price of the motherboard is going to go up to £90 from midday as it's on the Halloween weekend offer which ends at midday.

you could save some money if have any sata hard disk/s you can carry over from your current pc due to the cost of the disks at the moment, can also save £15-£20 if you have a sata optical drive.

you can also save £30-£50 by dropping the graphics card down to a 6870(there's a sapphire one at £132 which goes back up to £150 on wednesday). would mean having to cut back on the eye candy tho.
 
95thrifles said:
Hi and welcome

The new intel series are really easy to OC, you can just up the multiplier, maybe add a few extra volts n thats it youre good to go


Asus GeForce GTX 560Ti DirectCU II TOP 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card **Supplied with FREE Batman: Arkham City PC game**
£179.99
Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail
£167.99
Gigabyte Z68AP-D3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard
£81.98
Microsoft Windows 7 Bundle - Home Premium 64 Bit
£68.40
Options applied to the above product:
Western Digital Caviar Blue 500GB SATA 6Gb/s 16MB Cache - OEM (WD5000AAKX)
£79.99
Antec TruePower New Modular 650W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply
£64.99
Antec 100 One Hundred Ultimate Gaming Case - Black
£46.99
Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C10 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (BL2KIT51264BA160A)
£37.99
Samsung SH-S222AB/RSMS 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black/Silver/Biege) - Retail
£18.98
Sub Total : £644.42
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 : £131.63
Total : £789.80
Click to expand...

Okay I'm close to putting in my order. Thanks very much for the help from everyone here.

Regarding the HDD and the current price rise, I would be prepared to put in my current HDD as long as it wont have any sort of negative effect on the new build. It's a 'Western Digital' 500GB drive, which is plenty in terms of space for my immediate needs but I bought this drive in 2007 (it was a new model at the time) and I have no idea whether there is anything (bar capacity) that has changed in the world of HDDs in the past 4 years. Something in the way of speeds or connections that would mean this HD would hold my new system back a bit?

On another quick note could I maybe have a couple more bits of feedback on the above proposed build, just for peace of mind.:D
 
Ensure it's a SATA HDD not IDE, and runs at 7200rpm and not 5900 and yes it will be fine
I can't really give feedback on my spec, other than its awesome :D
 
as its 2007 it will be sata, any optical drive/s(save another £15/£20)?

if you plan on sli in the future maybe upgrade the mb to z68xp-d3(£110) and 750/850w psu.
 
Hi again,

I will hopefully put my order in this weekend and have taken onboard everything I've read through these forums over the past few weeks.

I have revised my build a little and would really appreciate some feedback. I need to make sure everything is not only compatible but generally 'in synch' with each other, that the 650w PSU will be enough now that I've changed the motherboard and gone for a slightly better graphics card. I would also hate to find that the motherboard doesn't fit in this particular case properly.

-Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor
-Asus P8P67 PRO Intel P67 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard ** B3 REVISION
-Antec TruePower New Modular 650W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply
-Antec 100 One Hundred Ultimate Gaming Case - Black
-Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C10 1600MHz Dual -Channel Kit
-
-Samsung SH-S222AB/RSMS 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter
-MSI GeForce GTX 560Ti OC Twin FrozR II 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express

I know Win7 isn't listed and I have taken out the HDD as due to the prices I think for the time being I will transfer my 500gb SATA. I do not plan to overclock for the time being so will the stock CPU fan definately suffice? And I changed from a 1gb graphics card to the 2gb version so will the PSU be okay?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom