Any better upgrade for £1K?

[ljt]

Hi

Decided it is time to upgrade my current PC, which has the following spec;

Antec P182 Case
Abit IP35-Pro
Q6600 @ 3.4Ghz
4Gb OCZ RAM
Gigabyte 1Gb 5850
320Gb WD HDD
160Gb WD HDD
500watt Enermax PSU

It's currently connected to a 22inch 1680x1050 Dell monitor and a 1080p TV.

My budget is a maximum of £1000. It is mainly used for gaming and photo editing. I don't need a monitor/keyboard/mouse/case or windows as I have W7 Retail.

I have come up with the following specification so far;


Intel Core i5-3570K 3.40GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail
£173.99

Gigabyte Z77X-D3H Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard
£104.99

XFX 850W XXX Edition Modular '80 Plus Silver' Power Supply
£99.98

Crucial RealSSD M4 128GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive (CT128M4SSD2)
£89.99

Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST1000DM003)
£74.99

Phanteks PH-TC14PE CPU Cooler - Red(Socket LGA 2011/1155/1156/1366/775/AMD AM2/2+/AM3)
£62.99

Kingston HyperX Genesis Grey 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1600C9D3X2K2/8GX)
£40.79

Total: £659.71 + graphics card

With regards to graphics card. I was going to wait and see what the price/availability of the GTX 670 was tomorrow and if so, add one of those into the system to complete the build.

Any foreseeable problems with compatibility? or any suggestions for replacements for the parts I've chosen?

Thanks

Lee

 

[Stoner81]

If you are not planning on SLI/Crossfire in the future then you could buy a cheaper PSU. I would probably go with a GTX680 in that but since the 670 is due so soon might as well wait and see what they are priced at.

Overall though looks good to me.

Stoner81.

 

[Sasahara]

Looks like a solid build, your Enermax PSU might be ok with a GTX670.

You know what it's +12 V output is?

 

[horrorwood]

I would not go for gigabyte as their bios support is terrible. I know they have a re-written UEFI bios on their z77 boards, but their z68/p67 boards were not the best and it has put me off of them.

Apart from that it looks fine.

 

[no_1_dave]

I'd be tempted to go for the i7 over the i5 if you're doing photo editing as well as gaming. If you plan on keeping the rig for a few years the i7 is more future proof too.

 

[ljt]

If you are not planning on SLI/Crossfire in the future then you could buy a cheaper PSU. I would probably go with a GTX680 in that but since the 670 is due so soon might as well wait and see what they are priced at.

Overall though looks good to me.

Stoner81.

I don't think it's likely I'll be going down the SLi/Xfire route so I could drop down the PSU, but by how much? I'd rather have too much wattage than not enough, and as the PSU was on offer this week I thought why not? (i was going to get the corsair 750w but its about the same price with TWO prices)

Looks like a solid build, your Enermax PSU might be ok with a GTX670.

You know what it's +12 V output is?

I don't know off the top of my head, but it's an old PSU now, this is second PC build it has been used in (its got to be atleast 4 years old) so I was a bit dubious about risking it in another new build. It also doesn't have 8 pin PCI-e connectors and only 2 x 6 pins versions.

I would not go for gigabyte as their bios support is terrible. I know they have a re-written UEFI bios on their z77 boards, but their z68/p67 boards were not the best and it has put me off of them.

Apart from that it looks fine.

I'll take that advice on board, but I've never experienced that myself, but the 2 Gigabyte boards I've used are the skt775 P35 chipset ones and they are still going strong

 

[Doomedspeed]

If your in to RAM overclocking the Samsung 30nm RAM sets can overclock to 2400Mhz (stock:1600Mhz) with an ivybridge setup. Just a thought.

Looks pretty solid though.

 

[ljt]

If your in to RAM overclocking the Samsung 30nm RAM sets can overclock to 2400Mhz (stock:1600Mhz) with an ivybridge setup. Just a thought.

Looks pretty solid though.

Will the Kingston not overclock at all then?