Build check

nicofelle

nicofelle

nicofelle

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Joined
27 Mar 2007
Posts
6
So it's come to that time when small upgrades to my old gaming PC will no longer suffice to keep playing games at decent FPS, and a new build is required. Here's what I have at the moment:

(all prices after VAT)

Current build (courtesy shadow boxer):

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - OEM £155.99
1 x OcUK GeForce GTX 460 OC 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £119.99
1 x Asus P8P67 LE Intel P67 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard - (Sandybridge) ** B3 REVISION ** *LOWEST UK PRICE* £72.98
1 x Microsoft Windows 7 Bundle - Home Premium 64 Bit £68.40
1 x Western Digital Caviar Blue 500GB SATA 6Gb/s 16MB Cache - OEM (WD5000AAKX) £32.99
1 x Corsair XMS3 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMX8GX3M2A1600C9) £61.99
1 x Antec Kúhler H2O 620 CPU Watercooler (Socket Intel LGA 775 / 1155 / 1156 / 1366 / AMD AM2 / AM3 / AM2+ / AM3+) £47.99
1 x Antec 100 One Hundred Ultimate Gaming Case - Black £44.99
1 x BeQuiet Pure Power L7 530W '80 Plus' Power Supply £44.99
1 x LG GH22NS70 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £16.99
Total : £683.80 (includes shipping : £13.75)

The i5 2500K is probably final; for reference, I'm unlikely to O/C it at all but the package deal is better than getting the 2500 and the mobo separately.

The water cooling I've heard decent things about, but I don't think I'd go much higher than the H60.

The rest - gfx card, memory, hard drive - are variable, but I'm not looking to spend much over £700 unless the components I've got above really aren't going to hold up for a year or two.

For the record, I already have a 1TB hard drive I'm going to cannibalise from my old PC, so the drive I get with this build is just an OS drive, so I can have OS + basics on one drive, and put media, and FRAPS data onto the second drive.

General applications are games (TF2, League of Legends, Starcraft II primarily) and video recording and rendering (FRAPS, Sony Vegas).


Old build below:

OcUK Motherboard Bundle - Intel Core i5 2500K & Asus P8P67 Intel P67 Mainboard **B3 Revision** - £270

Corsair Enthusiast Series TX 750W V2 High Performance '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply (CMPSU-750TXV2UK) - £97

Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-Bit - OEM (GFC-00599) - £80

Corsair Hydro H60 High Performance Liquid CPU Cooler (Socket LGA1366/1155/1156/775/AM2/AM3) - £60

Antec 300 Three Hundred Ultimate Gaming Case - Black - £51

OcUK GeForce GT 430 1024MB GDDR3 Low Profile PCI-Express Graphics Card - £42

Western Digital Scorpio Blue 250GB 5400RPM SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM (WD2500BPVT) - £35

OCZ Gold 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-10666C9 1333MHz Low-Voltage Dual Channel Kit (OCZ3G1333LV4GK) - £24

OcUK 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM - £17

TOTAL £676
 
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How about the following for a similar price yet a bit under budget!:p

You mentioned editing and rendering, 8GB of RAM will help here considerably. No difference in gaming performance however.

Closed loop CPU coolers aren't fantastic when compared to high end coolers like the Noctua / Silver Arrow but do perform quite will. The Antec 620 is better than the Corsair H60 in most reviews and only just behind the H70 by a couple of degrees. (I've got one and been very impressed by it). If your not interested in overclocking then get a simple air cooler like the Gelid Tranquillo for £25 just to replace the noisy stock Intel fan.

Case is personal preference but the Antec 100 is a newer version of the 300.

The video card you selected is woefully underpowered for gaming at the very least IMO to match your CPU you should be looking at a 1GB GTX 460 / 5850.

Windows 7 bundled with a larger and quicker 500GB HDD - plus cheaper.

A decent PSU is always recommended but a 750W for that system is huge overkill. The BeQuiet PSU will be fine for the setup below.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - OEM £155.99
1 x OcUK GeForce GTX 460 OC 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £119.99
1 x Asus P8P67 LE Intel P67 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard - (Sandybridge) ** B3 REVISION ** *LOWEST UK PRICE* £72.98
1 x Microsoft Windows 7 Bundle - Home Premium 64 Bit £68.40
1 x Western Digital Caviar Blue 500GB SATA 6Gb/s 16MB Cache - OEM (WD5000AAKX) £32.99
1 x Corsair XMS3 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMX8GX3M2A1600C9) £61.99
1 x Antec Kúhler H2O 620 CPU Watercooler (Socket Intel LGA 775 / 1155 / 1156 / 1366 / AMD AM2 / AM3 / AM2+ / AM3+) £47.99
1 x Antec 100 One Hundred Ultimate Gaming Case - Black £44.99
1 x BeQuiet Pure Power L7 530W '80 Plus' Power Supply £44.99
1 x LG GH22NS70 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £16.99
Total : £683.80 (includes shipping : £13.75).
 
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Thanks, and good find on the W7 + hard drive bundle, and yeah, I see what you mean about the need for more RAM for editing.

One thing I'm slightly worried about is the wattage on the PSU. I'm running a Corsair 520W atm, and I would've thought I'd need a bit more for a modern system. I had a friend have to go through a few, up to around 700, to get things working nicely with his system and a few USB devices hogging power (tablet, microphone, external HD).
 
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Wow, okay, so I'd heard the Sandybridges were power efficient, but I didn't realise just how much so.

Cool, so that's a fairly solid build right there. I'll put that in the OP for comparison. Thanks.
 
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