Can anyone check if what i've chosen for this build is sound?

durbs · 24 May 2011 at 21:44

I'm currently speccing a build to replace my aging Athlon XP 2500 PC. I've been using Macbook Pro's for work/gaming for a while so am well out of the loop on the latest PC kit.

Been doing a lot of reading up, but can anyone let me know if they'd change any of the below or if there are any better alternatives to what i've initially chosen?

Have already bought:

Fractal R3 case
OCZ Stealth X Stream 2 700W PSU

Am considering for the rest of the build:

MSI P67A-GD53 Intel P67 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard - (Sandybridge) ** B3 REVISION **
Samsung SH-B123L/RSBP 12x BluRay ROM DVDRW DL & RAM Lightscribe SATAII Optical Drive - Black (Retail)
Intel Core i7-2600K 3.40GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor
Corsair A50 High-Performance CPU Cooler
MSI ATI Radeon HD 6950 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card
Corsair XMS3 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit
Samsung SpinPoint F3 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache
Crucial RealSSD M4 128GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive

Would like to stick in or around a grand for the rest of the stuff and the PC will mainly be used for Visual Studio 2010, SQL Server and also fancy playing latest games like Witcher 2.

Ta.

sk82jack · 24 May 2011 at 21:46

It's all good in the hood

Perhaps the OCZ Agility 3 120GB for a little more but if you can't stretch to that it's all good.

cmndr_andi · 24 May 2011 at 21:50

Looks very nice.

Good Spec

Marvin · 24 May 2011 at 21:56

Looks good, though I'd spend a miniscule amount more and buy the MSI Twin FrozR III 6950 due to the superior cooler and VRMs, unless you'll be watercooling. The card can be unlocked too.

durbs · 24 May 2011 at 21:58

Marvin said:
Looks good, though I'd spend a miniscule amount more and buy the MSI Twin FrozR III 6950 due to the superior cooler and VRMs, unless you'll be watercooling. The card can be unlocked too.

Thanks all, its the graphics selection that i really struggled with, read so much on it and was still confused as to what was best bang/buck.

Last time i bought a card was a much easier choice!

Will look at that one, ta.

hybrid572 · 25 May 2011 at 07:03

It's worth mentioning that the i5 2500K is significantly cheaper than the i7 and performance is identical for gaming. No idea how demanding Visual Studio or SQL Server are for your particular uses, but the i5 is blisteringly fast when overclocked, so you may be just as well getting that.

durbs · 25 May 2011 at 11:20

hybrid572 said:
It's worth mentioning that the i5 2500K is significantly cheaper than the i7 and performance is identical for gaming. No idea how demanding Visual Studio or SQL Server are for your particular uses, but the i5 is blisteringly fast when overclocked, so you may be just as well getting that.

Yeah, i'd seriously considered the i5, looks like the thinking mans processor for its price vs performance.

VS2010 is a bit sluggish though i find, compared to VS2008 so want to give it as much juice as possible and also want to run a number of VM's so had to bite the bullet and choose the i7 to future proof myself as much as possible as i tend to keep a rig for a long time.

Saying all that though, the i5 in my Macbook Pro eats VS2010 and SQL for breakfast