Can you see anything immediately wrong with this client build spec?

[Akagi]

YOUR BASKET
1 x MSI HD 7850 Twin Frozr III OC 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Cards w/ FARCRY3, Nexuiz & Sleeping Dogs PC Games £169.99
1 x Intel Core i5-3570K 3.40GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - OEM £159.95
1 x Acoustic Energy Aego M 2.1 Speaker System - White £149.99
2 x BenQ GL2450 24" Widescreen LED Monitor - Black £119.99 (£239.98)
1 x Razer Blackwidow Expert 2013 Mechanical Keyboard £89.99
1 x Gigabyte Z77-D3H Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £81.98
1 x Samsung SpinPoint F3 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (HD103SJ / ST1000DM005) £67.99
1 x Samsung 64GB SSD 830 Desktop Series SATA 6Gb/s KIT with Norton Ghost - (MZ-7PC064D/EU) £64.99
1 x Corsair Enthusiast Series TX550M High Performance 550W '80 Plus Bronze' Modular Power Supply (CP-9020001-UK) £59.99
1 x Xigmatek Dark Knight SD-1283 Night Hawk Edition CPU Cooler (Socket LGA 2011/1366/1156/1155/775 and AMD FM1/AM3/AM2+/AM2) £34.99
1 x Corsair XMS3 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMX8GX3M2A1600C9) £29.99
1 x Aerocool Vs-4w Midi-Tower Windowed Case - Black £29.99
1 x Asus Xonar DGX 5.1 PCI-Express Sound Card with built in Headphone Amp £26.99
1 x Logitech G400 3600DPI Gaming Mouse (910-002279) £22.99
Total : £1,269.28 (includes shipping : £32.90).



He chose the case, keyboard and mouse based on my rough guidelines. The rest of the spec was done by me to suit his budget. He will be playing mainstream titles including a little bit of battlefield 3 on one monitor, while using the other for IM and iTunes and things such as that. He also listens to quite a bit of music and asked me to recommend him some decent PC speakers because he doesn't have the room for a proper Hi-Fi setup as well as his PC.

*edit* he already has an optical drive, and will be getting his OS from a site which offers major discounts to students.

 

[Akagi]

It doesn't matter about the case as the build won't be taking place for a little while, the size of the SSD does not matter as the client wishes to use SRT so he can install everything in one place and let the SRT do the work.

Will consider the HDD swap, though I chose the Samsung because I have heard many bad things about Seagate in recent years, and the SATA type won't matter on a mechanical HDD.

I will take a look at the monitors and have a word with him about it and I will have a word with him about the keyboard as well, but he seems to like Razer stuff so I can guess how that will go

He likes that case, I showed him others like the CM690 etc, but he likes the Aerocool. It seems like a solid little case, and his decision there means that he could afford slightly better parts elsewhere. But again, I will mention this to him once more

Thanks all

 

[Akagi]

What is wrong with the screens in the original spec? They seem almost the same except they have no inbuilt speakers and the response rate is 1ms slower.

 

[Akagi]

How is this looking? Changed the HDD as suggested, as well as the monitors as suggested, better chassis, different motherboard (It looks to be a match for the Gigabyte, perhaps with a few perks over the Gigabyte board as well.) Different KB and Mouse (assuming they come back in stock) and a different PSU purely because many people have reported the Corsair TX550M failing, and i'm sure that with a bit of cable management the fact the XFX is not modular will go un-noticed.

YOUR BASKET
1 x MSI HD 7850 Twin Frozr III OC 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Cards w/ FARCRY3, Nexuiz & Sleeping Dogs PC Games £169.99
1 x Intel Core i5-3570K 3.40GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - OEM £159.95
2 x BenQ GW2450HM 24" Widescreen LED Professional Monitor - Black £149.99 (£299.98)
1 x Acoustic Energy Aego M 2.1 Speaker System - White £149.99
1 x Corsair Vengeance K90 Mechanical Keyboard & M90 Mouse (Elite Gaming Kit) - SAVING £15 - WAS £152.99 £137.98
1 x Asus P8Z77-V LX2 Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £79.99
1 x Samsung 64GB SSD 830 Desktop Series SATA 6Gb/s KIT with Norton Ghost - (MZ-7PC064D/EU) £64.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 32MB Cache - OEM (ST31000524AS) £61.99
1 x XFX Pro 550W Core Edition '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £59.99
1 x Zalman Z9 Plus Tower Case with Fan Controller - Black £52.99
1 x Xigmatek Dark Knight SD-1283 Night Hawk Edition CPU Cooler (Socket LGA 2011/1366/1156/1155/775 and AMD FM1/AM3/AM2+/AM2) £34.99
1 x Corsair XMS3 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMX8GX3M2A1600C9) £29.99
1 x Asus Xonar DGX 5.1 PCI-Express Sound Card with built in Headphone Amp £26.99
Total : £1,369.28 (includes shipping : £32.90).

 

[Akagi]

personally I'd spend less on the keyboard and mouse and put the saving towards a 7950

Personally I would too But any cheaper keyboards I show this guy, he turns his nose up at. Still, it is an improvement over him being adamant that he wants to spend £130 on the keyboard and £80 on the mouse.

 

[Akagi]

£50 on mouse £90 on keyboard is reasonable imo, why build a £1300 system then use it with cheap rubbish keyboard/mouse. Obviously he has the money, or is p***ing away his student loan.

Nah, he has a job, and very low living expenses due to living at home, and his parents not making him pay rent yet

 

[Akagi]

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-391-GI&groupid=701&catid=5&subcat=2261

Swap to this board, it's proven to be good and is in stock.

For the sake of £10, it is done

 

[Akagi]

weird priorities

He is a weird guy

I see where he is coming from though. I mean, they are the tools you use to interact with your expensive PC. You want them to feel nice to use

I personally have grown to dislike my G510 because any key that is larger than a standard one (return, space, backspace etc) rattle like hell... It is so annoying...

 

[Akagi]

Edit: How do you price everything when doing a build for a client ? I have always wondered how that has worked.

I charge 6.5% of the cost of the components used in the build (not including peripherals, screens, speakers, or operating system). So this will cost £50.88 (will make it £50) before OS instalation, first time setup and overclocking, which all cost extra.

It is a strange pricing system I can up with, probably not very typical, but it works for me. It is not a proper job, I do not run a licensed business, I get clients from word of mouth and build the systems to earn a little bit of money to keep me going while I am at college studying advanced computing.

 

[Akagi]

Thank you , I was curious how that worked.
What sort of stuff do they teach in advanced computing ?
And how are you liking it ?

Everything from programming to animation, controlling systems to networked systems security, website creation and scripting to graphical design, hardware to information systems and everything else in between.

It is a great experience, I already knew everything we were taught in some units, but it has been extremely useful so far for filling in the gaps and expanding on what I already knew in some areas. It has shed light on things I have often wondered about.

I do find getting down to writing assignments extremely difficult though because I am a king of procrastination first off, and second off I have fairly bad ADD amongst other things, meaning that I find it very hard to focus once I do get down to doing it.

At this very moment I am procrastinating from doing a huge assignment which is due tomorrow. It should take about 3 hours to do, but after I start, it will still probably take me all night to get my thoughts down on ePaper I need the internet to research, but everything is so damn distracting, and I get side-tracked for ages without even noticing

I turned on my PC aiming to do work at 1:30... it is now 5:30 and so far I have neglected to even open the assignment brief... *sigh* I guess I will do that now.

 

[Akagi]

why spend £1300 on a system and put a 7850 in it though? different strokes for different folks i guess

remember that the spec includes 2 screens, a sound card, speakers, a mechanical keyboard and a mouse. The core system is £756.

 

[Akagi]

How about reading the brief now then take a break and set an alarm for 5 to 10 minutes to allow your mind to wander , then break that 3 hours down into 30 minute sessions and stop for like 5 - 15 minutes between each session.

(I suffer from ADD)

Great advice, thanks

 

[Akagi]

Just thought I would chip in about the keyboard, I bought a razer blackwidow ultimate and it really didn't seem up to the quality of other manufacturers of a similar price.

I now use a cm storm trigger which feels a lot better.

Is he also sure he wants blue switches?

Thanks for the input

And I don't really know. Neither of us have used a mechanical keyboard before.

 

[Akagi]

always fancied a mechanical keyboard. got my logitech g15v2 and razer deathadder at the moment so im ok for now, might go mech soon though want an nvidia 3d monitor first, after christmas need it to be the newer lightboost 2 technology one too though, anyone got one of those?

Ive always fancied one as well, got my eye on the G710.

But right now i'm happy with my gear. Though my G510 does feel a bit... 'blegh' to use... Nothing special.

 

[Akagi]

I know the feeling. get bored of components quickly to be honest. my next upgrades the monitor though, really wanna experience 120mhz 3d nvidia

I am terrible for getting bored of components. I have had my rig since September last year and already I want almost a completely new build. It won't happen though of course I am lucky to have this one being a student haha

After Christmas I will make a few adjustments however... Sell the GTX480 and get a GTX660SC, replace the fans with white LED ones, replace the blue internal lighting with NZXT Hue lighting and change the side panel for one with the rectangular window if I can find one. I would also like to grab a set of white braided cables, but those would cost too much. And all that for practically no boost in performance, and a little more visual appeal

I also want a new motherboard (Z77) more RAM, a new SSD, a better PSU and... oh dear, that seems to be almost all of it

This grand plan is missing one important factor... A job (aside from building the odd computer)