First build for 12 years
As a spotty 14 year old I used to spend most of my pre-2002-nuke OcUK life in GH lurking and offering occasional advice but alas that geekiness drifted away and I'm left in need of your help. I know there are a lot of 'New build' threads in here and so I apologise for contributing to that but £600-700 is an awful lot of money to spend so I want to be sure I'm getting it right
I'm looking to build a fairly high spec machine even though it may be a little bit overkill for my uses. I expect with the extra horsepower I'll find plenty of new ways to exploit it! I should point out that I do not game at all. The computer will be connected to both my monitor and HDMI TV. I need a case, all components and OS but i do not need a monitor, keyboard, mouse etc. I expect the machine to last a good 5 years with perhaps a couple of upgrades as needed.
After spending some time researching, this is my first pass...
YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-3570K 3.40GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail £184.99
1 x Gigabyte Z77X-UD3H Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £129.98
2 x OCZ Agility 3 120GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive (AGT3-25SAT3-120G) £79.99 (£159.98)
1 x BitFenix Ghost Silent Tower Case - Black £72.98
1 x Corsair Builder Series CX 500W V2 '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply (CP-9020047-UK) £49.99
1 x Kingston HyperX Genesis Grey 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1600C9D3X2K2/8GX) £25.99
1 x Microsoft Windows 8 64-Bit DVD - OEM (WN7-00403) **FREE SHIPPING** £79.99
1 x OcUK 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £13.99
Total : £730.51 (includes shipping : £10.50).
Some comments/questions on the above:
My budget is £600-700, ideally towards the lower end if at all possible but probably unlikely given the basket I've posted above!
Thanks
As a spotty 14 year old I used to spend most of my pre-2002-nuke OcUK life in GH lurking and offering occasional advice but alas that geekiness drifted away and I'm left in need of your help. I know there are a lot of 'New build' threads in here and so I apologise for contributing to that but £600-700 is an awful lot of money to spend so I want to be sure I'm getting it right
I'm looking to build a fairly high spec machine even though it may be a little bit overkill for my uses. I expect with the extra horsepower I'll find plenty of new ways to exploit it! I should point out that I do not game at all. The computer will be connected to both my monitor and HDMI TV. I need a case, all components and OS but i do not need a monitor, keyboard, mouse etc. I expect the machine to last a good 5 years with perhaps a couple of upgrades as needed.
After spending some time researching, this is my first pass...
YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-3570K 3.40GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail £184.99
1 x Gigabyte Z77X-UD3H Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £129.98
2 x OCZ Agility 3 120GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive (AGT3-25SAT3-120G) £79.99 (£159.98)
1 x BitFenix Ghost Silent Tower Case - Black £72.98
1 x Corsair Builder Series CX 500W V2 '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply (CP-9020047-UK) £49.99
1 x Kingston HyperX Genesis Grey 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1600C9D3X2K2/8GX) £25.99
1 x Microsoft Windows 8 64-Bit DVD - OEM (WN7-00403) **FREE SHIPPING** £79.99
1 x OcUK 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £13.99
Total : £730.51 (includes shipping : £10.50).
Some comments/questions on the above:
- Graphics I have no intention of gaming so I really don't need much horsepower here, just to be able to play 1080 videos comfortably. I'm thinking onboard graphics will probably suffice, that said I do require a dual screen setup so maybe I will need a card? (see motherboard)
- CPU & cooling I've more or less decided to go for the i5-3570K (Retail). I was initially keen to get an i7 chip purely for willy waving reasons but from what I've read the difference is probably not worth the extra. I'm willing to be persuaded otherwise though! Initially I'm unlikely to do any (significant) overclocking, am I right in saying the retail box includes a stock cooling solution?
- Motherboard From doing a little research and looking at other new build threads the Gigabyte Z77X-UD3H Intel Z77 is where I've landed. Will this be a suitable choice for onboard graphics through 2 screens? Could i get away with a cheaper model?
- Storage I already have plenty of HDD capacity which i'll move across from my existing machine. I'm very keen to put the OS on a SSD though. I'm also keen, mostly for reasons of experimentation, to run a RAID 0 setup. This is something i've never done before and fancy ticking it off my list of things to do. I understand the risks in terms of drive failure and the performance jump will be nice, though perhaps more in benchmarking than real world experience. So my question is, do you think this really is too much of an unnecessary risk? Shall I just stick with a single drive?
- Case Being quiet is reasonably important, I like the style of the BitFenix and it has some 2.5" bays for the SSDs which is handy.
- PSU I have no idea at all about PSUs to be honest, from looking at other build threads this seems to be reasonably popular. I'm willing to spend a little extra if there are gains to be made in terms of being very energy efficient. On the other hand if I can get comparable performance for less money that would be great!
- Memory Is there any real benefit to going for 16GB? Is it worth spending a tenner more for better quality RAM?
- OS I want to give Windows 8 a shot so I'm going with that even though I suspect I'll end up with early adopters regret!
My budget is £600-700, ideally towards the lower end if at all possible but probably unlikely given the basket I've posted above!
Thanks
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