First build, need help

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Im gonna be building myself a PC and i was wondering if you could help me with compatibility of some things and let me know if something is good or crap :P

Now before i start i should say that this PC has no specific purpose and is going to be a general computer which i may play the odd game on occasionally, however mainly general use. But i want it to be good quality picture, sound and speed.

First off, im looking at a corsair H70 liquid cooler. Ive been offered it by hide for £60. Is it a good cooler or is it something i should avoid? Ive heard mixed reviews.

For a motherboard, im a bit stumped. I am thinking about this but i dont know what type of ram to get for it. Would this work? And if i don go for that one, what processer would you suggest??
Or this bundle? And what ram would work with it?

With regards to a graphics card, i was thinking of getting a radeon 6870 or if there is something else you would suggest, please do.

As for a sound card, i havent a clue :lol: so need help there

I would like to fit a blue ray drive, DVD/CD drive and a memory card reader as well. My case has 2 4.5in slots and 4 larger slots for optical drives etc

And last but not least, what size power supply would i need to run it all :lol:

Thanks very much in advance :)

Chris
 
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750W should do the trick


However if its a casual gaming system it seems a bit overkill...


The ram will fit that motherboard. And i'd suggest an i5 2500k CPU.
 
first off, could you remove the competitor link please. they;re not allowed on this forum (although its a pretty bad competitor, because you can get a 6870 with two free games for £16 less over here :))

if your not playing many games then the 6870 might also be a bit overkill, unless you want those few games to be on pretty high settings of course :)

for the processor i'd stick with the intel sandybridge processors. they wipe the floor with anything AMD can offer right now

this does seem like a massive overspec for a rig that will be for general use and the odd game, but obviously it'll last longer before needing an upgrade

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail with FREE TrackMania 2 Canyon PC Game £167.99
1 x HIS ATI Radeon HD 6870 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card with DIRT3 & Deus Ex PC Games £131.99
1 x Gigabyte Z68XP-UD3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £99.98
1 x OcUK H²Flo Extreme Liquid CPU Cooler with Two Gelid Silent 120mm Quiet Fan (Socket LGA1366/1155/1156/775/AM2/AM3) £58.00
1 x Zalman Z9 Plus Tower Case with Fan Controller - Black £49.99
1 x Lepa W-Series 500W '80 Plus' Power Supply £46.99
1 x Corsair Vengeance Blue 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMZ8GX3M2A1600C9B) £43.99
1 x Samsung SpinPoint F3 500GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD502HJ) £31.99
1 x OcUK 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £16.99
Total : £662.92 (includes shipping : £12.50).

the PSU will be more than enough to power a single 6870. however, if you were thinking of adding another one in crossfire (to get ~95% boost in framerates) i would recommend a good 650W PSU like the antec modular 650W thats on offer this week

i changed the motherboard because it is a lot better than the Asus you chose, but is cheaper too.

the cooler is exactly the same as a corsair H80, but with better fans (the H80 is the replacement model for the H70)
what happens is coolit make the cooler itself without the fans, then sell it to corsair, which takes a crayon, crosses out coolit and writes corsair. they then add a couple of frankly rubbish fans and then jack the price right up, OcUK buys the cooler directly from coolit to cut out the middle man

if you want to save money over that rig, you could easily step it down to something like this:


YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i3-2100 3.10GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £94.99
1 x OcUK GeForce GTX 460 768MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card - OEM £85.99
1 x MSI H67MA-E35 Intel H67 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Micro-ATX Motherboard - (Sandybridge) **B3 REVISION** £64.99
1 x Zalman Z9 Plus Tower Case with Fan Controller - Black £49.99
1 x Lepa W-Series 500W '80 Plus' Power Supply £46.99
1 x Samsung SpinPoint F3 500GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD502HJ) £31.99
1 x Kingston HyperX Blu 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1600C9AD3B1K2/4G) £26.99
1 x Gelid Tranquillo CPU Cooler (Socket 754/939/940/AM2/AM2+/AM3/LGA775/LGA1155/LGA1156/LGA1366) £25.99
1 x OcUK 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £16.99
Total : £459.92 (includes shipping : £12.50).

obviously it wouldnt be as fast, but it would still be more than adequate for some light gaming and general use (hell, you'd probably be just fine with a llano A8 setup if your happy with running the games on ~medium settings)
 
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Wow. Thanks for that.

I want the graphics card incase i start gaming properly. At the minute it will just be casual but that may change.

What sort of sound card should i be looking at??

Thanks :)
 
Wow. Thanks for that.

I want the graphics card incase i start gaming properly. At the minute it will just be casual but that may change.

What sort of sound card should i be looking at??

Thanks :)

onboard sound is plenty good enough, unless your working with music, or are a massive audiophile
 
Cheers. :P

Doesnt have to be cheap, would prefer to spend a bit more for summit better within reason.

Well when I say cheapest, I dont mean its pants in anyway.

What sort of software would i need?

Mpeg4/H.264 HD playback software, unfortunately due to licensing only "paid for" software will playback Blu-ray films, there isn't any good freebies that can be downloaded that play every disk, so PowerDVD/WinDVD are the two that do it all. the retail Drive will come with software.
 
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