Gaming build - Advice please =)

HueHue

HueHue

HueHue

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19 Sep 2012
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Hi guys, as the title states I'm assembling a new gaming pc this week. I'm looking to spend around £1300 and I'm really torn on which way to go with it, so yer, I'm looking for some words of wisdom before I order everything tomorrow.

I'll be using this for absolutely nothing but gaming, Uni work stays on the netbook, this is my procrastination zone. To get an idea of the hardware that might suit me best, here is a list of games I'm currently playing OR will be:

Battlefield 3
League of Legends (not exactly demanding but meh)
Starcraft 2
Guild Wars 2
Call of Duty (although like the last few, BO will inevitably be god awful)
Borderlands 2
Diablo 3
Counter Strike: GO

That kinda sums up my preferences. However, the one key purchase that I want to make is this; Benq XL2420T 24" TRUE 120Hz 3D Vision 2.0 Widescreen LED Monitor. I used to be 'pro' CoD player (hate that term) but my point is 120hz is very noticeable to me and as an avid FPS player, I think it's an essential purchase at this point.

Right, I have to admit, I'm an AMD fan and would love to support the underdog, I know the 8150 falls short of the 2500k and certainly the 3570k, but my question is; is it by THAT much? Will I really be bottlenecked by this processor? I am considering crossfire'd 7870's with the AMD 8150, just so you know. Alternatively, would I be better off with an intel 3570k and SLI 660gtx's? I know people say 'Buy one card now, sli/crossfire later if needed' but I'm a student and having this money spare is a once in a long time thing for me. So I wanted to get two good high-mid range cards and crossfire/sli for solid performance for a couple of years.

If someone can suggest a build/help me out that'd be great. The only things I don't need are a HDD (although I want an SSD) and a DVD drive. One last point, the NZXT 410 Phantom case looks nice, is it a decent case?

Cheers for any help you can offer, I really wanna stay with AMD due to the price and past loyalty, someone has to support them :P But if it's going to cripple my experience then I guess it's a no-go.
 
I can imagine many people are making up a shopping basket right now..
I'd definitely go with the 3570k over the 8150 though, and a 7950 would probably be a good bet (although it has gone up a bit for the non reference ones).
 
Nuclear Fusion said:
I can imagine many people are making up a shopping basket right now..
I'd definitely go with the 3570k over the 8150 though, and a 7950 would probably be a good bet (although it has gone up a bit for the non reference ones).
Click to expand...

Would you really recommend away from crossfire 7870's? Bearing in mind that I won't be making ANY upgrades to this for at least 18 months. The benchmarks I've seen seem to show 660 gtx's perform amazing in SLI and the same for 7870's in crossfire, the only reason I wasn't too keen on the 660's is the memory. Also, with this monitor I really need the GPU power to push the most FPS, or the whole point of getting it becomes redundant, but if a 7950 can keep up... then I guess no problem.
 
HueHue said:
Would you really recommend away from crossfire 7870's? Bearing in mind that I won't be making ANY upgrades to this for at least 18 months. The benchmarks I've seen seem to show 660 gtx's perform amazing in SLI and the same for 7870's in crossfire, the only reason I wasn't too keen on the 660's is the memory. Also, with this monitor I really need the GPU power to push the most FPS, or the whole point of getting it becomes redundant, but if a 7950 can keep up... then I guess no problem.
Click to expand...

Well you can always add a second 7950 later? Just save any money you don't use (it should come to around £1000 with a single 7950, 3570k, Z77 board, 128Gb SSD, 8Gb RAM, £100 case, decent air cooler and a good PSU) so you can put £300 to the side for any upgrade you might need. If in 18 months a single 7950 isn't enough, then you can always buy another (they're only going to go down in price). Or, in 18 months there might be new better cards around, and so you could spend £300 on a new one. 7950's have a lot more overclocking headroom than 7870's, so they offer better performance for the price.
 
Nuclear Fusion said:
Well you can always add a second 7950 later? Just save any money you don't use (it should come to around £1000 with a single 7950, 3570k, Z77 board, 128Gb SSD, 8Gb RAM, £100 case, decent air cooler and a good PSU) so you can put £300 to the side for any upgrade you might need. If in 18 months a single 7950 isn't enough, then you can always buy another (they're only going to go down in price). Or, in 18 months there might be new better cards around, and so you could spend £300 on a new one. 7950's have a lot more overclocking headroom than 7870's, so they offer better performance for the price.
Click to expand...

+1 for this
 
Nuclear Fusion said:
Well you can always add a second 7950 later? Just save any money you don't use (it should come to around £1000 with a single 7950, 3570k, Z77 board, 128Gb SSD, 8Gb RAM, £100 case, decent air cooler and a good PSU) so you can put £300 to the side for any upgrade you might need. If in 18 months a single 7950 isn't enough, then you can always buy another (they're only going to go down in price). Or, in 18 months there might be new better cards around, and so you could spend £300 on a new one. 7950's have a lot more overclocking headroom than 7870's, so they offer better performance for the price.
Click to expand...

The problem is that my £1300 budget needs to include the £300 monitor (Benq XL2420T). So there is no £300 to save :P

Hmmm, how are crossfire drivers these days? Are SLI ones any better? If they aren't great I guess I might side with one card.
 
Well a single 7950 should still be good enough for 1080p gaming for at least 18 months, especially overclocked. Should have some money left over from £1300 even with the monitor, so just save a little bit each month between now and 18 months time and then upgrade if needed then. It may well be sufficient for your needs past 18 months, in which case just keep saving for a bigger upgrade later on (ie in 3 years if you wanted to build a whole new rig).
 
HueHue said:
The problem is that my £1300 budget needs to include the £300 monitor (Benq XL2420T). So there is no £300 to save :P

Hmmm, how are crossfire drivers these days? Are SLI ones any better? If they aren't great I guess I might side with one card.
Click to expand...


it depends more on the game and how sensitive you are
microstutter you might want to have a read up about
if this affects you in your game of choice you might go 690 or even risk free single 680

think tho at your budget with a nice screen, overclock a 670 and you be good
 
YOUR BASKET
1 x Benq XL2420T 24" TRUE 120Hz 3D Vision 2.0 Widescreen LED Monitor - Black/Red £299.99
1 x MSI HD 7950 Twin Frozr III OC V2 3072MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card with FREE Sleeping Dogs PC Game £263.99
1 x Intel Core i5-3570K 3.40GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail £184.99
1 x Gigabyte Z77X-D3H Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £112.99
1 x NZXT Phantom 410 Enthusiast Midi Tower Case - Black/White £94.99
1 x OCZ Vertex 4 128GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive (VTX4-25SAT3-128G) £88.99
1 x Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-Bit - OEM (GFC-02050) £83.99
1 x Cooler Master Silent Pro Modular 700W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £79.99
1 x OcUK Value 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit £26.99
1 x Thermalright True Spirit 120 CPU Cooler (Socket LGA775/1155/1156/AM2/AM3/FM1) £24.98
Total : £1,286.02 (includes shipping : £20.10).

 
my usual small build but big ssd^^
i went over, change to save i guess

YOUR BASKET
1 x Benq XL2420T 24" TRUE 120Hz 3D Vision 2.0 Widescreen LED Monitor - Black/Red £299.99
1 x OCZ Agility 4 512GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive (AGT4-25SAT3-512G) - With FREE Mass Effect 3 PC (Retail) £269.99
1 x HIS HD 7950 IceQ BOOST 3072MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card (H795QC3G2M) with FREE Sleeping Dogs, Nexuiz, Dirt Showdown & CODMW2 PC Games £259.99
1 x Intel Core i5-3570K 3.40GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail £184.99
1 x Seasonic X-Series 460w FANLESS '80 Plus Gold' Modular Power Supply £100.99
1 x Gigabyte Z77N-WIFI Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Mini ITX Motherboard £98.99
1 x Samsung Green (MV-3V4G3D/US) 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz 30nm Dual Channel Kit £47.99
1 x Cooler Master Elite 120 Advanced Mini-ITX Case - Black £35.99
Total : £1,313.02 (includes shipping : £11.75).

 
Ummm Mei the PSU I dont think is powerful enough...

The only thing I would change on this spec:

tjlld said:
YOUR BASKET
1 x Benq XL2420T 24" TRUE 120Hz 3D Vision 2.0 Widescreen LED Monitor - Black/Red £299.99
1 x MSI HD 7950 Twin Frozr III OC V2 3072MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card with FREE Sleeping Dogs PC Game £263.99
1 x Intel Core i5-3570K 3.40GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail £184.99
1 x Gigabyte Z77X-D3H Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £112.99
1 x NZXT Phantom 410 Enthusiast Midi Tower Case - Black/White £94.99
1 x OCZ Vertex 4 128GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive (VTX4-25SAT3-128G) £88.99
1 x Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-Bit - OEM (GFC-02050) £83.99
1 x Cooler Master Silent Pro Modular 700W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £79.99
1 x OcUK Value 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit £26.99
1 x Thermalright True Spirit 120 CPU Cooler (Socket LGA775/1155/1156/AM2/AM3/FM1) £24.98
Total : £1,286.02 (includes shipping : £20.10).

Click to expand...

Would be the PSU to one with enough cables for the GPU's, like a Corsair AX or HX one.
 
Hmm, I think I might side with a single GPU then. How prevalent is micro-stuttering in games? Is it limited to older games or can it simply be anything? I think if I go the single GPU route, a gtx 670 will probably give me the best price/performance and it means I can keep using my current OCZ stealthxstream 600w psu, assuming the 550w minimum quoted on the site is correct? Money saved there I guess.

I feel like an AMD/ati traitor!!! :'( I can't put an nvidia card in with an AMD 8150, it would be heresy. So I guess this will be my final build:

Benq XL2420T 24" TRUE 120Hz 3D Vision 2.0 Widescreen LED Monitor & 3D Vision 2.0 Kit - Bundle with FREE Borderlands 2 PC Game

MSI GeForce GTX 670 OC Twin Frozr Power Edition 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card (N670GTX PE 2GD5/OC)

Intel Core i5-3570K 3.40GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - OEM

Gigabyte Z77X-D3H Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard

OCZ Agility 3 120GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive (AGT3-25SAT3-120G)

Corsair Hydro H60 High Performance Liquid CPU Cooler (Socket LGA2011/1366/1155/1156/775/AM2/AM3) (CWCH60)

GeIL Black Dragon 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (GD38GB1600C11DC)

CM Storm Sirus 5.1 Headset - Black (Needed a new one, corsair one is knackered)

Total: £1,271.51

Reckon this will do? Though i'd try the 3D since I wanted borderlands 2 anyway and apparently it's getting decent now rather than just a gimmick, we'll see.
 
The way I read it, just says that it's-

Certified as NVIDIA® 3D Vision™ 2-ready with the new NVIDIA 3D LightBoost™ technology so you can experience gaming and entertainment like never before with total realism and intensive graphic display.

Which says to me that it's compatible not that it comes with?
 
nipnosis said:
The way I read it, just says that it's-

Certified as NVIDIA® 3D Vision™ 2-ready with the new NVIDIA 3D LightBoost™ technology so you can experience gaming and entertainment like never before with total realism and intensive graphic display.

Which says to me that it's compatible not that it comes with?
Click to expand...

No, as I said it was a link from the BenQ product. And the this is the BenQ product in my 'basket' Clicky.
 
Roger! I was just looking at the monitor on it's own! It's rather expensive all added together, will have to see if my pennies can stretch!
 
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