Gaming PC £500-£700

Qel

Qel

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Looking to build a gaming pc for someone else in my house, budget somewhere in the £500-700ish range.

I already have a 650w Corsair Modular PSU that isn't being used and will hopefully be good enough. For now they will be using either a 22" TV (not sure on res) or a 19" monitor at 1440x900. Also have a spare 1tb hard drive so those parts aren't needed.

Would be used mainly for WoW as thats the main game of the person its for and general internet/MS office, but others in the house would probably want it for GW2, Football Manager, BF3 or Planetside 2 use. They do not want to OC.

Basket:
BitFenix Shinobi Midi Tower German Edition Case - Black/Red/Gold - £49.99
Intel Core i5-3570K 3.40GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail - £173.99
Gigabyte Z77-D3H Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard - £79.99
Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMZ8GX3M2A1600C9) - £39.95
Gigabyte ATi Radeon HD 7950 Windforce 3X 3072MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card with FREE FARCRY3, Hitman Absolution, Sleeping Dogs & 20% off MOH Warfighter PC Games - £251.99
LG GH24NS95 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM - £15.98
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-Bit - OEM (GFC-02050) - £79.99

Total: £703.88 inc shipping.

Came up with the above, but at the same time as I said the person this is supposedly for mainly plays WoW, the other games which would make more use of this spec's potential would be for secondary users so wondering if I'd be better off saving money and replacing say, the cpu and graphics card with something like:

Intel Core i3-3240 3.40GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail - £113.99

Sapphire HD 7850 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card w/ FARCRY3, Nexuiz & Sleeping Dogs PC Games - £155.99

Total (with the rest of the i5 spec): £547.88

Would also need some form of wifi connection, guessing some for of network card so any recommendations, go ahead. Maybe a soundcard too?

How would these two specs perform?

Any suggestions? Anything silly I've missed?

Thanks.
 
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Qel

Qel

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I did consider that, might be possible but would need to convince them it would be worth it. Any other suggestions besides that?
 

Qel

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Other than that though the spec is ok? Any comment on i3 or i5? graphics card choices, wifi etc.
 
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Consider whether or not you need wifi - i spent an extra £40 on a motherboard with built in wifi only to find that i wasn't getting great speeds from the weak router. Cables are always better. I'd recommend getting a pair of powerline adapters (i got a set for £20) and the benefits i enjoy are:
- my PC takes bandwidth priority over my housemates
- faster speeds
- more secure
 

Qel

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Consider whether or not you need wifi - i spent an extra £40 on a motherboard with built in wifi only to find that i wasn't getting great speeds from the weak router. Cables are always better. I'd recommend getting a pair of powerline adapters (i got a set for £20) and the benefits i enjoy are:
- my PC takes bandwidth priority over my housemates
- faster speeds
- more secure

Well its a case of wifi or running a cable upstairs to the router through two doors which will be a pain to do properly.

Another possibility I've been looking at today in terms of the rest of it is the Bitfenix Prodigy which they like the look of. Would it work if I were to change the motherboard to say this or this one and keep the rest of it the same? Or better off just sticking with atx cases etc?
 
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Definetly incorporate an ssd I did on my build and it makes a massive difference to start up and to wow loading and logging in/out of characters.
 
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Consider whether or not you need wifi - i spent an extra £40 on a motherboard with built in wifi only to find that i wasn't getting great speeds from the weak router. Cables are always better. I'd recommend getting a pair of powerline adapters (i got a set for £20) and the benefits i enjoy are:
- my PC takes bandwidth priority over my housemates
- faster speeds
- more secure

Agree with that, if you don't need to be on wifi then dont be on it, no one likes a game logging out because a door was closed downstairs.

Not sure how you expect it to be more secure though, powerline adapters are not a secure device and you can plug one in next door and jump onto someones network without needing to break their WPA which i assume would remain on anyway rendering the point moot.

EDIT: Some do have functioning encryption but mostly in the region of 56bit encryption which is less use than WEP
 
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Qel

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Ok after some more thinking they want to go with the Prodigy, still no on the SSD so thats out for now. Most likely going to order something like this following this week so just a final check that its all ok:

Note: hard drive is not needed and I have a Corsair TX650M psu which I think will fit the case, if it doesn't I'll order something else later.

BitFenix Prodigy Mini-ITX Cube Case - Midnight Black
Intel Core i5-3570K 3.40GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail
Gigabyte Z77N-WIFI Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Mini ITX Motherboard
Corsair Vengeance Low Profile 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit
Sapphire HD 7870 GHz Edition 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card
LG GH24NS95 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-Bit - OEM

Thanks for all the replies so far.
 
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