Gaming Rig

Soldato
Joined
15 Sep 2009
Posts
3,635
Location
Manchester
I'm looking to, over the next month or so build my first custom gaming rig. I'm tinkered with my old PCs but they've always been HP or some other poorly built rubbish, but thats what you get when your young and have technologically ignorant parents.

I don't have a budget as such, as I will be buying components when and as I have the money, but I may as well make a start now. Going from benchmarks, an i5 2500k processor would be best for my needs, and seeing as the 480 GTX is on offer I thought I might as well. Would these two components be worth buying to start off my new system as I can purchase these today.

a9xq1.jpg

If somebody could perhaps give some advice as to the other parts of the system. I have a general idea of what I want, but people on here are undoubtedly better at it than me. The only specifications I require is that it has an SSD (120GB preferred) and 8GB RAM, as I do a lot of programming and some VM related work. I will be gaming at 1920x1080. I don't require an Operating System. Everything else I will require, also how hard is it to fit a CPU Heatsink? It's one of the parts of a full build that I am nervous about.

£850 - £1050 budget would be preferable, the lower the better really, but as I will be doing over-time it's not too important. Thank you.
 
Asus GeForce GTX 480 1536MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card with Far Cry 2 £194.99
(£162.49) £194.99
(£162.49)
OCZ Vertex 2E 120GB 2.5" SATA-II Solid State Hard Drive (OCZSSD2-2VTXE120G) £167.99
(£139.99) £167.99
(£139.99)
Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - OEM £165.59
(£137.99) £165.59
(£137.99)
Corsair HX 850W ATX Modular SLI Compliant Power Supply (CMPSU-850HXUK) £143.99
(£119.99) £143.99
(£119.99)
MSI P67A-GD55 Intel P67 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard - (Sandybridge) £129.98
(£108.32) £129.98
(£108.32)
Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM 1yr Warranty (ST31000528AS) £37.99
(£31.66) £37.99
(£31.66)
Coolermaster Elite 370 Case - Black £33.70
(£28.08) £33.70
(£28.08)
Akasa AK-CC017V2 Freedom Tower CPU Cooler (Socket AM2 / AM3 / 775 / 1155/ 1156 / 1366) £29.99
(£24.99) £29.99
(£24.99)
OCZ Platinum 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Ultra Low Voltage Dual Channel Kit (OCZ3P1600C9ELV4GK) £29.99
(£24.99) £59.98
(£49.98)
Sub Total : £803.49
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £10.50
VAT is being charged at 20.00% VAT : £162.80
Total : £976.79

here you go to me that is a great build
 
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Other than picking up special offers at the time like that tasty GTX480, i would leave cpu until you are ready as it will be cheaper as time goes on. Also the psu specced above is way overkill for a GTX480, unless of course you are thinking about running two of them in the future. Also, buy a retail cpu if 3yr warranty is of interest to you.
 
Other than picking up special offers at the time like that tasty GTX480, i would leave cpu until you are ready as it will be cheaper as time goes on. Also the psu specced above is way overkill for a GTX480, unless of course you are thinking about running two of them in the future. Also, buy a retail cpu if 3yr warranty is of interest to you.

I would rather grab what I can now unfortunately, so I can sit staring at it when it comes, but thanks for the advice about the PSU.

Any more advice on other components?
 
Why get a GTX480 when you could get a HD6950 for the same price, that would be equal or better in performance and also has lower power consumption and temps?

With the 480 on offer at the moment it's a great deal to get one. £25 off is brilliant. A step up from that means paying all most double for the next range of cards...
 
With the 480 on offer at the moment it's a great deal to get one. £25 off is brilliant. A step up from that means paying all most double for the next range of cards...

Thats what I reasoned, I bought the 480, admittedly I am a bit of an Nvidia fan anyway, I just love the green and theres not too much difference, I will not be running absolutely crazy graphics demanding games.

So to update, I have the i5 2500k and now the Geforce 480 GTX.
 
The 480 is a good card out of the box, and if you're a nvidia fan then that's your best bet at that price range. I personally wouldn't touch one though.


With the 480 on offer at the moment it's a great deal to get one. £25 off is brilliant. A step up from that means paying all most double for the next range of cards...

I wouldn't worry about the 480 going any more up in price, it's only going to come down.
 
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A little bit of a bump. Just a quick checkup as today I will be ordering the rest that is needed for my system. I have £500 in the bank for these last parts, and currently have:

- I5 2500k OEM
- CoolerMaster CM690 II
- Akasa Venom CPU Cooler
- Geforce 480

I was thinking of this for the rest.

Qty Price Line Total
Gigabyte P67A-UD3P-B3 Intel P67 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard - (Sandybridge) ** B3 REVISION ** £134.99
(£112.49) £134.99
(£112.49)
OCZ Vertex 2 "25nm Edition" 80GB 2.5" SATA-II Solid State Hard Drive (OCZSSD2-2VTX80G) £129.98
(£108.32) £129.98
(£108.32)
Antec TruePower New Modular 750W Power Supply - With FREE 3D Mark 2011 Advance £83.99
(£69.99) £83.99
(£69.99)
Corsair XMS3 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMX8GX3M2A1600C9) £83.99
(£69.99) £83.99
(£69.99)
Samsung SH-B123L/BSBP 12x BluRay ROM DVDRW DL & RAM Lightscribe SATAII Optical Drive - OEM Black £51.98
(£43.32) £51.98
(£43.32
 
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