Help first real gaming rig

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Huddersfield
Hey am new here but have been reading the forums for a while and i must say it is very helpful.

Anyways i am looking at building my first real gaming rig but not to sure on what is the best parts, i am thinking the i7 2600K but thats all am sure about. My budget is around £1000 - £1500 pushing it to the limit. I dont need a monitor or any thing else like that, but you can include a good gaming keyboard and mouse if you dont mind.

I am also thinking about SLI if it fits in the budget.

Thanks in advance

Aaron
 
What are the uses for this PC? a i5 2500K maybe a cheaper option as its just as fast in games.

Do you need a operating system?
 
Ops thought i coverd every thing, It will be mainly for gaming and internet browsing but i may start video capture and editing. I dont need a OS, i have windows 7 64bit.

I hope this covers every thing and i havent missed anything.

Aaron
 
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• 8GB RAM
• 128GB SSD + 2TB HDD
• Gold rated PSU
• Gen3 SLI/Crossfire board

i5 2500K vs i7 2600K - http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/287?vs=288



It will be mainly for gaming and internet browsing but i may start video capture and editing.

Then the Hyperthreading /100MHz extra clock speed and extra L3 cache of the i7 2600K maybe of use to you, but theres plenty of money left to swap over:)
 
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Thanks for that setup and the link is great, not much at all in the two but a big saving.
Would it be better to get two 570's and SLI them over a 580 or 590? Also i mite have a look into watercooling if i have the spare cash around (that will prob be later on) will that case have anothe room?

Also if i was to say the budget is £1500 could i get a better setup or would it just be spending more money for the fun of it?

Aaron
 
Two GTX570 are faster than a single GTX580,
http://www.guru3d.com/article/vga-charts-spring-2011/

Also i mite have a look into watercoolin

I did include above a CPU water cooler thats based on the Corsair H80
http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18320884

will that case have anothe room?

For the closed loop cooler above, YES, but a bigger radiator wont fit, for water cooling a Corsair 650D is a better option - http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-036-CS&groupid=701&catid=7&subcat=1489 - this allows you to fit 120.2 size radiators



Also if i was to say the budget is £1500 could i get a better setup or would it just be spending more money for the fun of it?

Pretty much, save the money for Ivybridge CPU upgrades/next gen (ATI 7 series/Nvidia 6 series) cards.
 
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Thanks for the very fast reply. The CPU cooler looks good should keep my temps down.
Looks like i will start buying parts this friday and finish it off next pay day.

Thanks for the advise stulid

What does everyone else think more options would be nice.

Aaron
 
VGA GeForce GTX 580 3072MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card **Supplied with FREE Batman: Arkham City PC game** [03G-P3-1584-ER]


Would this be better than the two 570's? also i can get another on in like a month or so so would have 2?

Also what does every one else think.

Aaron
 
You don't need to spend £1k to get a good gaming rig.

The i7 is better than the i5 if you *HEAVILY* multitask or do lots of Transcoding/Compiling. If you just plan to *** about in Photoshop and play games then the i5 is fine.

8GB RAM + 64bit OS is the sweet spot for RAM at the moment as you can have it for like £40, don't pay over the odds for memory that handles high speeds as that's rarely the bottleneck.

A single card / GPU is generally preferable to a SLI/XFIRE setup unless you are benchmarking. If you fancy having extras like 3D vision or Phys/X get an NVIDIA, if you are going to run multiple screens then get an ATI. 1GB RAM is mostly fine for 1080p resolution or lower, get a card with more if you want to go higher. £200 is the sweet spot, it will run just about anything maxed. When you bottleneck it will be cheaper to sell the old card and buy a new single card to replace it. The exception is if you run some silly resolution.

Onboard sound is generally okay unless you have really sensitive hearing.

SSD's do make your system snappier; particularly if you shut it down at night and start it up in the morning. There's less benefit if you leave it on all the time.

Larger storage drives tend to have better performance than smaller ones.

RAID is a pain in the arse.

Most modern CPU's overclock a chunk for free, high overclocks take some though and again are almost worthless for anything other than benchmarking.

A quiet PC is easier to live with than a noisy one.

Stock fans supplied with retail edition CPU's are fine if you aren't overclocking.
 
Hmm so if i can build a gaming rig for under £1000 to play all modern games on ultra with frame rate of around 60+ What would this be as if its around the £600 i could get it all this friday.

Thanks
Aaron
 
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