Help with my first build

Hi there, if you are mainly gaming then with that budget I would suggest you spend less on the CPU/mobo and more on the graphics card. The GTS 450 is a pretty poor graphics card for gaming and with this budget you should be able afford something much faster.

Also, in terms of the case, have a look at the Antec 100 - newer version of the 300 and slightly better.

Will you be needing a copy of windows to be included in the budget?
 
If you aren't needing an OS, then how does this look:

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This is without the pre-overclocked bundle or the CPU cooler (add one of these if you want to use an after-market cooler) - so you need to overclock it yourself, but with these K series CPUs overclocking is very simple.

Also, this includes a much more powerful graphics card (here is a review where the graphs show the comparsion between the HD 5850 and a GTS 450) - you can add a second in the future and run it in crossfire mode as the PSU and motherboard are well up to it.
 
when you say a bit of photoshop, coding and file transfer, how much/how serious do you mean? (ie, are we talking several hundred layer designs in photoshop, or just touching up the family pics)

this build is for if your doing lots of high end photoshop as well as gaming:


YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor with FREE Operation Flashpoint Red River Game £161.99
1 x Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 5850 Extreme 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card **OcUK Exclusive** £107.99
1 x MSI P67A-C45 Intel P67 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard - (Sandybridge) ** B3 REVISION ** £99.98
1 x Corsair XMS3 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMX8GX3M2A1600C9) £71.99
1 x BeQuiet Pure Power L7 530W Power Supply £42.98
1 x Antec 100 One Hundred Ultimate Gaming Case - Black £39.98
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA 6Gb/s 16MB Cache - OEM (ST3500413AS) £30.98
1 x Sony Optiarc AD-5260S 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £15.98
1 x Asus Silent Knight II CPU Cooler (Socket AM2/AM3/1155/1156) £12.98
Total : £599.87 (includes shipping : £12.50).

almost forgot to ask, are you happy to overclock by yourself?

also, (to everyone else) do nvidia cards have any exclusive hardware features (cuda, etc) that will benefit anything like photoshop and stuff?
 
I do think it is worth going for the higher end of the budget as this then gets you to the area where you can afford both an overclockable sandy bridge quad core and a solid gaming card like the HD 5850. If you need to cut the price down a bit you could sacrifice the full-ATX board and go for a micro-ATX board (that still overclocks and does crossfire) like this one. If you want to take the budget down even further then you could go for a PSU that will only support one HD 5850 (so no crossfire in the future) like this one.
 
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well, this is about the cheapest you can go if you want everything (at a good quality)

i'd avoid the asus motherboards if i were you. there's far too many people complaining about them for my liking


YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor with FREE Operation Flashpoint Red River Game £161.99
1 x MSI P67A-GD65 Intel P67 (socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard - (Sandybridge) ** B3 REVISION ** £139.98
1 x Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 5850 Extreme 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card **OcUK Exclusive** £107.99
1 x BeQuiet Pure Power L7 530W Power Supply £42.98
1 x Antec 100 One Hundred Ultimate Gaming Case - Black £39.98
1 x Corsair XMS3 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMX4GX3M2A1600C9) £39.98
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA 6Gb/s 16MB Cache - OEM (ST3500413AS) £30.98
1 x Gelid Tranquillo CPU Cooler (Socket 754/939/940/AM2/AM2+/AM3/LGA775/LGA1155/LGA1156/LGA1366) £23.99
1 x Sony Optiarc AD-5260S 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £15.98
Total : £618.86 (includes shipping : £12.50).

if you want to keep it under the £600 mark, then its probably best to drop the crossfire compatable motherboard:
unfortunatly, the motherboard you'll want with this spec is out of stock :(

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor with FREE Operation Flashpoint Red River Game £161.99
1 x Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 5850 Extreme 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card **OcUK Exclusive** £107.99
1 x MSI P67A-C45 Intel P67 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard - (Sandybridge) ** B3 REVISION ** £99.98
1 x BeQuiet Pure Power L7 530W Power Supply £42.98
1 x Antec 100 One Hundred Ultimate Gaming Case - Black £39.98
1 x Corsair XMS3 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMX4GX3M2A1600C9) £39.98
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA 6Gb/s 16MB Cache - OEM (ST3500413AS) £30.98
1 x Gelid Tranquillo CPU Cooler (Socket 754/939/940/AM2/AM2+/AM3/LGA775/LGA1155/LGA1156/LGA1366) £23.99
1 x Sony Optiarc AD-5260S 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £15.98
Total : £578.87 (includes shipping : £12.50).
 
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jwnip said:
Again much appreciated :) If I had a choice between the two i'd rather go with the first. I'll be looking to upgrade it as time goes on and it's makes sense to keep the board capable of crossfire.
Click to expand...

That makes sense, though if you want to be able to go crossfire in the future I would suggest going for a PSU more powerful than the 530W one (with two PCI-E power connections).

For crossfire this would be a good PSU and is a good price. Here is a review.
 

Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor with FREE Operation Flashpoint Red River Game £155.99

Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 5850 Extreme 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card **OcUK Exclusive** £119.99

MSI P67A-GD53 Intel P67 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard - (Sandybridge) ** B3 REVISION ** £109.99

OCZ StealthXStream 2 600W Power Supply £50.99

Corsair XMS3 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMX4GX3M2A1600C9) £35.99

Coolermaster Elite 430 Windowed Case - Black £33.98

Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA 6Gb/s 16MB Cache - OEM (ST3500413AS) £28.99

Gelid Tranquillo CPU Cooler (Socket 754/939/940/AM2/AM2+/AM3/LGA775/LGA1155/LGA1156/LGA1366) £25.99

Sony Optiarc AD-5260S 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £15.98

Total : £590.50 (includes shipping : £10.50).



MSI GD53 is CF/SLI capable @ x8x8 :)
 
You could double the storage for an extra £10-15 if 500GB isn't enough. Performance-wise I don't think there's anything worth it without a bigger investment.
 
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