Here is my build for £1500

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24 Feb 2012
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Been a while since I’ve built a PC e.g. 2008. Though I have built a few since circa 1996…

This one is going to be my present to myself for Christmas. I have been off the PC scene for ages and even got "lost" and bought a PS3 (thinking it would satiate my appetite). However, the bug has bit again and there are a few new games I fancy. I have done lots of research and have read the sticky re asking for your help.

I put my pc future, in your hands:

Q1): PC for gaming only

Q2) Price range is min £1400 - max £1500. This excludes a monitor.


Q3) Buying from UK

Q4) Fanboy of…
A) Seagate and intel CPU

Want a 27” monitor i.e. U2713


Q5) What parts am I going to use that I currently own?
None

6) What have I read that influences me re build?
A) Read lots and lots about 120mhz monitors but all are TN. Been looking at Dell U2713 and also Iiyama g2773hs. Cant decide if 1080p and super fast response with poor colour at 120mhz is more important than 1440p that is yes slower but is IPS and has fantastic colour!
Obviously screen will dictate GPU but I do now know what card would be required to power a 1440p screen
Also read that Intel CPU is much better for games?
Also ati overclock software to speed up the 7950 which is madly underclocked

Q7) Overclock?

Would be cool I guess to buy a mobo/CPU/Memory combo that is already OC’d? I have never overclocked myself, though I have looked at it within the last week and it seems easy enough. The office computers have AMD955black CPU’s and the forums I read explained that increasing one notch of CPU voltage to within parameters of CPU and then cranking up frequency (and then taking it back when unstable etc etc,)would to the trick!
Not sure I am comfortable with this but would be happy to have a go for a small, say 10% increase. I would not want to go too far however.
I see lots of OC’d CPU’s available for sale especially 3570 i5’s and 3770 i7’s… but in all honesty I am happy to let someone else do this and pay them.

Q8)Plan to build before Christmas

Q9) No idea what “If this is for gaming, tell us what resolution and the settings you wish to have in games (max everything, high, medium, or low). Do you turn AA on and do you care about gaming technology with PhysX, CUDA, eyfinity, 3D, etc” means…… but I want full everything if I’m paying over £1400

Q10) Are there any specific technologies you want?
Specific technology is not important. What is paramount is that everything works in complete synergy and that there is not a component that is a bottleneck, that restricts other components, meaning money was wasted on unnecessarily fast components that are restricted due to the bottleneck.


I figured the above would be the way forward for help re the sticky as I was unsure what to ask you guys!

Please help. I will of course let you know my progress and how the build goes.


This is my £1400 build. What would you change and why? Where is the bottleneck here?

Case: Antec P183 V3 Mid Tower - Acoustic Soundproofing!
Motherboard - Intel Z77 Chipset: Gigabyte GA-Z77X-D3H Intel Z77 Chipset
CPU: Intel Core i5 3570K Ivy Bridge 3.4GHz Quad Core 6MB Cache
CPU Coolers: be quiet! Dark Rock Pro - Performance CPU Cooler
Overclocking - CPU: Extreme Overclock - 4.6Ghz - Tuned to absolute safe maximum - Performance prioritised over acoustics.
Memory - DDR3: 8GB Total (2x4GB) Corsair Vengeance LP 1600MHz
ATI Graphics - Multi GPU Crossfire Options Available: 3GB XFX Radeon HD 7950 800MHz GPU 1792 Cores 5000MHz GDDR5, 2 selected
Power Supply Unit: 850W Corsair Pro Series HX Modular 80PLUS Gold (Dual Graphics Cards)
Solid State Drives: 120GB Intel 520 Read 550MB sec Write 500MB sec - SF-2281
System Drives: 2TB Seagate Barracuda SATA 6Gb s 7200rpm 64MB Cache
Optical Drive 1 - DVD Blu Ray: LiteOn IHOS104-6 BluRay & DVD Reader (Not writer)
Operating system: Microsoft Windows 8 64bit - OEM

Thanks Overclockers
 
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P183 -> Fractal R4 / P280. R4 my preference for under £100.

The P183 is getting long in the tooth. IMO the other two are better, more modern cases. If you like the two-stage design, there is also the Fractal Define XL.

Dark Rock Pro -> Dark Rock Pro 2. A really good improvement over the riginal version (which was a little bit disappointing in terms of performance).

Rest looks good. there are alternatives, but not better or much better.

If you go crossfire, I like the Corsair 500R for airflow and options. You will need some good airflow in there.
 
If you go crossfire, I like the Corsair 500R for airflow and options. You will need some good airflow in there.

Thanks Olivier.

Revisited the case side of things. On further digging I really like the 600t white which comes with 2x200 and 1x200 fans for cooling.

I will now have this instead.

For cooling is a h100 hydro better than the be quite mk2?
 
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Thanks for that Tamzzy. Happy to shop at a company like oc that offers after sale support and pay a little extra. I am not trying to scratch for pennies here. Who ever I shop with they need to factory oc the psu (as shown in my build above)

Regards my build and your advice, my budget is actually £2000 but I had my heart set on the new Dell 2713 at £525 (hence £1500 for the build).

I would like a 1440p monitor (though a case can be made for 120hz@1080p).
 
overclocking is easy, you can google how to do it. it'll save you a good 70-100 quid-ish if you diy build and oc yourself
 
I have been playing with oc on the office computers and I see that it is easy 955BE@3200, on the asus they are attached to you can just select up to 3600 and it will alter the other setting for you.

I figure I'm paying for a new pc I would like the warranty to apply to a pre OC machine pre assembled rather than me do it and not get a warranty.

As for building, again no problem I always have in the past but this time I was happy to get it done for me in an OC state.
 
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