Associate
- Joined
- 10 Sep 2012
- Posts
- 15
Hey everyone, long-time Mac user making the switch to Windows, for various reasons but mainly because the applications I use for university (CAD, 3ds max) work better on Windows anyway and my 4yo iMac was ready for replacement. The other reason is I don’t have that kind of money to spend on something I’ll only end up putting Windows on again anyway.
So I’ve spent a fair amount of time looking over everything and come up with this for a spec, just after you guys’ opinion. It comes out at around £1600 just for components, and around £1700 when the equivalents are put through the configurer, presumably to account for labour etc…. This is definitely the max I’m really willing to spend, any good suggestions to lower it by £100-250 are certainly encouraged if you can spot anything obvious.
I’ll mainly use it for stuff like AutoCAD, Revit, 3ds max, photoshop paintings, photo editing, HD movies etc. I do play some games on PC like HalfLife/Portal/etc but I don’t play “twitch FPS” frag shooter-type games which melt your face. I’ve been willing to over-spec a bit to make sure it’ll all last another 4 years. A gaming graphics card will certainly be enough for what I’m doing at the moment, I read about CAD gfx cards but they’re way too advanced/expensive for me.
CASE - NZXT Phantom Enthusiast USB3.0 Full Tower Case - Orange/Black £109.98
Extra NZXT FZ-140 Airflow Fan Series, Orange LED - 140mm £12.98
PROCESSOR - Intel Core i5 3570K 3.40GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 £179.99
OVERCLOCK - 15% £25.00
CPU COOLER - OcUK Tech Labs - Prolimatech Megahalems Rev.C "Overclocker Edition" £52.99
MOTHERBOARD - Gigabyte Z77X-D3H Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 £112.99
MEMORY - Corsair Vengeance Low Profile 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C10 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CML16GX3M2A1600C10) £99.95
GRAPHICS - MSI HD 7870 Hawk 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card Twin Frozr IV £215.99
HARD DRIVE 1 - Intel 330 Series 120GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s SSD £83.99
HARD DRIVE 2 – Western Digital Caviar Red 2TB SATA 6Gb/s WD20EFRX £101.99
OPTICAL - OcUK 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) £13.99
SOUND – Onboard Soundcard
POWER SUPPLY - Corsair Gamer Series GS 800W '80 Plus Bronze' PSU £85.99
OS – Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit OEM - £83.99
CASE MODS - NZXT CB-LED20-OR 24x Orange LED Sleeve - 2m £13.99
NETWORKING – possibly a wifi card if I can’t run cable through a floor
KB - TT eSports Challenger Pro Gaming Keyboard £46.99
MOUSE – prob keep Apple Magic Mouse that I have already
MONITOR - DGM IPS-2701WPH 27" LED Widescreen Professional Monitor 2560x1440 £359.99
Fully cable managed
Main questions:
- Is the PSU big enough?
- Is the 7870 worth it for that resolution or have people found 7850 fine?
- I intend to phone up and request all these parts and sort of bypass the configurer, and therefore still get it built for me, cos I’m not really up to the job of doing it myself. The configurer clearly just gives some examples but I guess if you phone you can specify more or less anything within reason?
- Is this motherboard OK/recommended? I’ve had people recommend an Asus Maximus V Gene but that’s half as much again…
It seems the DGM is the only display at that resolution that will actually use miniDP & HDMI aswell as DVI, though I can’t imagine why if (mini)DP is supposed to be the newer tech. If the card supports that resolution seems silly not to use it even with a screen that costs the same as two slightly smaller ones, even though I could get two 24”s at 1920x1080 for the same money. Shame I’ve missed out on this screen being at £319…
Thanks a lot in advance!
So I’ve spent a fair amount of time looking over everything and come up with this for a spec, just after you guys’ opinion. It comes out at around £1600 just for components, and around £1700 when the equivalents are put through the configurer, presumably to account for labour etc…. This is definitely the max I’m really willing to spend, any good suggestions to lower it by £100-250 are certainly encouraged if you can spot anything obvious.
I’ll mainly use it for stuff like AutoCAD, Revit, 3ds max, photoshop paintings, photo editing, HD movies etc. I do play some games on PC like HalfLife/Portal/etc but I don’t play “twitch FPS” frag shooter-type games which melt your face. I’ve been willing to over-spec a bit to make sure it’ll all last another 4 years. A gaming graphics card will certainly be enough for what I’m doing at the moment, I read about CAD gfx cards but they’re way too advanced/expensive for me.
CASE - NZXT Phantom Enthusiast USB3.0 Full Tower Case - Orange/Black £109.98
Extra NZXT FZ-140 Airflow Fan Series, Orange LED - 140mm £12.98
PROCESSOR - Intel Core i5 3570K 3.40GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 £179.99
OVERCLOCK - 15% £25.00
CPU COOLER - OcUK Tech Labs - Prolimatech Megahalems Rev.C "Overclocker Edition" £52.99
MOTHERBOARD - Gigabyte Z77X-D3H Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 £112.99
MEMORY - Corsair Vengeance Low Profile 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C10 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CML16GX3M2A1600C10) £99.95
GRAPHICS - MSI HD 7870 Hawk 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card Twin Frozr IV £215.99
HARD DRIVE 1 - Intel 330 Series 120GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s SSD £83.99
HARD DRIVE 2 – Western Digital Caviar Red 2TB SATA 6Gb/s WD20EFRX £101.99
OPTICAL - OcUK 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) £13.99
SOUND – Onboard Soundcard
POWER SUPPLY - Corsair Gamer Series GS 800W '80 Plus Bronze' PSU £85.99
OS – Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit OEM - £83.99
CASE MODS - NZXT CB-LED20-OR 24x Orange LED Sleeve - 2m £13.99
NETWORKING – possibly a wifi card if I can’t run cable through a floor
KB - TT eSports Challenger Pro Gaming Keyboard £46.99
MOUSE – prob keep Apple Magic Mouse that I have already
MONITOR - DGM IPS-2701WPH 27" LED Widescreen Professional Monitor 2560x1440 £359.99
Fully cable managed
Main questions:
- Is the PSU big enough?
- Is the 7870 worth it for that resolution or have people found 7850 fine?
- I intend to phone up and request all these parts and sort of bypass the configurer, and therefore still get it built for me, cos I’m not really up to the job of doing it myself. The configurer clearly just gives some examples but I guess if you phone you can specify more or less anything within reason?
- Is this motherboard OK/recommended? I’ve had people recommend an Asus Maximus V Gene but that’s half as much again…
It seems the DGM is the only display at that resolution that will actually use miniDP & HDMI aswell as DVI, though I can’t imagine why if (mini)DP is supposed to be the newer tech. If the card supports that resolution seems silly not to use it even with a screen that costs the same as two slightly smaller ones, even though I could get two 24”s at 1920x1080 for the same money. Shame I’ve missed out on this screen being at £319…
Thanks a lot in advance!
