How's this hardware spec?

PraxxtorCruel

PraxxtorCruel

PraxxtorCruel

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My budget lies around 1k, I guess max I'd be willing to stretch to is 1.3k. The spec above is what I've conjured, not sure if they are the best of parts, but I do aim to keep the processor. I do also want a blu-ray drive that reads as well as writes so that'll be staying unless there are better alternatives? The graphics card, well I'm not entirely sure about it. I will want to play PC games, some few years old and obviously new ones as they come out. Now the motherboard, I'm thinking is it worth having a motherboard that can do triple sli or crossfire. I don't think I'll ever have more than two cards in at one time.

Regarding the power supply, well what can I say, it is Corsair. Okay the case, a lot of you might be thinking...'what!?'. I'm not gonna lie, I do like the look of it, its big, seems to have really good reviews and what not. Obviously since I'm not very experienced at building computers and kinda lazy at keeping them clean, I'd ideally be looking for one that has its own dust filters and perhaps hot swap drives if that's a necessity? Originally I wanted the Lian Li PC-P80R case, I've come down quite a bit eh? :p Again regarding the RAM, thought the speed was good, not sure on the timings but it is Corsair. Not entirely sure about the hard-drive but thought it seemed good? Should I go raid? Regarding over clocking...I'm not a big fan to be honest, then again I've never done it.

Thanks for any advice!
 
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Start with the Gigabyte Z77-D3H and work up from there if you want more features.

Unless you have a specific requirement a 3570K processor will be good enough.

You'll probably want a SSD drive to give things a bit of zip.

Not much point going beyond 1600MHz with the memory.
 
bremen1874 said:
Start with the Gigabyte Z77-D3H and work up from there if you want more features.

Unless you have a specific requirement a 3570K processor will be good enough.

You'll probably want a SSD drive to give things a bit of zip.

Not much point going beyond 1600MHz with the memory.
Click to expand...

Regarding the processor, you see I don't intend to upgrade every so often so I thought might as well get this. Haven't really made my mind up on the SSD yet. Looks like most people buy the intel one? Yeah was gonna mention that the motherboard you suggested doesn't support speeds of the Corsair RAM. I've noticed from the motherboards I've chosen that all seem to have one pci slot running at x16 and the other at x8, are there no motherboards that run both pci slots at x16 if I were to get another graphics card down the line? Or is this something that doesn't exist which I thought did?
 
With the processor there's little point having an i7 rather than an i5 unless you're doing something that benefits from Hyper-Threading.

If you want x16 + x16 PCIe then you need an X79 platform (or AMD FX). The x8 + x8 that a Z77 motherboard can give you is fine.

For SSDs the most obvious choice is Samsung 830 or Crucial M4.

Running memory beyond 1600MHz on a S1155 platform makes very little real world difference.
 
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I've noticed from the motherboards I've chosen that all seem to have one pci slot running at x16 and the other at x8, are there no motherboards that run both pci slots at x16 if I were to get another graphics card down the line? Or is this something that doesn't exist which I thought did?
Click to expand...

These two Asus boards do, but your paying for it.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Asus P8Z77-V Premium w/Thunderbolt Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £351.98
1 x Asus P8Z77 WS Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £259.99
Total : £623.38 (includes shipping : £9.50).

 
YOUR BASKET
1 x HIS HD 7970 3072MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card with FREE Sleeping Dogs PC Game £299.99
1 x Intel Core i7-3770K 3.50GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail £263.99
1 x NZXT Phantom Enthusiast USB3.0 Full Tower Case - Orange/Black £109.98
1 x Gigabyte Z77X-D3H Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £107.99
1 x Silverstone Strider Plus 750W Modular '80 Plus Silver' Power Supply (ST75F-P) £101.99
1 x LG BH10LS38 10x BluRay-RW / 16 x DVD±RW Lightscribe Drive - Black (Retail) £79.98
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST1000DM003) £59.99
1 x GeIL EVO Leggera 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-17000C11 2133MHz Dual Channel Kit (GEL38GB2133C11DC) £39.95
Total : £1,080.35 (includes shipping : £13.75).




Pimped the spec slightly.

But a 3570K will be fine.
 
YOUR BASKET
1 x HIS HD 7970 3072MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card with FREE Sleeping Dogs PC Game £299.99
1 x Intel Core i5-3570K 3.40GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail £179.99
1 x Silverstone Strider 1200W Modular '80 Plus Gold' Power Supply (SST-ST1200-G) £129.98
1 x NZXT Phantom Enthusiast USB3.0 Full Tower Case - Orange/Black £109.98
1 x Gigabyte Z77X-D3H Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £107.99
1 x Intel 330 Series 180GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive - Retail £103.99
1 x LG BH10LS38 10x BluRay-RW / 16 x DVD±RW Lightscribe Drive - Black (Retail) £79.98
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST1000DM003) £59.99
1 x GeIL Black Dragon 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (GD316GB1600C11DC) **OcUK Exclusive** £59.99
1 x Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo CPU Cooler (Socket Intel® Socket LGA1366/1156/1155/775/AMD Socket FM1/AM3+/AM3/AM2+/AM2) £24.59
Total : £1,156.46 (includes shipping : FREE).



Added an SSD as they seem almost essential in this day and age.
Also 3570k as there's practically no point having a 3770k unless you need it for specific things.
16gb ram as it's so cheap and I went for a 1200w gold PSU as it'll last the best part of a decade and be good for several build cycles no matter what you throw at it for only a little more.

EDIT: also put in a cheap after market cooler as Overclocking really is worth it ;)
 
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Some of the changes below have not made it into the above image

Alright, I've taken into account what the lot of you said. I've decided that taking the i5 over the i7 seems to be a more reasonable approach considering my use. I've also gone and changed the Corsair 2133mhz RAM to Patriot Viper Xtreme 16GB (4x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C8 1600MHz £71. Perhaps the RAM Krono and Stulid suggested would be better over the Patriot as well? Think I'm being greedy here, perhaps 8gb is more than enough for a couple of years at least. Might as well since RAM is cheap right? I'm not sure whether quad or dual kits have any performance difference? I'm convinced now when I decided to do further research on what a couple of the fellas were mentioning in this thread about RAM speed above 1600mhz being pointless. I'm thinking of going with the 1200-watt PSU, which was mentioned in this thread over the 850 Corsair PSU as it will be far more future proof and generally seems like a better deal for a few quid more.

The motherboard on the image above supports 2 graphics cards at x16 each, which is what I wanted initially. So not too shabby for £200, thought it would be more. (Ninja Edit): After doing further research it now seems I had it wrong and only does dual vga @ x8, perhaps crossfire/sli isn't as important as I'm thinking. Another thing, should I raid two 500GB hard-drives or stick to the 1TB and get one of the usually suggested SSD's. Or perhaps get both?

My problem now is choosing 1 of the 3 graphics cards. Would 3 fans in one be beneficial over the other two? One of them has a clock speed of over 1000mhz while the other two are at 925. Probably stock speeds nevermind you.

Lastly, deciding which case to go with. I know a case is usually always an individuals decision but can't make up my mind. All 3 design wise I like equally. Considering I am quite lazy when it comes to cleaning dust, will dust filters provide some form of defence against dust actually making them worthwhile? I couldn't tell if they're washable or not. The CoolerMaster Storm Stryker seems to be the best out the 3 but obviously comes with a heavier price tag. It is also bigger than the Aerocool X-Predator case, not sure against Phantom Case as I couldn't find the dimensions on OCUK.

Well as always any advice is appreciated,

Thanks
 
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Alright, I've amended the spec sheet. Any better? My wall of text from my previous post still stands if anyone wants to take a go at it haha? :p Thinking about it, I feel one good graphics card for me is better than 2 mediocre ones. :o Most important question, will any of the hardware be bottlenecked?
 
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