Input needed on gaming build

PaddyMC89

PaddyMC89

PaddyMC89

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Joined
1 Dec 2010
Posts
655
I'm brand new to this, and it's highly likely I've mismatched everything (heck, I may have even completely forgotten a vital component!), so input would be fantastic. I don't know if it's frowned upon to simply register so I can ask for help, but as I said, I'm a newbie who'd be of no use to genuinely post a lot in the hardware section.

Because the idea of putting all this stuff together is daunting enough, I doubt I'll even consider overclocking parts at the moment (which may make you question why I'm on OCUK in the first place), but I may plan to in the future, and of course I want this build to last me a while so I'm looking at parts in the long term rather than short.

I've given myself a budget of about £1000, excluding the OS, monitor, keyboard and mouse, and I reckon if I get things when deals are on I can just about squeeze it.

Motherboard: Asus P7P55D-E Intel P55
Processor: Intel i5 760 (heard this is better for SLI than an AMD Phenom II)
Graphics: Gigabyte GTX460 SuperOC 1gb x2 (SLI) (chose these because, as I said before, I won't be overclocking myself to start off with)
RAM: Corsair XMS3 4GB (2x2GB)
SSD: OCZ Vertex 2E 120gb
HDD: Samsung Spinpoint F3 1TB
PSU: Arctic Power 700W
Case: Coolermaster CM-690 II
Cooling: no idea how much extra cooling I'll need, so will definitely need advice on this
Optical Drive: Samsung SH-B123L
 
You need ideally a motherboard that runs both pci-e slots at the same speed, that motherboard runs the second slot at 4X speed even tho its 16X in physical length.

so one of these,

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-226-GI&groupid=701&catid=5&subcat=1495

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-121-MS&groupid=701&catid=5&subcat=1495

the rest of the build is compatible and a good choice of bits, apart from the psu, buy a psu from a good brand such as Corsair/Antec/Enermax
 
Cheers guys. The PSU I chose had great reviews on the site I found it on (is it against the rules to link other sites that sell the same stuff as OC UK?), and it was only around £40. I suppose I can go an extra £30 or so for branded if need be.

Is there much difference between those £99 and £149 motherboards (as the £99 one has no reviews as of yet)? I'd love to go the cheaper route but since I'm spending a lot of money on this, and the motherboard is a pretty important part, I'd rather not sacrifice quality for cost.

I've seen these ATI cards (am I right in thinking "Black Edition" means it's pre-overclocked?): http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-189-XF&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=1866 for around the same price as the pre-overclocked GTX460, and I've heard they scale better with xfire than the nVidia's do with SLI, as well as simply being better cards. Which is the best way to go?

Also, I must say, I'm loving the avatars.
 
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PaddyMC89 said:
Is there much difference between those £99 and £149 motherboards (as the £99 one has no reviews as of yet)? I'd love to go the cheaper route but since I'm spending a lot of money on this, and the motherboard is a pretty important part, I'd rather not sacrifice quality for cost.
Click to expand...

The £99 GD65 is a great board that gets some great reviews and performs well in overclocking. The main difference between that and the £150 level boards is the GD65 is slightly older and doesn't have USB3 and SATA3 (though at the moment OCUK are giving away a free USB3 card with it, and you can always add the SATA3 later if needed). The Gigabyte UD4 has USB3 and SATA3 built in and is also just a slightly higher end board with a few more features - more eSATA, 1394 and USBs, and a slightly beefier looking cooling solution, looking at the specs. If you were going to go for the UD4, may as well get the UD6 for only £2 in this shop as it's an even higher end P55 board with yet more features. The question is are they worth £50 more than the GD65? I dunno really. I have a UD5 and it's great.
 
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