Looking for advice on a desktop

M.Bowker · 10 Jul 2011 at 17:23

Hi all,

All I really need the PC for is gaming. For the purposes of this excercise, let's say that money is no option. Asked a friend to suggest parts and I was hoping to canvass the helpful know-alls on this forum, who have been so helpful in the past. I'm looking for any advice you can offer.

Money is no option, but there's no point putting in anything useless. I want parts that will make a real difference to my gaming. A sticky says that i7 offers no gaming advantage over i5. Is that generally accepted? Is there any particular processor I should get if not i7?

Is the graphics card suitably beasting, or can you suggest something better (better enough for a real graphical difference).

Going to get the new desktop in the next few months. Is there anything coming out that I want to look out for?

Thanks for the warnings. post has been edited to (hopefully) be within the rules.

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Cheers,
Mark

RJC · 10 Jul 2011 at 17:28

I would remove the image and the mention of the site in your text, as Ocuk does not allow for competitor names and images

No promotion of OcUK's competitors
We, Overclockers UK (OcUK) are happy to provide the resources of these forums to responsible individuals without charge. They cost a substantial amount of money to maintain and use considerable amounts of bandwidth which is paid for exclusively by us. As you know OcUK are in the computer hardware business and therefore the promotion of OcUK's competitors is forbidden. Examples of promotion are :-
Posting links to competitors websites
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Jony27 · 10 Jul 2011 at 17:30

i would advice you to remove that now before a mod sees it

Jordan97 · 10 Jul 2011 at 17:31

I'd remove that if I were you:

No promotion of OcUK's competitors
We, Overclockers UK (OcUK) are happy to provide the resources of these forums to responsible individuals without charge. They cost a substantial amount of money to maintain and use considerable amounts of bandwidth which is paid for exclusively by us. As you know OcUK are in the computer hardware business and therefore the promotion of OcUK's competitors is forbidden. Examples of promotion are :-
Posting links to competitors websites
Posting links to reviews that promote competitors
Quoting the names or contact details of competitors
Offering to provide the names or contact details of competitors
Hinting about product availability at competitors and their pricing
Using the forums to notify a member of intent or actual supply of names or contact details of competitors
Listing competitors names, URL's or e-mail addresses in signatures
Listing competitors names, URL's or e-mail addresses in profile
Posting links to or the mentioning of auction sites
Disguising attempts to do any of the above

Jordan97 · 10 Jul 2011 at 17:42

YOUR BASKET
1 x Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 6970 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card with FREE DIRT3 Game £269.99
1 x Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor £164.99
1 x Asrock Z68 Extreme4 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £144.98
1 x Lepa B-Series 850W '80 Plus Bronze' Modular Power Supply £92.99
1 x Cooler Master CM-690 II Advanced Dominator Case - Black £79.99
1 x Samsung SpinPoint F3 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (HD103SJ) £40.99
1 x Corsair XMS3 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMX4GX3M2A1600C9) £29.99
1 x Sony Optiarc AD-7260S 24x DVD±RW SATA Lightscribe ReWriter (Black) - OEM £16.98
Total : £855.90 (includes shipping : £12.50).

I believe this is cheaper than your build you had posted?

This will give a high satisfactory FPS in most new games. You also have the option to go Crossfire with the motherboard and PSU if you wanted. I didn't bother putting an SSD in their, as they do not increase game performance, only decrease loading times.

M.Bowker · 10 Jul 2011 at 17:51

Thanks for that. So a more expensive graphics card but savings made elsewhere. Is 8G of ram overkill?

Moothead2 · 10 Jul 2011 at 17:52

M.Bowker said:
Thanks for that. So a more expensive graphics card but savings made elsewhere. Is 8G of ram overkill?

For gaming, yes. Always the option to add another 4GB in the future if games begin to use it.

Jordan97 · 10 Jul 2011 at 17:56

M.Bowker said:
Thanks for that. So a more expensive graphics card but savings made elsewhere. Is 8G of ram overkill?

Yes. Games do not use more than 4GB, and so anything more for gaming is not worth it. Also, the dominator RAM you said, is very tall and so would interfere with a lot of decent after market coolers. There is no need for the i7 either. The only benefit it has over the i5, is that it has the hyper-threading technology which games do not utilize.

M.Bowker · 11 Jul 2011 at 18:12

Thanks for all the replies guys. Here's a question: so maybe now all games use is 4GB but I'm guessing that will change (and I could shell out an extra few quid now, just so i wont have to later). I don't really understand hyperthreading. Is it just that games dont use it yet, or is it that they never will? Thanks again all.

Marine-RX179 · 11 Jul 2011 at 19:44

Personally I'd get the Sapphire 6950 2GB instead of the Sapphire 6970 2GB, considering it is only around 3% slower, but £55 cheaper and with a custom cooler instead of the blower type cooler, and then drop the memory from 8GB down to 4GB to save £30~£35. With the £85~£90 saved, you could consider getting a 60~64GB SSD