My Custom Build - Recommendations?

Mawat

Mawat

Mawat

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30 Oct 2011
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162
Hey everyone, my names Matt and I'm looking at doing my first proper PC build :)

I'm currently a student studying at Staffordshire University, England, and seeing as my laptop is getting a bit out of date, I want a new pc, perfect for running multiple VM's, running forensic and network software, and general just messing about experimenting with stuff.

I haven't really got a budget, but around £500 - £600 would be comfortable.

Currently, I'm thinking:

Intel Core i5 2500k - Unlocked multiplier for overclocking in the future. Built in integrated graphics perfect for the time being until I find a good graphics card.

Z68 Motherboard - I'm not really sure as to which motherboard to go for. I know that I want a Z68, so that I can do both CPU and graphics overclocking. So if anyone could recommend a good one, around £100, that would be great.

8GB 1600Mhz RAM (2 x 4GB) - 8GB will be plenty for the time being, but will also be upgradeable to 16GB in the future. I'm looking at the Corsair Vengeance with the lower latencies, but I'd be grateful for opinions.

1TB SATA HDD - With the recent rise in HDD price I'm not sure whether to go for SATA-II or SATA-III. I may possibly upgrade to an SSD in the future but at the moment I don't think I'll bother. Will the difference between 3Gb/s and 6Gb/s really effect me, or the difference between 32mb and 64mb make much difference? Suggestions for cheap, yet reliable drives?

Zalman Z9 Case - I've looked at cases and this one looks the most ideal for me. Its £50, cheap but comes with a great quality case, and multiple fans with a fan controller built in. I think I've decided on this case.

Power Supply - With everything so far, plus a decent graphics card, I'm not sure how powerful a PSU I'll need. To be safe, I think its best to go for a 700w or would a 550/600 be sufficient?

Graphics Card - This is where I'm stumped. I know the i5 comes with Integrated HD3000 graphics, which will do me for a short while, but I can't decide on a graphics card. I might do the occasional gaming, messing around on Minecraft and a few online games, and I want to do so without much hassle, but I don't want to spend the earth on a graphics card that I wont fully utilise. This is where I'd most like suggestions to go with my build.

Thats pretty much it. Theres a few extra's that I know I need, such as DVD drives but I can pick them up anywhere as their only cheap. For CPU heatsink I'll look for a good 3rd party one thats still a good price.

I may upgrade to a Blu-Ray drive in the future, and might upgrade to an SSD too, but for now I want to get this set up first.

Any suggestions, comments, questions, reviews etc... would be appreciated :)
 
Yee I may upgrade to an SSD in the future, and its not particularly more for SATA III so may go for that if I can.

I'll have a look into the graphics card. I'm gonna look on some benchmarking websites etc and see what I can find out. I may build it all up without the gfx card for now, as its not entirely neccesary at the minute.

As for PSU, thats the region I'm kind of looking at.

With regards to the motherboard, what benefits would I get from the one you recommended, and one for £20 cheaper?

Cheers
 
Oo interesting. I know that minecraft doesn't require that much power. The 6850's are around £100, 6870's a little more and the 6900 series almost £200. Would a 6850/70 be substantial enough for most online games for the time being obviously, even if not on full quality + extras?
 
I've been looking this morning at bits and bobs and I have a few questions.

Looking at motherboards, what would the main differences between these be?

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-364-GI&groupid=701&catid=5&subcat=1990

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-343-GI&groupid=701&catid=5&subcat=1990

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-193-MS&groupid=701&catid=5&subcat=1990
This MSI board only says it supports DDR3 1133/1066, however looking on the MSI website it does say that it will support up to 2133 OC RAM, which is the same model etc.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-192-MS&groupid=701&catid=5&subcat=1990
MSI are also releasing a new motherboard with PCI-E 3. I don't know anything about this, and would it be beneficial or useful in the future?

I think I prefer the look of the MSI boards, and looking at the stats I feel they seem a little better.

Suggestions/opinions?
 
Ok cheers. I like the look of the two MSI boards. I'm a little worried though about them. I would like to use 1600Mhz memory, as obviously it is faster than 133Mhz memory, but will this be supported by the MSI board?

With regards to the latest graphics cards, I'm not really going for a complete gaming rig, and I don't think I'll have the budget for the very latest cards.

Thanks for the advice on the RAM, I'll definitely take that into consideration :)
 
Hi JoneseyBoy1, I don't really have the budget for the ASRock motherboard, and I think I've settled on the Zalman Z9 case as the reviews are good and so are the specs.

I am looking at the 6850 and the 6870 cards but at the moment I don't think I'm gonna get a graphics card, stick with the integrated gpu on the i5 for a short while, rather than spend loads of money in bulk

The MSI boards, I would have thought should support the 1600Mhz memory, I don't see why they wouldn't when all of the others do. So I think thats topping my choice at the moment :)
 
Had a more detailed look at the ASRock Z68 Pro 3. It seems like a decent mobo, however for a little bit more I can get a dual pci express x 16 board, with more overclocking facilities, which would be beneficial for the future :)

Cheers for suggestion however
 
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Another things thats just come to mind. I'm not after a silent build, but I don't want some stupidly noisy thing. The PC I have atm has a coolermaster CPU fan which makes a huge racket, can here it vibrating from downstairs which I don't want.

I presume the BeQuiet PSU's are some of the quietest, but how would an OCZ ZS series compare. It says its developed to be one of the quietest in its class? If not, can anyone recommend some of the quieter PSU's?
 
I'm looking at doing the build for around 550/600 without a gfx card, and then buying a gfx card at a little later stage, as so not to break the bank all in one go :)
 
Bump

Anyone give me ideas for what graphics card I should finalise on? I'd quite like to be able to play the latest games on HD and in the future, but I don't want to spend huge amounts. I was looking at the 560Ti.

With regards to motherboard, I still haven't been able to decide :(
 
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