New build help please

bioshockeruk

bioshockeruk

bioshockeruk

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Joined
16 Aug 2012
Posts
333
Location
Norfolk
Ok guys, I currently have an old system and am looking to build a new machine for some gaming, mainly battlefield 3, far cry 3 etc. So FPS titles. I also do some minor video editing in after effects and vegas for youtube, but nothing too grand. My budget is £600 max, and this includes shipping. I also have Windows 7 Ultimate but am unsure wether or not to switch to Windows 8, so any recommendations on that would also be helpfull. I already have a monitor and mouse and keyboard also, and a 1TB hard disk and a 500gb hard disk.

So far I have specced this:

YOUR BASKET
1 x Gigabyte ATI Radeon HD 7850 OC Windforce 2X 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £149.99
1 x AMD Piledriver FX-8 Eight Core 8320 Black Edition 3.50GHz (Socket AM3+) Processor - Retail £119.99
1 x Samsung 120GB SSD 840 SATA 6Gb/s Basic - (MZ-7TD120BW) £77.99
1 x Patriot Viper "Black Mamba" Generation 3 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-17000C11 2133MHz Dual CHannel Kit (PV38G213C1K) £65.99
1 x Gigabyte 970A-DS3 AMD 970A (Socket AM3+) DDR3 Motherboard £55.99
1 x Zalman Z9 Plus Tower Case with Fan Controller - Black £49.99
1 x XFX Pro 550W Core Edition '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £49.99
Total : £584.93 (includes shipping : £12.50).




I would like any advise and thought on this, wether or not to upgrade to Win 8 and also as I have never used an SSD before and am looking at using one in my new build, is the one I listed ok as I have heard some horror stories and problems with certain models.

Many thanks in advance to everyone...

:)

... oh and almost forgot, would it be better to get another cooler for the cpu, or is the stock cooler ok, I won't be overclocking as i'm too scared of knackering the CPU! lol
 
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If you want to ovrerclock then go for the msi board which has oc geneie which will do it all for you. It might b e worth adding a better cooler as stock is very noisy .

Power supply is modular.

YOUR BASKET
1 x MSI 970A-G46 AMD 970A (Socket AM3+) DDR3 Motherboard £64.99
1 x Thermaltake Smart Series 530w Modular '80Plus Bronze' Power Supply £49.99
1 x Xigmatek Gaia CPU Cooler (Socket LGA775 / 1150 / 1155 / 1156 / 1366 / 2011 / AM2 / AM3 / FM1) £19.99
Total : £146.08 (includes shipping : £9.25).

 
Thankyou, I was thinking of a modular PSU, but also heard good reviews of the XFX unit. Could I reduce the cost in any way as my budget is tight and I am already stretched at £600.

Anyone else have any thoughts with this as I'm looking to purchase this tomorrow as I simply can't wait to get building!!
 
 
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I haven't found out how to do that basket thing (feel free to enlighten me...lol)

I know SSD's are great for what they do but you could hold off buying it to free up some cash.
(500gb OS drive and 1tb drive for everything else)

For gaming, look at the.....
7870 Tahiti (the toned down 7950)
Gigabyte 970A-UD3 (better power phase for OC'ing)
CM hyper 212 Evo (pc case min width 200mm)**

mickyflinn had a few good choices too.


(** might get away with a 190mm width case but you might need to bend the access panel)
 
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thanks for all the replies, I've decided to hold off for two weeks as I can stretch my budget a little then to £750. Ideally I would like to future proof the machine to some extent, so I will be looking at the gfx card and motherboard and CPU to spend the extra on, anyone have any views on Asrock boards, I've had good Gigabyte & Asus boards, but not really used an asrock or msi and they seem to have some quite good AM3+ 900 chipset boards at relatively good prices.

in paticular:
ASRock 970 Extreme3 R2.0 AMD 970
MSI 990XA-GD55 AMD 990X

any opinions or advice guys, or maybe something different altogether?!

Also everyone is telling me to go with an i5, but the way I see it is that with the consoles coming out using an AMD system then the AMD multi-cores will come in to their own soon when better driver support comes along with them? and they seem way cheaper right now for similar spec chips... ;)
 
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