New computer build - £1500+

wildest_jjk

wildest_jjk

wildest_jjk

Soldato
Joined
6 Jun 2011
Posts
2,741
Hi guys,

Basically I want to replace my current rig which consists of:

Mobo - MSI P67A-GD65
CPU - Intel i5 2500K
GPU - Radeon HD 6870
RAM - 8GB DDR3
SSD - 60GB OCZ Vertex 2E
HDD - Western Digital 1TB Caviar Black

Looking for a new machine that performs excellently with the latest games, can run virtual machines (so something like 16GB RAM), would easily work with 2 - 3 monitors possibly at 1440p (not sure on this yet), also a bigger/better SSD.

They are the main requirements and I would appreciate some help on specs for this new system :) I am open to try anything and take all advice onboard, I'm not an expert ;)

Budget is £1500 - £1700, if more or less is needed then this can be altered. Budget does not include monitors.

Thanks in advance for any help!

EDIT: Just remembered that I would also like a modular PSU, preferably fully. Again I haven't had experience with these but can see advantages.
 
Last edited:
Here's my suggestion: Keep your existing CPU, motherboard. The i5 2500K is still a very good gaming processor. Link. Clock the living daylights out of it, buying a decent cooler if need be. Then spend your budget on 16gb of fast ram, a very good power supply, a minimum of a 250gb fast SSD and a monster GPU set up.

Of course it is your money and with your budget should allow for a very good i7 set up. I can't help feeling there's still substantial life left in your existing kit though
 
I agree with ExRayTed, your CPU and motherboard are still very nice - any upgrade to something like a Haswell CPU/mobo would yield relatively small performance improvements and cost quite a lot.

As Ted mentions, overclocking is really worthwhile with the i5 2500K. Its really easy to overclock the chip and it can go pretty high (4.5GHz is pretty standard with a half-decent air cooler). A cooler like this would be my suggestion.

So if you keep your motherboard and CPU and add a nice cooler and a decent CPU overclock then you will be hitting performance levels far above a stock i5 4670K.

As for upgrades, going up to 16GB makes sense considering your uses. As does a nice big, fast SSD - my pick would be the excellent Samsung 840 Evo 250GB.

As for the graphics cards, I would suggest something in the R9 290 or GTX 780 range. These are some very fast graphics cards, but not so high-end that you are paying a huge premium for a small amount of extra performance. This card would be my pick, due to its excellent performance for the price and the cooler which keeps it running quiet and cool enough. However, if you think you will gaming across two or three 1440p displays then I would suggest opting for two GTX 780 cards - since they tend to better deal with being squeezed together in a PC case (partly due to the expensive and efficient "titan style" blower cooler).

If you are looking for a new PSU, I would suggest one of the Seasonic ones. They make excellent quality PSUs that last for ages and many of their designs are fully modular.
 
Last edited:
I thought I would come up with a little idea of what you could get to improve your spec... then save £800 - £1k for an upgrade to X99/DDR4 later in the year :)

YOUR BASKET
1 x Gigabyte Radeon R9 290 OC WindForce 4096MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card (GV-R929OC-4GD) £347.99
1 x Avexir Blitz 1.1 Original 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 PC3-17000C9 2133MHz Dual Channel Memory Kit (AVD3U21330908G-2BZ1) £157.99
1 x SuperFlower Leadex Platinum 1000W Fully Modular "80 Plus Platinum" Power Supply - Black £149.99
1 x Samsung 250GB SSD 840 EVO SATA 6Gb/s Basic - (MZ-7TE250BW) £119.99
1 x Corsair Hydro H105 Extreme Performance Liquid CPU Cooler (CW-9060016-WW ) £89.99
Total : £875.54 (includes shipping : £8.00).

 
If your just going for the 1 gpu, stick with what you have but if considering 2 then get a 4770k to eliviate any bottleneck.
If you were to have 2 gpu's I'd suggest grabbing one of the 1000w super flowers whilst they are on offer.

Edit: rather than go 4770k route you could grab a 2nd hand 2600/2700k for around £120
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom