New gaming build - help asked

farrall · 10 Oct 2011 at 23:14

Hi there guys, new here to the forums but I've always bought my gear from OC. Popped on here and noticed you guys all seem to be pretty knowledgeable. So in short I was wondering if you guys could throw together a spec for me that's suitable to play Skyrim and Battlefield 3. I've already got an Antec 300 case and a Corsair 750w PSU. Budget is around £700-£750. I appreciate all the help you guys can give.

P.S I read this http://www.geforce.com/Optimize/Guides/battlefield-3-beta-performance-guide and I knida decided on the GTX 560TI SLI if it fits the budget. But by all means recommend differently.

stulid · 10 Oct 2011 at 23:16

Hi and welcome,

Are you wanting just the base unit without a PSU+case, do you need a copy of windows? keyboard/mouse/speakers? do you have a SATA DVD drive that can be re-used?

farrall · 10 Oct 2011 at 23:19

I already have Peripherals, Literally just the components. I still have an IDE HDD which is still ridiculously slow. But it does the job at the moment and its got windows 7 already on it. So once I've built the PC I may upgrade then to a SATA.

stulid · 10 Oct 2011 at 23:21

Well you cant use IDE drives on these newer boards, so heres a spec with a new SATA HDD+DVD drive.

Included the two GTX560ti's also.

Your basketProduct Name Qty Price Line Total
Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £175.99
(£146.66) £175.99
(£146.66)
Asus GeForce GTX 560Ti DirectCU II 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card **Supplied with FREE Batman: Arkham City PC game** £161.99
(£134.99) £323.98
(£269.98)
MSI Z68A-GD55-G3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £124.99
(£104.16) £124.99
(£104.16)
Corsair Vengeance Blue 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMZ8GX3M2A1600C9B) £44.99
(£37.49) £44.99
(£37.49)
Samsung SpinPoint F3 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (HD103SJ) £43.99
(£36.66) £43.99
(£36.66)
OcUK 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £15.98
(£13.32) £15.98
(£13.32)
Sub Total : £608.27
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £10.00
VAT is being charged at 20.00% VAT : £123.65
Total : £741.92

stulid · 10 Oct 2011 at 23:25

Dropping the SLI option and using a motherboard that concentrates on a single GPU setup only,

Your basketProduct Name Qty Price Line Total
MSI GeForce GTX 580 OC Twin FrozR II 1536MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £365.99
(£304.99) £365.99
(£304.99)
Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £175.99
(£146.66) £175.99
(£146.66)
Gigabyte Z68AP-D3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £85.98
(£71.65) £85.98
(£71.65)
Corsair Vengeance Blue 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMZ8GX3M2A1600C9B) £44.99
(£37.49) £44.99
(£37.49)
Samsung SpinPoint F3 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (HD103SJ) £43.99
(£36.66) £43.99
(£36.66)
OcUK 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £15.98
(£13.32) £15.98
(£13.32)
Sub Total : £610.77
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £10.00
VAT is being charged at 20.00% VAT : £124.15
Total : £744.92

farrall · 10 Oct 2011 at 23:27

wow, that was quick, I was expecting a few hours at least. That looks awesome and just in budget, I'll probably get onto ordering this right away. Do you think the two GTX 560's are a good idea or is the single GPU the better option.

Appreciate your very quick response and help!

stulid · 10 Oct 2011 at 23:29

Well I have put up a solution that has a single fast card.

The motherboard doesnt do SLI, but thats ok as your PSU isnt upto powering a pair of GTX580's anyway.

Shadz · 10 Oct 2011 at 23:30

If you want to spend that much on 2 Sli 560Ti's then I would recommend spending that little
bit more and getting a 580 instead, better to have 1 card that is just as powerfull as 2 cards
together in my opinion.

farrall · 10 Oct 2011 at 23:33

Ah awesome, I'll go for the 580 then. seems to make sense.
Cheers for your help guys, much appreciated.

stulid · 10 Oct 2011 at 23:33

A question is what resolution is the monitor you use?

But I am kind of siding with the 580

farrall · 10 Oct 2011 at 23:40

I'll be plugging it into my 32" LG HD TV

stulid · 10 Oct 2011 at 23:41

So 1080P max then (1920X1080) unless its 720? either of these resolutions are easy for a GTX580.

farrall · 10 Oct 2011 at 23:43

The main reason why I was wondering about either 2 gtx560 or 1 gtx580 is because of this graph by geforce.com. The TV is 1080p

stulid · 10 Oct 2011 at 23:49

A few pointers.

SLI cards doesnt mean you get double the Vram, so with those SLI GTX560ti's you still have a max of 1GB.

In the graphics card section is a BF3 thread (25 pages long) go through it and you will see that 1GB cards are at a disadvantage in the beta version of the game released.

If you play a game that doesn't scale or have good driver support with SLI, then you are at a even more disadvantage over a single fast card.

farrall · 10 Oct 2011 at 23:52

Ah nice, seem's to make sense. I've got an hour or two to spare So i'll go check it out. Used to be relatively knowledgeable about computers and components, until all this different technology came out. . .

farrall · 10 Oct 2011 at 23:55

I think I thought that SLI meant that I had whatever the Vram was combined.

stulid · 11 Oct 2011 at 00:00

farrall said:
I think I thought that SLI meant that I had whatever the Vram was combined.

Afraid not, both cards store exactly the same data as the other.

This is rather old now, but most of it is still valid - http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/245454-15-crossfire-faqs

Do SLI or CrossFire double the memory ?
No.Adding another card with more memory doesn't double the overall memory of your cards.

farrall · 11 Oct 2011 at 00:04

Awesome, I'm probably going to end up reading a few articles and threads tonight to catch up on what I haven't kept up-to date with the last few years.
On another note I have this case: Antec Sonata III Piano Black Quiet Case.
Is this suitable enough for space etc or not?

stulid · 11 Oct 2011 at 00:10

Thought you had a 300? is the PSU defiantly a Corsair TX750w i guess?

I cant find an internal dimension for card length, can you measure from the PCI brackets at the rear to the HDD cage?

farrall · 11 Oct 2011 at 00:12

I bought a separate PSU after I got the case. I'll measure it in a minute and give you the measurements.