Possible new build? (£650-ish)

boxgoat

boxgoat

boxgoat

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23 Sep 2012
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Hi Overclockers! My PC has recently started to really groan (not to mention the GFX card finally biting the dust. It has already been oven baked once..) so looking to put something together around the £650 mark. Can stretch to £700 if it's really worth the extra.

Main uses will be gaming (Guild Wars 2, D3 and probably Borderlands 2), 3D modelling (Zbrush) and other graphic design work (photoshop etc). I'm happy with my monitor and other peripherals (will be keeping my hard drive but fancy having a SSD for booting). I'd be grateful if you could cast yon eyes over the below and point out any poor choices or possible alternatives. Totally undecided on the case and previously looked at the Bitfenix Shinobi and Corsair Carbide 300R but they seemed a little pricey for what I need although they are rather tasty lookin'.

Also wondering if it would be a good idea to pick up a couple of case fans and if the stock cooler will be OK for the processor (doubt I'll be attempting any serious OC'ing, if that's even an option).

YOUR BASKET
1 x MSI HD 7850 Twin Frozr III OC 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Cards w/ Nexuiz, Sleeping Dogs & Dirt Showdown PC Games £161.99
1 x Intel Core i3-3220 3.30GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail £99.95
1 x Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-Bit - OEM (GFC-02050) £83.99
1 x ASRock Z77 Pro4-M Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Micro ATX Motherboard £77.99
1 x OCZ ZT 550W '80 Plus Bronze' Modular Power Supply £63.98
1 x SanDisk Ultra SSD 120GB 2.5" SATA II Solid State Hard Drive - (SDSSDH-120G-G25) £62.99
1 x Fractal Design Core 1000 Midi Tower Case - Black £32.99
1 x GeIL Black Dragon 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-10666C9 1333MHz Dual Channel Kit (GD38GB1333C9DC) £27.59
1 x OcUK 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £13.99
Total : £640.45 (includes shipping : £12.50).



Thank you much!
 
Any recommendations for sata 3 SSDs? The OCZ Vertex/Agility seem well received although there are mentions of firmware issues? I do like the idea of moving up to i5 but is it likely to provide a significant boost in performance for almost twice the price? Cheers
 
YOUR BASKET
1 x MSI HD 7850 Twin Frozr III OC 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Cards w/ Nexuiz, Sleeping Dogs & Dirt Showdown PC Games £161.99
1 x Crucial V4 256GB 2.5" SATA-II Solid State Hard Drive £99.95
1 x Intel Core i3-3220 3.30GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail £99.95
1 x Gigabyte Z77-D3H Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £84.98
1 x Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-Bit - OEM (GFC-02050) £83.99
1 x OCZ ZT 550W '80 Plus Bronze' Modular Power Supply £63.98
1 x Xigmatek Pantheon Mid Tower Case - Black £39.98
1 x GeIL Black Dragon 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (GD38GB1600C11DC) £28
Total : £676.92 (includes shipping : £11.75).

Spent spare money on 256GB SSD; I know its SATA 3GB/s but you probably won't notice much difference in real life use and its great value per GB.

Hard to fit a i5 in with that budget:
YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-3570K 3.40GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail £184.99
1 x MSI HD 7850 Twin Frozr III OC 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Cards w/ Nexuiz, Sleeping Dogs & Dirt Showdown PC Games £161.99
1 x Gigabyte Z77-D3H Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £84.98
1 x Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-Bit - OEM (GFC-02050) £83.99
1 x Adata S510 120GB SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Drive - Retail with Acronis True Image £64.99
1 x OCZ ZT 550W '80 Plus Bronze' Modular Power Supply £63.98
1 x Xigmatek Pantheon Mid Tower Case - Black £39.98
1 x GeIL Black Dragon 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (GD38GB1600C11DC) £28
Total : £727.01 (includes shipping : £11.75).


This build has no optical drive, although do you not have one from your old build? I personally only used the drive once, installing the OS so probably could have done without it.
I do think the i5 is worth the extra cost mainly because it is highly overclockable. However the i3 will still perform very well in games as they are often mainly reliant on the GPU.
If you want a current generation SSD I would recommend the Vertex 4 just because of the 5 year warranty, however the Samsung 830 and Crucial M4 are also very good, they just have shorter 3 year warranties.
Yes OCZ do have a bad history of reliability problems, however I think this is not the case now with the Vertex 4.
 
Last edited:
Thanks for the build advice tjilld, you're totally right about the optical drive and indeed I can't remember the last time I actually had to use it..

Will aim to go with the 3570K and make tweaks elsewhere to bring the price down. If I'm going to be overclocking the i5 will I need a better cooling solution than stock?
 
This and then get an SSD as a future upgrade when funds allow.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-3570K 3.40GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail £184.99
1 x MSI HD 7850 Twin Frozr III OC 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Cards w/ Nexuiz, Sleeping Dogs & Dirt Showdown PC Games £161.99
1 x Gigabyte Z77-D3H Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £84.98
1 x Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-Bit - OEM (GFC-02050) £83.99
1 x OCZ ZT 550W '80 Plus Bronze' Modular Power Supply £63.98
1 x BitFenix Shinobi USB3.0 Gaming Case - Black £42.98
1 x Cooler Master Hyper 612S CPU Cooler (Socket LGA1366/1156/1155/775/AM3/AM2+/AM2) £32.99
1 x GeIL Black Dragon 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (GD38GB1600C11DC) £28.00
Total : £698.90 (includes shipping : £12.50).

 
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