Review my spec

ToejaM

ToejaM

ToejaM

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Hey, I'm looking at building a gaming PC for my girlfriend.

I tend to make big posts so I'll make some lists just to make it easy if you want to skip the life stories.

What I want it to do for me..uh.. her!:
  • Play L4D2 / Killing Floor / CoD / Counterstrike Source / Everquest2 / SWTOR - Those kind of games as close to max graphics as possible.
  • Around £400-£450 budget, it'd be nice to be as close to the £400 as possible!
  • Quad core probably makes the most sense?

Questions:
  • i3/i5/i7 - How much difference in performance is there? From what I can gather.. i7 if you're rich but i5 is sufficient as the performance boost/cost ratio of the i7 at present is a bit steep in the fps>pound conversion!
  • Is it worth getting ram above 1600mhz right now? I mean, its pretty cheap at 35quid for 4gig.. my 1333mhz id doing me just fine.
  • I think that I'd probably want a "K" cpu for the overclocking possibilities.. I like to tinker with it all,I think its nice to have that ability just to prolong the purchase! Or at the very least a good mobo/cpu for getting a good speed out of
  • I'm a little sketchy on motherboards these days, theres just so many I don't know whats good and whats not. P67 > H67 for games right? What am I looking for in a mobo?

Spec:
Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - OEM - £155.99
XFX ATI Radeon HD 5830 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card - £89.99
Asus P8P67 LE Intel P67 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard - (Sandybridge) ** B3 REVISION ** *LOWEST UK PRICE* - £72.98
Antec High Current Gamer 620W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply - £62.99
Kingston HyperX Genesis Grey 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1600C9D3X2K2/4GX) - £34.79
Cooler Master Elite 430 Windowed Case - Black - £35.99
Total: £465.32 Including delivery.

What could I change there for savings/little-no loss of performance? - I have a spare hard drive around here but if you're a genius and you can save me enough money to slip in a half decent sized SSD that'd be awesome but its not essential, it'll be a later upgrade.. maybe next payday.

I was considering a 5770, as thats what I have in my machine and I'm probably gunna upgrade my own to crossfire as its not done me wrong so far. though as a seperate subject, I'm probably going to upgrade to a similar spec you see here (mobo/cpu/ram only tho)

So I'll leave it in your capable hands and thank you in advance!
 
 
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I can tell you now you that you will not be able to get an i5 build for £400 I'm afraid. i3 or AMD is your best bet.
 
Thank you very much for the quick reply! Is 430w really enough now? :O

Also, how did you post that nicely formatted basket.. did you bbcode it all yourself or is there a link I'm missing on view basket?

Aye I thought as much, I knew it'd be 450+ :(
 
ToejaMz0r said:
Thank you very much for the quick reply! Is 430w really enough now? :O
Click to expand...
A build with i3 2100 and GTX460 the 430W Corsair is more than enough. If you are sticking a GTX480 instead of a GTX460 into there, then it will cut it very close (i3 2100 max consumption under load is 65W, GTX480 max consumption under load is 320W if I'm not mistaken, so not much headroom left for the rest of the stuffs :D)
 
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ToejaMz0r said:
Thank you very much for the quick reply! Is 430w really enough now? :O

Also, how did you post that nicely formatted basket.. did you bbcode it all yourself or is there a link I'm missing on view basket?

Aye I thought as much, I knew it'd be 450+ :(
Click to expand...

It is for the spec above.

And no, its a OcUK Trolley add-on for Google Chrome.

Olivier Renault has a link in her signature i think, or ask her for a pm :D
 
All thanks to Oliviers OCUK Cart Viewer for Google Chrome :)

that spec should be enough for her needs although you lose the overclocking :(

and yes, 430w will power that system fine.

EDIT**!! Oliviers a she?!
 
Funny you posted a white case because I told her to go looking at some cases and she really likes a coolermaster case but doesnt want to pay 62.99 for it heh and she likes this case you posted, she first said "Can you put lights on it" - so I guess we'll be getting some led fans to replace whats on it!

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - OEM £155.99
1 x XFX ATI Radeon HD 5770 Single Slot 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card with Stalker & AVP Games £79.99
1 x Asus P8P67 LE Intel P67 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard - (Sandybridge) ** B3 REVISION ** *LOWEST UK PRICE* £72.98
1 x Corsair Builder Series CX 430W V2 ATX '80 Plus' Power Supply (CMPSU-430CXUKV2) £36.98
1 x Xigmatek Midgard Midi Tower Case - White £29.99
1 x Corsair XMS3 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-10666C8 1333MHz Dual-Channel (CMX4GX3M2A1333C8) £29.99
Total : £418.52 (includes shipping : £10.50).



I googled it, pretty easy to find. TY for that! :D

Yeah we have an OS, tis no problemo on that.

What do we think of that basket, is the psu going to handle that card.. I imagine it consumes less power?
 
you would need a cpu cooler as that i5 is an OEM version, specced one the other day and forgot about the cooler too :)

you upped the CPU and downgraded the GPU, im not really sure if its worth it, the guys(and girls) here will confirm it

BTW, olivier sounds like a males name hence i was shocked shes a female :p
 
Jony27 said:
EDIT**!! Oliviers a she?!
Click to expand...

How many Olivier's who are guys do you know :p. Perhaps, like I did a while back, thought her username was Oliver? I'm assuming it's pronounced the same as Olivia?

ToejaMz0r said:
Funny you posted a white case because I told her to go looking at some cases and she really likes a coolermaster case but doesnt want to pay 62.99 for it heh and she likes this case you posted, she first said "Can you put lights on it" - so I guess we'll be getting some led fans to replace whats on it!

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - OEM £155.99
1 x XFX ATI Radeon HD 5770 Single Slot 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card with Stalker & AVP Games £79.99
1 x Asus P8P67 LE Intel P67 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard - (Sandybridge) ** B3 REVISION ** *LOWEST UK PRICE* £72.98
1 x Corsair Builder Series CX 430W V2 ATX '80 Plus' Power Supply (CMPSU-430CXUKV2) £36.98
1 x Xigmatek Midgard Midi Tower Case - White £29.99
1 x Corsair XMS3 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-10666C8 1333MHz Dual-Channel (CMX4GX3M2A1333C8) £29.99
Total : £418.52 (includes shipping : £10.50).



I googled it, pretty easy to find. TY for that! :D

Yeah we have an OS, tis no problemo on that.

What do we think of that basket, is the psu going to handle that card.. I imagine it consumes less power?
Click to expand...

Looks like a very solid build for the price to me :). Just bought my dad that case too, a fiver cheaper yesterday :p. Pretty sure the two fans included are LEDs.
 
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Well i have a friend's male friend whos called olivier and hes polish, i suppose spellings vary for different countries of origin, since my names jon without the "h" and every person in my school whos name is john has a "h" in it :D

well back on topic anyway, yeah but youll still need a cpu cooler for that build.
 
I usually go by this (what ever the current month is at the time) http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/best-graphics-card,2964-7.html (apologies if I'm not allowed to link this site!)


YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - OEM £155.99
1 x XFX ATI Radeon HD 5770 Single Slot 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card with Stalker & AVP Games £79.99
1 x Asus P8P67 LE Intel P67 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard - (Sandybridge) ** B3 REVISION ** *LOWEST UK PRICE* £72.98
1 x Corsair Builder Series CX 430W V2 ATX '80 Plus' Power Supply (CMPSU-430CXUKV2) £36.98
1 x Kingston HyperX Genesis Grey 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1600C9D3X2K2/4GX) £34.79
1 x Xigmatek Midgard Midi Tower Case - White £29.99
Total : £423.32 (includes shipping : £10.50).



or

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - OEM £155.99
1 x OcUK GeForce GTX 460 OC 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £119.99
1 x Asus P8P67 LE Intel P67 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard - (Sandybridge) ** B3 REVISION ** *LOWEST UK PRICE* £72.98
1 x Corsair Builder Series CX 430W V2 ATX '80 Plus' Power Supply (CMPSU-430CXUKV2) £36.98
1 x Kingston HyperX Genesis Grey 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1600C9D3X2K2/4GX) £34.79
1 x Xigmatek Midgard Midi Tower Case - White £29.99
Total : £463.32 (includes shipping : £10.50).



The price difference worth the extra £40? Going by the heirachy chart its only one tier above so I'm not sure it really warrants an extra £40?

Hmm I need to look at the wattage usage of the CPU and Graphics card to make sure I think.

As for the cooler, you're right I'd need one of those to.
 
For gaming at 1920 res, I would say most definitely don't settle for anything less than GTX460/6850/5850.

5770 is a good card for up to 1680x1050 res, but at 1920 res it will struggle.
 
Aye freezer pro, has to be.. used nothing else :-)

How much wattage should I expect on the mobo, ram and cpu? 1.5 for the ram and 1.3 for the cpu? + 291w (going on the crysis thing, wont be playing any games with more weight than that if at all!) + ?? (mobo) + fans = just short of 300, leaving 130 for the mobo and fans.. I cant imagine it takes that much so still the psu would be fine?

I love that website, excellent thank you very much will be saving that from now on. Looking at the bench mark.. it does look like it warrants the extra £40 especially for futureproofage.


YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - OEM £155.99
1 x OcUK GeForce GTX 460 OC 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £119.99
1 x Asus P8P67 LE Intel P67 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard - (Sandybridge) ** B3 REVISION ** *LOWEST UK PRICE* £72.98
1 x Corsair Builder Series CX 430W V2 ATX '80 Plus' Power Supply (CMPSU-430CXUKV2) £36.98
1 x Xigmatek Midgard Midi Tower Case - White £29.99
1 x Corsair XMS3 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMX4GX3M2A1600C9) £29.99
1 x Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro Rev 2 CPU Cooler (Socket 939 / AM2 / AM3 / 775 / 1155/ 1156 / 1366) £19.99
Total : £478.51 (includes shipping : £10.50).



Unless someone can find me a better/equal graphics card for a better price then I think that'd be the build sorted!

I must ask and I've been playing games for well over 10 years now.. but why and what are the reasons for playing the game in a higher resolution? I notice a lot of people like 1920 now.. I remember when being able to play at 800x600 was king!
 
Yes.....430w is enough for that build :)
Never doubt corsair ;)
That spec is spot on, time to hit order me thinks :D
 
I must say though, thank you all very much and apologies if I didnt listen to some advice.. I know what I want but like all of us in this climate I want it cheap! :D

Going to give it an hour or so and see if any other wise people give me some input and then I'll be making an order!

I think I've mostly ever used Overclockers and just shopping around, I'm suprised at how much cheaper than some of the other main competition it is! Never used to be like that, so well done to OC :-)
 
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