Spec a Build for a friend. £1200 limit

Dea924 · 18 Oct 2010 at 21:09

Friend of mine is looking to build a £1200 gaming pc.. im just wondering what you guru's think about spending that much. your own opinions on what you'd get for the money, and if you think im right when i tell him he doesnt need £1200 to build a top notch gaming pc.

he hasnt showed me what hes chosen but he did tell me he wants an i7 in it.

thanks for any future posts and help x

RJC · 18 Oct 2010 at 21:11

Does he require just the base unit and will he need windows.
Also what size screen does he use.

95thrifles · 18 Oct 2010 at 21:11

Theres certainly no need to spend that much no, £800 ish would get very nice system, look at the mid range builds in my thread at top/in my sig
i7 isnt ideal to gaming imo, i5 or 955 is better choice
Of course if he's set on spending 1200 he'll get a very nice system

Dea924 · 18 Oct 2010 at 21:14

Doesnt Need a monitor, requires a new case windows 7, wants a tb hdd, an a 1gb gfx card. keeps going on about the safely overclocked cpu that he'l get pre done 8-)

like a typical i7

RJC · 18 Oct 2010 at 21:16

Your basket
Product Name Qty Price Line Total
Intel Core i7 930 2.80GHz (Bloomfield) (Socket LGA1366) - Retail £224.99
(£191.48) £224.99
(£191.48)
MSI GeForce GTX 470 1280MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card with MAFIA 2 £223.24
(£189.99) £223.24
(£189.99)
Gigabyte GA-X58-USB3 Intel X58 (Socket 1366) DDR3 Motherboard £134.98
(£114.88) £134.98
(£114.88)
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium - Retail (Full Version)(GFC-00025) £113.96
(£96.99) £113.96
(£96.99)
Crucial RealSSD C300 64GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive (CTFDDAC064MAG-1G1) £110.44
(£93.99) £110.44
(£93.99)
Corsair XMS3 6GB (3x2GB) DDR3 12800C9 1600MHz Triple Channel (CMX6GX3M3A1600C9) £107.99
(£91.91) £107.99
(£91.91)
XFX 650W XXX Edition Modular Power Supply £69.99
(£59.57) £69.99
(£59.57)
Coolermaster CM-690 II Lite Dominator Case - Black £62.99
(£53.61) £62.99
(£53.61)
Samsung SpinPoint F3 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (HD103SJ) £42.99
(£36.59) £42.99
(£36.59)
Akasa AK-CCX-4002HP Venom CPU Cooler (Socket LGA775/LGA1156/LGA1366/AM2/AM3) £32.98
(£28.07) £32.98
(£28.07)
Samsung SH-S223L/RSMN 22x DVD±RW SATA Lightscribe ReWriter (Beige/Black/Silver) - Retail £14.09
(£11.99) £14.09
(£11.99)
Sub Total : £969.07
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £10.50
VAT is being charged at 17.50% VAT : £171.42
Total : £1,150.99

95thrifles · 18 Oct 2010 at 21:17

Your last post sounds like he'd prefer a prebuilt?
In which case looka t somethign like the Titan Exodus with a 460/470 and win7
Or if he insists on i7 (as I say if its just gaming he doesnt need it) then the Ultima Black OPs

Dea924 · 18 Oct 2010 at 21:25

Specifications
Intel Core i7 950 - Quad Core & HT CPU
6Gb Corsair XMS3 DDR3 1600Mhz
Asus P6X58D-E
Prolimatech Megahalems Cooler
120mm Akasa Apache Fan

this is the bundle he has showed me from a diff website to which i shallll not name.

hybrid572 · 18 Oct 2010 at 21:58

Get an i5, 4 gigs of RAM, and dual 460s.

You're better off spending the extra money on GFXs rather than an i7. Dual 460s actually work out really good value, and will play 2560x1600 at max AA settings- although you might want to get some badass cooling there.

Alternatively, if his monitor can't do better than 1900x1020 (like most people's), a single GTX 460 is all he needs- save him a few bob.

The pre-OC'd bundles on the site are well put together by professionals, so they're an obvious recommendation.

tommytinkle · 18 Oct 2010 at 22:11

hybrid572 said:
Get an i5, 4 gigs of RAM, and dual 460s.

You're better off spending the extra money on GFXs rather than an i7. Dual 460s actually work out really good value, and will play 2560x1600 at max AA settings- although you might want to get some badass cooling there.

Alternatively, if his monitor can't do better than 1900x1020 (like most people's), a single GTX 460 is all he needs- save him a few bob.

The pre-OC'd bundles on the site are well put together by professionals, so they're an obvious recommendation.

This looks pretty well thought out to be honest. Great value for money, and great performance per ££.

i5 is my weapon of choice, just can't make up my mind whether to itx it or go full size for my next upgrade!

hybrid572 · 18 Oct 2010 at 22:22

tommytinkle said:
This looks pretty well thought out to be honest. Great value for money, and great performance per ££.

i5 is my weapon of choice, just can't make up my mind whether to itx it or go full size for my next upgrade!

Why would you want ITX? Is space a major limiting factor?

I'm struggling to think of a scenario where a mATX board with an appropriately sized case is "too big".

Don't gimp your PC by understating your motherboard unless you really need to.

tommytinkle · 18 Oct 2010 at 22:51

No it isn't a limiting factor, and to save me hijacking this guys thread I will make another one regarding my build and I'd appreciate your input there if you don't mind?

95thrifles · 18 Oct 2010 at 23:02

hybrid572 said:
Get an i5, 4 gigs of RAM

Agree

hybrid572 said:
and dual 460s

No, plain and simple no, why spend 350 on dual 460s, you could get a 480 for that, if it were needed, why do ppl insist on speccing dual gfx systems? If you needed the monitor outputs maybe but otherwise, no

hybrid572 said:
You're better off spending the extra money on GFXs rather than an i7

Agree

hybrid572 said:
Dual 460s actually work out really good value, and will play 2560x1600 at max AA settings- although you might want to get some badass cooling there

As above, just no

hybrid572 said:
Alternatively, if his monitor can't do better than 1900x1020 (like most people's), a single GTX 460 is all he needs- save him a few bob

True

hybrid572 said:
The pre-OC'd bundles on the site are well put together by professionals, so they're an obvious recommendation.

And also true

hybrid572 · 19 Oct 2010 at 13:23

95th- normally I'd agree that dual GFX systems are a waste of money, but benchmarks actually show that because of diminishing returns on money with high-end cards, and the GTX 460's excellent scaling with multiple cards, you do actually get better value with 2 460s.

Anandtech's benchmarks link to prove I'm not telling porkies- over 20% improvement on Crysis Warhead at 1900x1200 for two 460s.

[WU-TANG]GZA · 19 Oct 2010 at 13:38

hybrid572 said:
95th- normally I'd agree that dual GFX systems are a waste of money, but benchmarks actually show that because of diminishing returns on money with high-end cards, and the GTX 460's excellent scaling with multiple cards, you do actually get better value with 2 460s.

Anandtech's benchmarks link to prove I'm not telling porkies- over 20% improvement on Crysis Warhead at 1900x1200 for two 460s.

I think his point is that the OP could and imo should get the best single card within budget and LATER get a second card and SLI/Xfire them to get stupidly good performance.

Wu