Spec check please - £1700 general all rounder!

4thAttempt

4thAttempt

4thAttempt

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Joined
8 May 2012
Posts
61
Location
Southend, Essex
Greetings from a long time lurker :)

Apologies in advance for the lengthy post but trying to cover as much as possible!

I'm finally getting the cash together to build myself a new PC so looking for some advice on specs. Some things I am pretty set on, others I'm open to suggestion. I'm looking to build a quiet, fast PC that will be used for all manner of things - some light gaming, maybe video editing, running a number of VMs and so on. I'm also hoping to keep it at least 4 years if I can and figure going reasonably high end now will give me a longer lifespan. I'm not looking to overclock to the max - 4.2ghz would be great, more than that is a bonus but not if it pushes either noise levels or temperatures up :)

Here's the current basket:


YOUR BASKET
1 x MSI GeForce GTX 680 OC Twin Frozr 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £479.99
1 x Intel Core i7-3770K 3.50GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail with FREE TrackMania 2 PC Game £251.99
1 x Asrock Z77 FATAL1TY Professional Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £199.99
1 x Crucial RealSSD M4 256GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive (CT256M4SSD2) £189.95
1 x Corsair HX 850W ATX Modular SLI Compliant Power Supply (CMPSU-850HXUK) £123.98
1 x Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (WD1002FAEX) £119.99
1 x Antec P280 Super Midi Tower Case - Gun Metal Black £109.99
1 x Antec Kúhler H2O 920 High Performance Liquid CPU Cooler (LGA775/LGA1155/LGA1156/LGA1366/AM2/AM2+/AM2+/AM3+) £84.98
2 x Samsung Green 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz 30nm Dual Channel Kit (MV-3V4G3D/US) £53.99 (£107.98)
Total : £1,685.34 (includes shipping : £13.75).



Graphics: Doesn't have to be MSI - Zotac offer a 5 year warranty which is quite appealing but I'm told the twin-frozr runs quieter than some?
CPU: If I'm spending upwards of £1600 on a PC then a 3770k is a must
Motherboard: When I looked at this last year the Asrock z68 board was highly regarded, does the z77 board continue that or are others as good/better - I've had several Gigabyte boards in the past and always been impressed with them
SSD: Not set in stone but the Crucial one seems to be recommended a lot
PSU: I've read enough spec checks to know a good PSU is a must. Antec? Corsair? I'm open to suggestions :)
HDD: Do I need the Caviar Black? No. Do I want it? Yes.
Case: Hard to choose between this and the Silverstone FT-02 but my last 3 cases have all been Antec...
CPU cooler: The biggest problem I had with my last build was fitting the Zalman CPU cooler, these all-in-one water blocks seem much easier to fit and I think I'm right in saying that the Corsair ones uses 3 pin fans where the Antec one is PWM? I like PWM!
RAM: Again, no real preference apart from wanting 16gb, the Samsung green seems to be popular

Would I benefit from adding additional fans to the front of the case and if so would I be better off with a fan controller or should I look for a MB with sufficient PWM headers on it? I'm hoping to keep the noise levels down - not silent or even HTPC quiet but certainly not Hovercraft or helicopter noisy either!

Am I likely to need extension cables? I would hate to not be able to complete the build for lack of a long enough cable. One of the customer reviews of the Antec suggests an extension may be needed and I believe the Silverstone one is a bit bigger still.

I already have OS/KB/Mouse/Optical drive/Speakers and a Creative soundcard that I may recycle from my current PC before I give it to the wife.

I'll also need a monitor, not sure whether to go 27" 60hz or 23"/24" 120hz, leaning towards the latter as deskspace is limited but don't want to spend an awful lot on it - ideally less than £200 although that could stretch a little is necessary.

If you are still reading this far down.....thanks! :)
 
Last edited:
ewarwoowar said:
What kind of gaming will you be doing?
The 680 is a beastly card so may be overkill for what you play :)
Click to expand...

At the moment mostly LOTRO which doesn't need anywhere near the firepower buy hey, who knows what will be out in the next few years :)

Fire_fly said:
You can get the RAM a bit cheeper like this.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=BU-002-SA&groupid=701&catid=8&subcat=1517
Click to expand...

Thanks for that, I'll change the basket before I place the order :)
 
I thought I replied to this during my lunchbreak but it's almost 9pm and there is no reply from me so I guess I didn't! :confused:

ewarwoowar said:
What kind of gaming will you be doing?
The 680 is a beastly card so may be overkill for what you play :)
Click to expand...

At the moment mostly LOTRO but there could be others over the next 4 years or so. Having said that, the 670 looks very appealing with a good price/performance ratio so I could change to that I guess :)

Fire_fly said:
You can get the RAM a bit cheeper like this.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=BU-002-SA&groupid=701&catid=8&subcat=1517
Click to expand...

Ah, I missed that! Thanks, I'll change it before I buy :)
 
OK, I can see this isn't going to work - my comments need moderator approval and take a long time to appear by which point the thread is out of sight. The original thread took something like 15hrs, subsequent comments over 7hrs.

Is this a permanent thing? Other people's threads/comments seem to be almost instant so maybe after x number of posts I no longer need mod approval? Makes it hard to get feedback on a proposed build if nobody sees it :(


Edit: So naturally, this comment appeared instantly.....
 
No, should work ok... Maybe a glitch in the Matrix.

I would go 670. But if you have the dough, why not.

For motherboards, Gigabyte does some good stuff. I would go Z77X-UD3H (£125), MSI GD55 / GD65, UD5H, and I can't complain about the AsRock Extreme4 (I have the Z68).

If you go 670, that leaves you more for the motherboard, and also potentially a sound card. Rest of the build looks fine, if expensive. Again if you have money to roll in, why not.

for example, if gaming and general tasks in mind :

- 16GB is overkill
- i7 is overkill
- 920 is overkill unless targetting big overclocks (then I would go NH-D14 / SilverArrow myself, especially with a posh gigabyte motherboard with are ultra weighty).
- 680 arguably overkill, 670 much better value for money.
- There are cheaper PSUs than the HX series, but they are good.
- With a SSD, can take a green 2TB storage drive for less.

Dunno much about the P280, this review seem to think the internal component temps are good, which surprises me.

All in all, I don't think you'll be disappointed, but you can go cheaper for sure.

For the screen, I'd go 120Hz 24''. Can save enough money towards the build and get a 2420T.
 
Last edited:
If you intend on getting another monior or two and gaming at higher than 1080p get the 680, overclock it and in future swing in another for sli say in a year and buy two cheap monitors
 
olivier renault said:
No, should work ok... Maybe a glitch in the Matrix.

I would go 670. But if you have the dough, why not.

For motherboards, Gigabyte does some good stuff. I would go Z77X-UD3H (£125), MSI GD55 / GD65, UD5H, and I can't complain about the AsRock Extreme4 (I have the Z68).

If you go 670, that leaves you more for the motherboard, and also potentially a sound card. Rest of the build looks fine, if expensive. Again if you have money to roll in, why not.

for example, if gaming and general tasks in mind :

- 16GB is overkill
- i7 is overkill
- 920 is overkill unless targetting big overclocks (then I would go NH-D14 / SilverArrow myself, especially with a posh gigabyte motherboard with are ultra weighty).
- 680 arguably overkill, 670 much better value for money.
- There are cheaper PSUs than the HX series, but they are good.
- With a SSD, can take a green 2TB storage drive for less.

Dunno much about the P280, this review seem to think the internal component temps are good, which surprises me.

All in all, I don't think you'll be disappointed, but you can go cheaper for sure.

For the screen, I'd go 120Hz 24''. Can save enough money towards the build and get a 2420T.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the feedback, I'm at work (Lunch :)) at the moment so cannot update my basket but I must admit, seeing the performance of the 670 I did think about changing to that in preference to the 680. I'm unlikely to ever need more than 1 screen (Not enough space) so a 670 looks pretty likely :)

Agree that some of the components are overkill but I'm hoping to buy it, build it and use it without ever doing anything more then cleaning dust filters - no intentions of opening it back up again unless it's to replace something faulty. As you suggest money saved by dropping to a 670 would go some way towards a decent screen - is this one any good? I like the sound of VAT back and a guarantee of no dead/stuck pixels :)
 
I AM LEGEND said:
If you intend on getting another monior or two and gaming at higher than 1080p get the 680, overclock it and in future swing in another for sli say in a year and buy two cheap monitors
Click to expand...

Would be nice to have the cash but this is a 'every 4 year' occasion - no more cash until the next new PC build which will probably be sometime in 2016....
 
4thAttempt said:
Here's the current basket:


YOUR BASKET
1 x MSI GeForce GTX 680 OC Twin Frozr £479.99 - Excelent card although the 670 seems like a better deal if you only run 1920 x 1080
1 x Intel Core i7-3770K 3.50GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail with FREE TrackMania 2 PC Game £251.99
1 x Asrock Z77 FATAL1TY Professional Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £199.99
1 x Crucial RealSSD M4 256GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive (CT256M4SSD2) £189.95 - I have the 128Gb and it is rapid. One of my best purchases
1 x Corsair HX 850W ATX Modular SLI Compliant Power Supply (CMPSU-850HXUK) £123.98 - I own a HX850 and again it's never let me down
1 x Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB £119.99 - My games live on one of these. Fast drive - My only regret is that I didn't get the 2 Gb
1 x Antec P280 Super Midi Tower Case - Gun Metal Black £109.99
1 x Antec Kúhler H2O 920 High Performance Liquid CPU Cooler (LGA775/LGA1155/LGA1156/LGA1366/AM2/AM2+/AM2+/AM3+) £84.98
2 x Samsung Green 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz 30nm Dual Channel Kit (MV-3V4G3D/US) £53.99 (£107.98)
Total : £1,685.34 (includes shipping : £13.75).

I'll also need a monitor, not sure whether to go 27" 60hz or 23"/24" 120hz, leaning towards the latter as deskspace is limited but don't want to spend an awful lot on it - ideally less than £200 although that could stretch a little is necessary.
Click to expand...

As for the monitor - Apparently the Benq XL2420T is the one to go for but a little above your price range of £200
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MO-051-BQ

I have three of these:
Samsung S23A700D which after claiming the VAT back through Samsungs promotion (until 06/06/2012) work out at £208.29 each. Although if you were interested in 3D the Samsung (and don't quote me) I believe doesn't work out of the box with Nvidia 3D Vision. You need to fiddle with it. :p
But 3d aside it's an affordable 23" 120Hz monitor and stunning to watch.
 
Shopping basket v2 :)

Thanks for the suggestions so far :)

YOUR BASKET
1 x Gigabyte GeForce GTX 670 Windforce 3X 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £365.99
1 x Intel Core i7-3770K 3.50GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail with FREE TrackMania 2 PC Game £251.99
1 x Samsung S23A700D 23" 120Hz 3D Widescreen Gaming Monitor - Black **GET THE VAT BACK** £249.95
1 x Crucial RealSSD M4 256GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive (CT256M4SSD2) £189.95
1 x Gigabyte Z77X-UD5H Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £173.99
1 x Corsair HX 850W ATX Modular SLI Compliant Power Supply (CMPSU-850HXUK) £123.98
1 x Antec P280 Super Midi Tower Case - Gun Metal Black £109.99
1 x Samsung Green 16GB (4x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz 30nm Dual/Quad Channel Kit (MV-3V4G3D/US) £101.98
1 x Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (WD1002FAEX) £99.98
1 x Antec Kúhler H2O 920 High Performance Liquid CPU Cooler (LGA775/LGA1155/LGA1156/LGA1366/AM2/AM2+/AM2+/AM3+) £84.98
Total : £1,776.90 (includes shipping : £20.10).



Changed the 680 to a 670, swapped the Asrock board to a Gigabyte one and added the Samsung monitor so a 'no dead pixel' guarantee and a little bit of cashback.

Still overkill on some things but hey, more power than needed=less stress on the components...hopefully

Just need to wait for the money now....less than a week to go :)

Feedback/suggestions are still welcome of course!
 
Looks nice! 16GB of RAM can sometimes be overkill but I'm sure you want it so I won't complain, seeing as I have 16GB and have used it about 3 times since i got it (but nice to know it is there)
 
looks very nice :)

where about's are you in southend ?

lived there for 40 years and have been in ipswich for 4 now.
 
lived in westcliff myself,lived down hamlet court road for a few years and also near the tesco metro along london road.
 
olivier renault said:
That's very good. Not used to see the cheapest item at £90 (eek). But you get what you paid for.
Click to expand...

Thanks! Like I said, it's a once every 4 years thing and as far as possible nothing will be spent on it until it's time to replace it. Years ago I did the constant upgrade / refresh thing changing a part or two every year but these days I don't have the cash or the inclination so it's buy it, build it, use it, hand it down to wife/kids and start over. I'm still toying with your suggestion of dropping the Caviar Black in favour of a slower 2Tb drive but my current 1Tb drive still has 600gb spare after 4 years so I obviously don't need a lot of space :)
 
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