Spec me a PC.(Yet another spec me thread!)

Firesilver

Firesilver

Firesilver

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So its finally time for me to build my first PC! (Thank you student loan!)
The loan itself won't be in for about a week(2 at the most).

Have a budget of about £1000, would prefer it to be under but can also be slightly over.
Need everything excluding monitor and mouse(G5 still going strong!)
Aims for the PC are running BF3 at over 60fps average at 1920x1080 on ultra(not too bothered about AA). I figure if it runs that it'll run almost anything.

Thinking i5, with a 2.5gb 570(not seen many reviews/benchmarks so its not 100%) Will be air cooled so a case with good airflow is essential. Not too bothered about a mechanical keyboard, will buy one at a later point.

P.s Sorry if this is hard to read, had to be done from my phone due to not habing internet at my flat yet!
 
Honestly I'm looking for more of a general outline of the build, as good as OCUK prices are some items are bound to be cheaper elsewhere and vice versa.
 
wont win any beauty contests, but here goes.

HIS ATI Radeon HD 6950 IceQ X PLUS Edition 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £215.99
Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - OEM £173.99
Asus P8Z68-V GEN3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £138.98
Silverstone Raven 3 RV03B-W Full Tower Windowed Case - Black/Gold £109.99
XFX 750W XXX Edition Modular '80 Plus Silver' Power Supply £104.99
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-Bit - OEM (GFC-02050) £79.98
Western Digital Caviar Blue 500GB SATA 6Gb/s 16MB Cache - OEM (WD5000AAKX) £72.98
Kingston HyperX Genesis Grey 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1600C9D3X2K2/8GX) £35.99
Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo CPU Cooler (Socket Intel® Socket LGA1366/1156/1155/775/AMD Socket FM1/AM3+/AM3/AM2+/AM2) £26.99
Sony Optiarc AD-5280S 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £18.98
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £13.75
Total : £995.36
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Something around that. You have Xfire / SLI as an option. Good air cooling case, 8GB, cool GPU with 2GB, **** hard drive but not much can be done about that.
 
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Looks good but will it really give the 60 fps average I'm looking for? Still thinking the 570 2.5gb is the way forward, would take me slightly over the £1000 mark but seems worth it.
 
Firesilver said:
Looks good but will it really give the 60 fps average I'm looking for? Still thinking the 570 2.5gb is the way forward, would take me slightly over the £1000 mark but seems worth it.
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If you want, but It will mean skimping on some components. Like the Motherboard and the case. Personally, for the price of the 570 2.5GB, I would wait for the 7970 / 7950 to come down. Or get a 6950 2GB, and get another one later when the 7xxx series gets competitive and the older generation drops in price (probably only £20, £50 being optimistic).

The 6950 is no slouch, what it lacks usually is in terms of tesselation and high res anti-aliasing, basically, fill-rate. The 6970 gives the 570 a run for their money, while at the same time being cheaper and having 2GB VRAM.

So that's my opinion, a 570 2.5GB is not financially competitive, unless you can find one that is.

For the 6950 and BF3 60fps, AFAIK, it runs on ultra with AA toned down a bit. I get a massive fps increase on my crossfire setup when the AA is reduced to sensible levels, and something between 90fps and 150 fps.
 
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Hmm. Seeing as AA doesn't really matter to me, it could be the best option. Ill have a shop around at the weekend when I've got access to the internet. Waiting for the 7xxx series to become competitive isn't really and option, been waiting years for a new pc!
 
Firesilver said:
Hmm. Seeing as AA doesn't really matter to me, it could be the best option. Ill have a shop around at the weekend when I've got access to the internet. Waiting for the 7xxx series to become competitive isn't really and option, been waiting years for a new pc!
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Best I can recommend is to look up reviews and comments about the 6950 2GB, GTX 560ti 2GB, GTX 570 (regular model), the 6970 with the games you have in mind. The 560ti 2GB is another option if you prefer Nvidia (about on par with the 6950 2GB).
 
Have seen a fair few benchmarks, the 6970 trucks through most games at 1920x1080 without AA which is what drew me too the 2.5gb 570, of the very few benchmarks I've seen for it, its only a couple of frames behind a 1.5gb 580 and handles AA fairly well Not too bothered about brand though, its the 60+fps average that's important.

Having seen BF3 at over 60fps on ultra playing it at anything less seems pointless! Completely ruined the PS3 version for me.
 
BF3 and Skyrim work better on Nvidia cards, Most of it was ATI driver issues and I know there has been quite a few Catalyst releases since these games have been released, but I still dont think they are 100% perfect.
 
That's been nagging at the back of my mind since I've been piecing my build together in my head. After the issues with Rage and BF3 etc I've thought Nvidia was the way to go, hence thinking about the 2.5gb 570.

Ill look around the internet and see if I can get a decent price on one, if not ill possibly just go for a regular 570.
 
Managed to find a 2.5gb 570 for £200, not sure if the website is reputable though. Otherwise it's upwards of £350, I hadn't realized the current prices of fairly high end cards.

I do however want to go Nvidia due to a seemingly smoother experience(drivers). With the prices as they are though and with me wanting 60fps minimum it's looking to be pretty expensive. Is it even possible within budget(or reasonably over) to achieve the fps target?
 
Firesilver said:
Managed to find a 2.5gb 570 for £200, not sure if the website is reputable though. Otherwise it's upwards of £350, I hadn't realized the current prices of fairly high end cards.

I do however want to go Nvidia due to a seemingly smoother experience(drivers). With the prices as they are though and with me wanting 60fps minimum it's looking to be pretty expensive. Is it even possible within budget(or reasonably over) to achieve the fps target?
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Might as well get a GTX580 1.5GB card instead, they are £350 for the cheapest one here at OCUK.
 
Probably a decent idea, will it give the performance though?

To be honest, this thread is fairly pointless until the weekend when I can get a list put together and critiqued on here.
 
Crikey ... In my day we blew our student loans on booze and women ... How times change :o

If you're still going ahead ... Good luck, you're in safe hands as all the top guns are in this thread and they will surely spec you a kick 'a' machine.

All I can offer is boobs n booze I'm afraid :D
 
Sounds great then, no plans on going above that res for a couple of years, wouldn't be able to fund a build for over 2k res until I'm qualified. Just the mobo and case/psu to decide on!
 
Heh boobs and booze come with the regular wages! Trainee marine engineer so we get paid by a sponsor and can get student loan/bursary as well ;)
 
Wouldn't buying a 580 now be kinda silly? With the 7950 possibly being out within a few weeks, maybe even being slightly cheaper, wouldnt waiting to see its price/a possible 580 price drop the better option?
 
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