Spec Up

DJ Prem · 24 Mar 2011 at 14:09

I've been asked to built a system it is not going to be overclocked

Must be:
- Core i7
- Asus motherboard
- NVIDIA graphics card
- £1500-£1700 budget
- Case, monitor, keyboard and mouse not needed
- 4GB+ RAM

Game that will be played heavly will be Flight Simulator X also used for watching HD movies, Virtulization, Photo editing and the standard daily browsing, Office, mail etc etc

What would you guys spec up?

Redmint · 24 Mar 2011 at 14:47

If you really want to spend that much on an Nvidia gaming system:

MSI GeForce GTX 590 3072MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £614.99
(£512.49) £614.99
(£512.49)
Intel Core i7-2600 3.40GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £235.99
(£196.66) £235.99
(£196.66)
OCZ Vertex 3 120GB 2.5" SATA-3 Solid State Hard Drive (VTX3-25SAT3-120G) £219.98
(£183.32) £219.98
(£183.32)
Asus P8P67 DELUXE Intel P67 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard - (Sandybridge) £160.80
(£134.00) £160.80
(£134.00)
Coolermaster HAF X Gaming Tower Case - Black (RC-942) £132.98
(£110.82) £132.98
(£110.82)
Antec TruePower New Modular 750W Power Supply - With FREE 3D Mark 2011 Advance £84.98
(£70.82) £84.98
(£70.82)
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-Bit - OEM (GFC-00599) £79.99
(£66.66) £79.99
(£66.66)
G.Skill RipJawsX 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (F3-12800CL9D-8GBXL ) £71.99
(£59.99) £71.99
(£59.99)
Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (ST31000528AS) £42.98
(£35.82) £42.98
(£35.82)
Samsung SH-S223C/BEBE 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £13.99
(£11.66) £13.99
(£11.66)

Sub Total : £1,382.24
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £14.75
VAT is being charged at 20.00% VAT : £279.40
Total : £1,676.39

However this card is still more than fast enough for most things: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-078-GI

Liquid · 24 Mar 2011 at 16:09

FSX is very cpu/ram hungry and fully supports multi core cpu's post sp1 update, gpu less so but still relevent obviously. Dual gpu's are not a good option tbh as FSX doesn't utilise SLI/Crossfire very well, if at all. Nice spec above, but I would recommend A GTX580 over the stupidly priced 590 for FSX and chuck another 8gb ram in too.

Also, I know it's a lot of dollar, but might the Silverstone FT02 case be worth a look? given the budget? Not knocking the Haf-x though, but imo the internal layout of the silverstone is top class, the lower priced Raven is worth a look too.

I would love to know why the Samsung burner is so damn popular(yes, I know it's cost). They are poor quality tbh.

hybrid572 · 24 Mar 2011 at 16:26

I would really recommend overclocking unless you have an abject fear of good value for money. Pre-overclocked bundles are available if you're scared of breaking something.

The Samsung burner is popular because everybody's heard of Samsung, they're cheap, and nobody cares about the quality of a DVD drive as long as it works. 99% of us want a gaming system, not a powerful i7 DVD burning "rig".

Liquid · 24 Mar 2011 at 17:02

hybrid572 said:
I would really recommend overclocking unless you have an abject fear of good value for money. Pre-overclocked bundles are available if you're scared of breaking something.

The Samsung burner is popular because everybody's heard of Samsung, they're cheap, and nobody cares about the quality of a DVD drive as long as it works. 99% of us want a gaming system, not a powerful i7 DVD burning "rig".

+1 for the overclocking, it will reap big benefits, particularly with FSX.

I don't have a burning rig lol, you might not care about the quality of the drive, but 'nobody cares' is a poor assumption, I have returned dozens of the Samsung drives due to them failing with differing issues.

hybrid572 · 24 Mar 2011 at 17:35

"as long as it works"

You may take the time to investigate DVD drives, feel free. Most of us are more concerned about our £150+ graphics cards and £170+ processors than our £10, easily replaceable DVD drives.

DJ Prem · 24 Mar 2011 at 18:40

thanks all for the reply we can remove the case because dude has a case, a retail copy of windows 7 pro already and he has storage drives so just looking for OS drive.

Would a 570 not be sufficient that 590 does look way too pricey?

A SSD would not be suitable becuase the dude wants more then 120GB in the OS drive.

Cookeh · 24 Mar 2011 at 19:56

So get a massive SSD.

£1500 is a LOT of money.

Cookeh · 24 Mar 2011 at 19:57

If you're scrapping the case and OS then this beast is within budget.

Crucial RealSSD C300 256GB

hybrid572 · 24 Mar 2011 at 20:27

2 128GB C300s in RAID0 would be cheaper, but yes, I agree

I fail to see why you'd need an OS drive over 120GB, though. Placing the OS on an SSD and *everything* else on a slow mechanical drive is faster than putting everything on the mechanical drive.

mikeyholt · 24 Mar 2011 at 20:32

i7 2600K, get 6950 2GB and unlock to 6970, 8GB RAM, et. al

If he doesn't ask for the price, overcharge him £150 or so for labour. Unless you feel bad.

chrisarm · 24 Mar 2011 at 21:15

mikeyholt said:
i7 2600K, get 6950 2GB and unlock to 6970, 8GB RAM, et. al

If he doesn't ask for the price, overcharge him £150 or so for labour. Unless you feel bad.

sounds like a good plan

Liquid · 24 Mar 2011 at 21:38

hybrid572 said:
"as long as it works"

You may take the time to investigate DVD drives, feel free. Most of us are more concerned about our £150+ graphics cards and £170+ processors than our £10, easily replaceable DVD drives.

thanks for the permission lol. I don't have any issue with the dvd drives I buy thanks

DJ Prem · 25 Mar 2011 at 11:40

thanks for the replies lets see what he decides he is not known to pay the intial amount and then he will ask for a cheaper but similiar spec machine