Very First Build - £800 budget

John32123

John32123

John32123

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7 Feb 2012
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I’m a new member on this forum but a long time lurker. I really wanted to get some advice regarding a build I’ve been trying to put together. This is the first computer I’ve planned to build ever.

What I intend to use it for is gaming and web design really; I will end up overclocking it eventually. The games I play and want to play are team fortress 2, command and conquer, Skyrim, BF3. I’m not 100% on the CPU cooler, the motherboard (It might be overkill, maybe a Asus P8Z68-V LX Intel Z68) and the case. The budget I’ve set for myself is £800 or less really. Here’s the spec so far:

Processer: Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - OEM [BX80623I52500K] - £169.99

Motherboard: ASRock Z68 Extreme4 Gen3 Socket 1155 DVI VGA HDMI DisplayPort 8 channel audio ATX Motherboard - £144.40

Ram: Corsair 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 1600MHz Low Profile Vengeance Memory Kit CL9 1.5V - £38.33

HDD: Seagate 500GB 3.5" SATA-III 6Gb/s Barracuda Hard Drive 7200RPM 16MB Cache – £63.99
SSD: Corsair Force Series 3 120GB SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Drive - £122.99

Graphics Card: Sapphire HD 6870 1GB GDDR5 DVI HDMI DisplayPort PCI-E Graphics Card - £127.00

Power Supply: Antec True Power New 650W Modular Power Supply - £69.18

Case: Corsair Carbide 500R Black Case - £84.75

CPU Cooler: Antec KUHLER H2O 620 - £39.84

Drives: Remove from old system


That all works out at £860.47. I really would prefer it to be around £800.00 but if something makes a big improvement to performance I’ll go to £850.00. Appreciate any assistance :)
 
I've been looking at the above spec to make some improvements/cost reductions and the two main things I think needs changing:

1. CPU Cooler - I'm thinking of going with the COOLER MASTER Hyper 212 which is about £25.00

2. The Mobo - I'm thinking either one of the following:

Gigabyte GA-Z68AP-D3 Intel Z68 Socket 1155
Asus P8Z68-V LX Socket 1155
Gigabyte GA-Z68X-UD3-B3 Z68 Socket 1155

I need help with the motherboard aspect a lot.

Any other suggestions are totally welcome :)
 
Change the SSD to Crucail M4. Quicker in every way

Keep the Gen 3 board. It's a good board.

Look for a HDD with 32mb cache, will be quicker... the Samsung Spinpoint F3 is a great HDD.

Ditch the Hyper 212 for a Gelid Tranquillo... better I think.
 
Done a re-spec:


Your basket
Product Name Qty Price Line Total
Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £167.99
(£139.99) £167.99
(£139.99)
Crucial RealSSD M4 128GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive (CT128M4SSD2) £139.99
(£116.66) £139.99
(£116.66)
XFX ATI Radeon HD 6870 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £125.99
(£104.99) £125.99
(£104.99)
Corsair Carbide 500R Midi Tower Case - Black £92.99
(£77.49) £92.99
(£77.49)
Gigabyte Z68AP-D3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £84.98
(£70.82) £84.98
(£70.82)
Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA 6Gb/s 16MB Cache - OEM (ST500DM002) £58.99
(£49.16) £58.99
(£49.16)
OCZ ZS Series 550W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £52.99
(£44.16) £52.99
(£44.16)
Corsair XMS3 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMX8GX3M2A1600C9) £35.99
(£29.99) £35.99
(£29.99)
Gelid Tranquillo CPU Cooler (Socket 754/939/940/AM2/AM2+/AM3/LGA775/LGA1155/LGA1156/LGA1366) £23.99
(£19.99) £23.99
(£19.99)
Sub Total : £653.25
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £12.50
VAT is being charged at 20.00% VAT : £133.15
Total : £798.90
 
CinderzFTW said:
Change the SSD to Crucail M4. Quicker in every way

Keep the Gen 3 board. It's a good board.

Look for a HDD with 32mb cache, will be quicker... the Samsung Spinpoint F3 is a great HDD.

Ditch the Hyper 212 for a Gelid Tranquillo... better I think.
Click to expand...

I'll do the change for the ssd and I'll look at the 32mb cache drive as well but I'm not sure about going for the Gelid, the hyper 212 evo has received some pretty good reviews, including overclocking.

RJC said:
Done a re-spec:
Click to expand...


Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) - Retail - Isn't the retail one that has the stock heatsink on it? Shouldn't I get a oem version?

Crucial RealSSD M4 128GB 2.5" - I'll go with this one.

XFX ATI Radeon HD 6870 1024MB - I not sure but I though Sapphire was better then this one. Not 100% though.

Corsair Carbide 500R Midi Tower Case - Black - Is this case good enough? Or is another better?

Gigabyte Z68AP-D3 Intel Z68 - I like this mobo, it saves a lot to spend elsewhere.

OCZ ZS Series 550W - Isn't Antec more reliable compared to this

Corsair XMS3 8GB (2x4GB) - is this better then the vengeance ones I've selected, vengeance ones are low profile I think



I really appreciate all the help everyones giving me.
 
YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £167.99
1 x EVGA GeForce GTX 460 Superclocked 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £119.99
1 x Samsung SpinPoint F4 EcoGreen 2TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (HD204UI) £107.99
1 x Gigabyte Z68XP-UD3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £99.98
1 x Crucial RealSSD M4 64GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive (CT064M4SSD2) £79.98
1 x BeQuiet Pure Power L8 630W '80 Plus Bronze' Modular Power Supply - With 120mm Silent Wing Fan Built in £69.98
1 x Zalman Z9 Plus Tower Case with Fan Controller - Black £52.99
1 x Corsair XMS3 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMX8GX3M2A1600C9) £35.99
Total : £749.89 (includes shipping : £12.50).



I think that covers everything you need and something to ponder over.

OCuk don't list the OEM version of the CPU anymore. You can OC to 4ghz on the stock heatsink, You can easily replace it with that case and add a better cooling solution later.

Mobo does Xfire and SLI properly along with the other Zseries goodies. The 460 can be overclocked to 850mhz easy with the software they give you. The card will also add cuda support to help with your webdesign software (hopefully) but is used by adobe and several media encoders.

PSU is modular and man enough to run a second 460 in SLI should you want to add one later when they are going cheap.

Good luck with the build any questions or problems come back to us :)
 
Thanks for the new spec, I'll have a good look at it.

Just two questions, 1. Is it easy to remove the heatsink and clean the CPU? And 2. Is the vengeance better then the xms3?

Thanks.
 
The spec honosuseri suggest is a good one, it reduces motherboard to a much cheaper (but still excellent) board that still supports Crossfire/SLI at x8/x8 speeds (so full speed) and a smaller SSD which will be enough for your OS, key applications and couple of games.

One thing you may want to consider is spending a bit more on the graphics card (since the GPU will be the limiting factor in games by far)- ideally a 2GB model like a HD 6950 or a GTX 560 Ti 2GB - since games are starting to really make use of more than 1GB VRAM these days.

To answer your two questions:

1: With the stock CPU with the pushpin design it can be a bit fiddly to remove once in place, but it can be done within the case. If you change the CPU cooler to a larger, better one then these do require you to install a backplate behind the motherboard for support - but many modern cases (including the Zalman Z9 Plus) have cut-outs in the motherboard tray specifically so you can do this without removing the motherboard.

For removing thermal paste from the CPU and heatsink you will either need some isopropyl or a thermal paste cleaning kit like this.

As for replacement thermal paste, I would recommend this stuff.

Not really, its just as fast and works just as well with a sandy bridge system as the XMS3 stuff. In fact the large heatsinks on the vengeance RAM often cause big problems when installing larger CPU coolers (and RAM heatsinks are generally pretty unnecessary).
 
John32123 said:
Corsair Carbide 500R Midi Tower Case - Black - Is this case good enough? Or is another better?
Click to expand...

The 500R is a great looking case. I really like the Black/White version.

However, as you may notice there are already a few users having to find themselves a third party dust filter to cover the side panel.

In my view, to have a huge intake fan and no dust filter is just plain wrong. I am tempted to avoid Corsair until this matter has been sorted.

If you do choose this case then you may also want to check out Demciflex dust filters.
 
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