Hardware PC Hardware Buyer's Guide May 2012

Been waiting on this for awhile. Glad to see it back as it helped me upgrade before and it might do just again since I need a new monitor and GPU.

Got £300 to spend between both but don't know weather to go 6870 or the 560Ti 448 you recommend, £120 vs £160.

 

Dammit, I was gonna throw the 1 yr birthday party for the last buyers guide

 

Good to see it back! That answers my 'what SSD' questions, too!

 

be nice to see 'super low-budget on shoestring' build, something using g840 cpu, with a good gpu.

 

I can't be the first person to point this out:

"If you can cope with something a little smaller, Fractal Design's Arc Mini costs even less and would make a great home for the Asus Maximus V Gene. Remember, it only accepts micro-ATX motherboards though.

Alternatively, there's also its smaller brother, the Fractal Design Arc Mini...However, while the Arc Midi accepts full ATX motherboards, the Arc Mini, is limited to micro-ATX. "

Did you miss linking to the Midi and mistype in the first paragraph? Both link to the Mini.

Also, inline ads? I thought we'd been over this already <sigh>

 

+1

 

What happened the to the premium player being the absolute best of the best kit, Sandy Bridge-E and gtx 690?

 

Combatus already went through their choice for the 3770K (£600 cheaper at least, faster in some circumstances), and I don't think they've reviewed the 690 yet - still waiting on that crowbar, perhaps?

 

You seem to have blown the budget slightly on the "firmly below a grand" Gaming Workhorse. What compromises would you suggest to bring it down from £1,088 for the guy with a hard budget of £1k? I'd say drop the Xonar (can always add it later) and look to a cheaper PSU. I appreciate the value of a good quality PSU with ample power availability in terms of stability, reliability and overhead for overclocking and/or upgrades, but at £110 the recommended part seems slight overkill when there are 750W PSUs from Antec and other respected brands for much less. Picking up a Coolermaster GX RS750 or OCZ-ZS750W for £66-72 shaves enough off the build price to bring the total system cost under a grand if the Xonar is omitted too.

 

xfx 750 watt was about £80 last i checked

its the cheapest psu id personally buy for a pc of that rating

coolmaster and ocz both are not great with there psu and people on this forum have had issues

 

Ok fair one, haven't really looked into PSUs for a while TBH, but £110 does seem punchy on a <£1,100 PC. Anyway, cut back to an £80 PSU like you say and lose the Xonar and you're knocking on the door of the target price of £1,000.

 

Excellent choices other than the return of the Anemic PSU addiction that BT seems to have.

S*D

 

Great work and thank you for the return of the buyer's guide!

I have to admit that I am surprised at the lack of long-time favourite Fractal Design R3, but then, the 500R is not too bad either!

 

Personally I would get a cheaper PSU and the fractal core 1000 for the budget PC and use the left over cash for an SSD.

EDIT: Enthusiast Overclocker comes in at over 750 pounds but no SSD?

 

CPC
Good to see the guide returning. Its like an old friend being back in town... two things...

1. Cut/Paste Issue to point out before you go to print:
There are 2 sentences back-to-back essentially saying the same thing about the smaller chassis alternative from Fractal Design...

"If you can cope with something a little smaller, Fractal Design's Arc Mini costs even less and would make a great home for the Asus Maximus V Gene. Remember, it only accepts micro-ATX motherboards though."

"Alternatively, there's also its smaller brother, the Fractal Design Arc Mini...."

Hope this helps, and...

2. Monitor recommendations would fill a little hole in any self-respecting Tech Buyer's Guide.
All for getting more monitors through the doors of CPC mansions, you should check out the Hazro IPS panels. The Hazro HZ27WA or C are unbeatable for the money. Far from a household name, but consistently recommended by happy consumers (including yours truly) See here: http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/reviews/hazro_hz27wa.htm
might make sense to do a "big-screen-space shootout:" pitching the 27-30 inchers versus the 1080p mutli-display crowd... just a thought...
keep plugging away all

Keep

 

1) Even for a premium Player (emphasis on player), opting for the i5 3570k for $100 less should give a promising start to the rest of the build.

2) $200 for motherboard for the Enthusiast and Gaming workhorse is a bit too much. $140 Asrock Extreme4 (as soon as you review it) should be the budget choice. The cheapest board with enough power for overclocking, 8x8 lanes and the latest realtek 898 audio chipset.
Alternatively, I was happy you gave a nod to the UD5H, but disappointed that you didn't mention that for $20 more you can get the UD5H-WB that adds wireless and bluetooth. No competition with the ROG m-atx board.
And then where is the recommendation for triple SLI/CF boards for the premium build?

3) Arctic i3 Freezer is great and so is the cheaper CM Hyper 212 Evo. However allot of premium rig builders swear by air-cooling and go for the best. NH-D14 1st in cooling/noise, thermalright Silver Arrow Extreme and Phantek TC14 better coolers but louder.

4) 60nm RAM should be phased out! 30nm Cheesecake. The Samsung Green 8GB has the lowest profile, lowest volts, stays cool, has a sexy black PCB and overclocks as the best out there. Epic RAm for an Epic price!

5) If you're going north of $200 for a premium PSU, then why settle for gold when for $20 more you can get the Seasonic platinum? no competition there with the Antec High Current Pro.

6) If your premium case of choice is the SS-FT02B, then you are an advanced builder whom prioritizes air-cooling performance over ease-of-building. Try Rosewill's $90 front/side/top 120/140mm intake fan Blackhawk or $120 front/side/top 230mm intake fan Thor V2 if you care for multi GPU. I switched from the RV-03 to the Blackhawk and my thermals improved and the fans were whisper quite. That's a $160 saving with improvement in performance. I have yet to see a case that succeeds in matching the rosewill's air-flow/noise ratio out of the box. This point is invalid if you chose the FT02B for the looks only.

7) With the money saved on the case, CPU and cooler, and a bit more spent on the PSU and motherboard, you should have more than $240 dollars extra, shave another $100 from the GTX 680, and you have the GTX670 SLI fitted in the budget. video cards that powerful should be complimented with 120hz/3D 1080P or higher res IPS screens.

That would be my kind of premium player. Please don't misunderstand my post as being unthankful or disrespecting other opinions as it is a way of appreciating your hard work.

 

Samsung have(had?) an offer on the VAT for the 830 SSD quite pleased with mine but the VAT is yet to arrive!

 

RAM is dirt cheap at the moment, so why stop at just 8gig when you could get 16gig for around 60-70?

 

Because what if DDR4 comes out before he uses it? Or even faster DDR3 becomes cheaper in the near future?

 

Although it's been mentioned with the monitors, am I the only one who would like a section on ALL peripherals? I know they can be subjective, but I would love a section that says which is the best keyboard/mouse/etc. If you could give one for different price ranges/setups then that'd be even better.